Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Can We Save Christmas? || SLP332

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Can We Save Christmas? || SLP332 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to the live cast.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: My name is Glenn Scrivener, otherwise known as uh G Sizzle.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: And uh do I have with me in the studio?
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Fizzy, otherwise otherwise known as P Fizzle.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: It was P Fizzy before.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: P Fizzy.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you see.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm G-Sizzle in it.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: G-Sizzle.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: As we get into with the mailbag, we have we have been dubbed.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: Um you have been dubbed P Fizzle.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: P Fizzy.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Where did it even come from then?
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Oh it was the it was the um auto captions, wasn't it?
0:33
SPEAKER_01: On YouTube.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: That's it, I don't know.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: That would be it.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: And and you're known as well for being such a fashionista video colourful cardies.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Apparently.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: So I once again am blending into the background in darkness here.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm striking and I am, you know, I I I don't fit in, you know.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: That's fair.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: It is it is what it is.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: And uh today we're asking, can uh can we save Christmas?
0:58
SPEAKER_02: Um uh the reason being uh all the headlines, certainly on the front page of The Guardian, that was uh you know, Boris is trying to save Christmas, and then uh many of the other uh many of the other kind of um newspapers on one page or another, they ran with that kind of headline that's uh because we're going into lockdown two, from the people who brought you lockdown one.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: Lockdown in the city.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: Lockdown in the city if you like lockdown one, you're gonna love lockdown two.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: Um but apparently this is gonna save Christmas.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: Really?
1:30
SPEAKER_02: Yes, okay, yeah.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Which I don't know, like if if you're a leader and you think you're saving Christmas, I don't know if you've looked at the Nativity story recently.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: But the leaders in that nativity story don't come over very well.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: They they try to ruin Christmas, really.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Caesar Augustus made a decree, um, and then Herod, he he gave it a good go, didn't he?
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Ruining Christmas.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, we don't save Christmas, Christmas saves us.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we've got uh Dave Walker on the live chat saying uh aside from the questionable soteriology, big word, big word, Dave Walker, we can tell you went to Oak Hill Theological Seminary.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: Um aside from the questionable soteriology, it's the doctrine of salvation, uh, it seems like a great opportunity for a Dr.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: Zeus quote.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Can we save Christmas?
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, he quotes from the Grinch.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and he says, Every Who down in Hooville, the tall and the small, was singing without any presence at all.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: It came.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: Somehow or other, it came just the same.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store?
2:34
SPEAKER_02: What if Christmas perhaps means a little bit more?
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Which is I mean, it it is interesting, like when people talk about saving Christmas, it's true that when Boris says saving Christmas, he does mean this 19th-century Dickensian construct of cozy around the hearth, kind of toasting marshmallows and you know and watching die hard again because it was a Christmas.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: As they did in the time of Dickens.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: Gradgrind.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, remember when he went through the mines like that?
3:03
SPEAKER_01: I know what a TV dinner feels like.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: What's a TV dinner?
3:07
SPEAKER_01: What's a TV?
3:08
SPEAKER_02: But um, yes, yeah, so absolutely, when when we say that uh we don't save Christmas, Christmas saves us, we're not falling into thinking that Boris is saving uh the actual first century, the incarnation.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: Um I should think not.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: I should hope not.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: I should hope not.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's it is it is interesting.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: The the way it's being framed again, where we're we are to protect the NHS again.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: And what is being allowed to be opened is quite interesting.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: So schools are gonna stay open.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: The NHS is gonna be protected, and Premier League football is going to continue.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: So of course whereas will will churches be allowed to meet?
3:48
SPEAKER_02: Probably not, as things stand.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: And do do write to your MP and and sort of say, look, you know, it's strange that they could have the stadium as a place of worship open, but not our place of worship.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: That looks a strange thing, isn't it?
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: And did you come across that thing where you weren't allowed to go to the stadium to watch a football match, but you could go to a a cinema to watch the game live beamed into the cinema.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I did hear about that.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: In an enclosed space.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: In an enclosed space all packed together like sardines in rows.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Makes sense, makes perfect sense.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: This is also why I'm like, you know, this is why I I I do not yet attribute motives to the government of malice.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: Because malice aforethought kind of um assumes thought.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: But what was it someone said when we talked about this before that we shouldn't attribute malevolence when it's probably just incompetence?
4:44
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: Ignorance is a much you know, much more elegant solution to the why question at this point.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, but so so football is allowed, which is kind of our places of worship.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: Um the NHS is our national religion, um and education is our our great hope, right?
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: But our church is allowed to meet.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh apparently not.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: So again, do do write to your MP.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: Um as I saw on on Twitter, somebody said um banning churches during a national crisis is like banning lighthouses in a storm.
5:20
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, very, very, very well put.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, we do need to be we do need to be a beacon of hope.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: Now the fact that in the national conversation, people don't instantly think we must have churches.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: Um that's our fault.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: You know, if if we haven't proved ourselves to be indispensable to national life, like it's it's it's not the world's fault if we haven't been the light of the world, right?
5:46
SPEAKER_02: So I think I I I take that more as a rebuke um to the church as opposed to a finger wagging at the culture.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, you like your premiership football.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to come to church, do you?
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And we've already picked up, you know, from the interviews we've done in recent weeks that both people like Tom Holland and Douglas Murray have, you know, also kind of noted the kind of slight kind of incompetence of the church in these past few months, or the you know, lack of efficacy in actually stepping up and really doing much.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: Are we a lighthouse in the storm, you know?
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Or have we batten down our own hatches?
6:17
SPEAKER_02: Have we battened down our own hatches and watched Netflix and and had you know some really you know some really quite meaningful zoom chats every now and again.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: I think they raise good challenges to us, you know.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think I saw earlier today on on Twitter I think it was you know Carl Beach, I think, was saying, you know, we're we've said for years kind of it's not about the building and all this kind of stuff, and then he said, No, this is the test, isn't it?
6:40
SPEAKER_01: Like do we really believe do we really believe that?
6:42
SPEAKER_01: You know I think that's a good thing.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not about the building.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: I think it is about bodies.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: It's about the gathering and incarnate gathering.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we do we do need to kind of draw a line in the sand about that.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think yeah, we need to innovate and we and and we need to prove ourselves to be indispensable.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: Um But I I I do think, you know, I I I um I did a little commentary on Epicureus Epicurus versus uh the Stoics um over the summer, which is kind of a look at these ancient Greek ideas of um what is the good life, and the Epicureans were all about pleasure and the Stoics were all about virtue.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: What is the good life?
7:24
SPEAKER_02: An Epicurean an Epicurean says the good life is pleasure, a Stoic says the good life is virtue, and uh and interestingly, um Tom Holland uh at the same time when he was being asked about what is the church's response to lockdown, he said, actually lockdown is quite an Epicurean thing to do.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: He said the the ancient Greeks who were Epicurean um would just self-isolate with a few amenable friends and they get the books in that they quite like and they get all the food in, and they'd and it's the sort of thing that you can afford if you've got money, but of course the plebs, they're gonna go to the wall anyway.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: And and we've kind of seen globally that um the the poorer nations in this world have to have to fight malaria and TB and all other kinds of you know causes of death, and the whole idea of lockdown is not open to them.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: And so he he he said interestingly over the summer that look lockdown is quite an Epicurean thing to do.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: And and I think we have in in so many ways taken a quite Epicurean route on these things, which is not to say that COVID-19 is not a very serious thing that requires you know seriously addressing, but it is to say, you know, what one of one of the great um uh thought experiments to to prick the bubble of Epicureanism is to give people uh a psychological test.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: I'll give you a psychological test, okay?
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh dear.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: We're failing already.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: Um so would you prefer to be locked in a glass case that's perfectly temperature control controlled, climate controlled, beamed into this glass box is all the entertainment that you could ever possibly want.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you'll live for 10 years longer, or we take you out of life in the glass box, and it's life in the wild, no guarantees.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, your hopes could be dashed, you'd have relationships, but they could break your heart as well, and you'll live for ten years less, you'll have 40 million fewer heartbeats.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: What do you choose?
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Life in the wild or life in the box?
9:24
SPEAKER_02: What do you reckon?
9:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm just doubting myself now.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what would I what I think I should say, and then what do I think is the real answer?
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Um I'd want to say that it sounds more appealing to to have life in the wild.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: That that the idea of being in this you know, sealed box is just a bit kind of not for me, but yeah, it's inhumane almost.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: So we know yeah, exactly.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: We know what the right answer is.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: We know the right answer is life in the wild, baby, and maybe my heart gets broken, but you know.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: Um and it's kind of you know, I don't want more heartbeats, I want a bigger heart, right?
10:01
SPEAKER_02: And so I I want to risk quality, not quantity, quality, not quantity, I want to run free.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: Um so we but we know that that's the right answer, and that that usually that usually is the defeater against Epicureanism, because it it's kind of like, well, there are there are values in life that are bigger than comfort.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: Things like going on the hero's journey and courage and love and all those things.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: Doing something meaningful as Peterson would tell us to do, you know.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Because Peterson is not an Epicurean, sure.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: He's a stoic, like step up, take some responsibility, right?
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Do something meaningful with your life.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: Like forget it's not it's not about pleasure, it's about virtue.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: And so he's very much a stoic versus the the the Epicureans.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: Um and so and and he's resonated with people because we kind of know that the Epicurean thing is not right.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: We shouldn't, we shouldn't, even though we probably we we feel drawn to the glass box, we shouldn't be drawn to the glass box.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: But my my thing increasingly is we already are in the glass box, and our lives are testimony to the fact we've already chosen, we've already chosen the Epicurean route.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Because like I I pour at my glass box three thousand times a day, and you do too, if you're if you're an average um you know human being on in the west, you touch your phone three thousand times a day, right?
11:22
SPEAKER_02: 80% of all millennials are never without their phone.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: Um never, it's never not by their side.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: You know, I guess even in the shower, you sort of know, you put it on your head or something.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: But like we're all we've we have already chosen the glass box, the climate-controlled pleasure box, right?
11:41
SPEAKER_02: So when you call it that sign me up.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: I'll take one climate-controlled pleasure box, please.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: You already have already have, and we all we all already have, we've already signed up for this, and and and therefore, yeah, it it it does it does seem to me like um yeah, retreating from the wild out there.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: It's a very Epicurean thing to do, and it's a very 2020 thing to do.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we're doing here in our lockdown, retreating from the wild.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: I I yeah, I'm I'm more on the skeptical side of whether lockdown in this case is gonna be more you know, more beneficial than than more harmful.
12:29
SPEAKER_02: You know.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: People take different views on that, but but I I just think culturally, sociologically, and historically, I think it's interesting that what we're doing is typically what the rich privileged pleasure seekers do.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: And I just I just wonder and and theologically, I think a lot of this is down to do we have an answer to death?
12:53
SPEAKER_02: Or is or is the goal in life to maximize the heartbeats we have?
12:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: You know?
13:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, if this is all there is.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:03
SPEAKER_02: Right.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: If this is all there is, then get your extra 40 million heartbeats.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: Because those are the you know, this is this is it.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Even if it means locking yourself indoors with Netflix for another two months, whatever it'll end up being.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: I think I think that's uh exactly the the state of play that we are we are in.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Um we've got some great uh chats on the live chat.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: Um Christoph Keating says, well, governments and NGOs regularly run through projected scenarios made for potential disasters, including pandemics.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: The last major one was a year ago in September or October.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: So you would think there is some planning.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you would think that, wouldn't you?
13:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh Pete Thorne, um, always a thoughtful commentator, says, Unfortunately, the Korean cult civic outbreak ruined church in the minds of governments.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I mean there there was that that Korean church stroke cult stroke sect.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: Um is this the church who kept meeting whatever they were?
14:07
SPEAKER_02: And there was there was in particular one super spreader, I think, among them.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, they refused to stop, didn't they?
14:14
SPEAKER_01: And then so I remember doing I do remember reading about that.
14:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
14:18
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, in this country, I don't think there have been any outbreaks that have been associated with with churches, not to my own.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: No, I saw someone talking on Facebook about they'd asked someone, you know, who was a bit higher up in you know, whether whether that was the case, and they didn't think there'd been any outbreaks.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: No.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of people are arguing, aren't they?
14:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, actually churches are uh are largely going to be more COVID safe than shops and places like that.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, no, I I I think it's the one of the safest places you can be in.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: And you know, so therefore it's it's heartbreaking if you don't see a fellow member of your church on a Sunday in church, but you do see them at a restaurant on Tuesday or in the pub on Friday, um, because I think it's one of the safest places you can you can possibly be.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: Um certainly our our our church have gone out of its way to have, you know, you're meant to be one meter spaced apart with mitigations.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: We're two meters spaced apart with mitigations.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: There's all sorts of things that we're we're we're doing in order to be a safe space for people.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: But again, I think psychologically we we all recognize that if you retreat from fears, the fears don't shrink.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: You do.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: The fears actually get bigger and bigger, you know.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: Some people say don't they that you there is a there's a sense in which you should face your fear.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: And it and that is what allows you to overcome those things.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, so you get in Proverbs, there is you know, the sluggard who says, There's a lion in the streets, there's a lion in the streets, you know.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: So the the sluggard is very used to kind of self-isolating, right?
15:45
SPEAKER_02: And just you know, being in the pleasure dome and just being by themselves.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: But to the degree that you retreat from the world is the to to the degree that you project greater dangers out there in the world, and that justifies your sluggardliness, you know, which I'm not I'm not saying lockdown is the sluggardly um option, but I am I am saying to the degree that you retreat from fears, it's not that the fears themselves shrink, I think you shrink.
16:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: Um and there's all sorts of um kind of psychological interventions that basically in the face of fear bring you into a controlled environment in which you face the scary scenario um because that's the only way that the that the fears kind of subside is to is to face your fears.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: And of course, I guess what that means, you know, someone's scared of someone's scared of dogs, you know, they'll put you on the they'll put you in a a room with a dog on the other side of the room behind a glass bit of glass, right?
16:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you know, in extreme cases.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: So I I remember someone or a friend of a friend who was terrified of dogs and you know, she had to go to like a place where she would see like a dog on the other side of a bit of glass and then eventually be in the same space and you know, with the dog on a lead and then able to touch the dog and all kinds of you know, yeah.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: Obviously it's not gonna be quite the same with sticky in a room with a bit of COVID, you know.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: It's on the other side of the glass for now, you know, whatever.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: For now.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: No, that's not quite how it works, but yeah.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: So so I mean, yeah, how do we face that fear?
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: Especially when the ultimate fear is death, according to the Bible.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: Like according to Hebrews 2 um that we've been held in slavery, in bondage to our fear of death all our days.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: And you stop most people on the streets and you say, What are you afraid of?
17:22
SPEAKER_02: And most people don't say death, like straight off the bat.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: Spiders.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: Spiders.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're not.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: It is.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: It's it's so weird that one for me.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Twowns.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: It's all those things.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, being naked in public or whatever.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: Public speaking.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that is when people talk about it, isn't it?
17:39
SPEAKER_02: People, it's it it usually comes top of the of the of the thing.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: And it's which is so weird.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: Like in the Bible, like the biggest fear is death.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: Like when you ask people in the street, it's public speaking.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: They're literally saying death, they say at a funeral, you would rather be in the company than giving the eulogy.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: Brilliant.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: That seems like yeah, that's that's not a correct ordering of fears, I don't think.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: But I think even okay, but what is a fear of public speaking?
18:06
SPEAKER_02: It's the fear of being exposed, being it's it's a fear of a kind of a social death.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: Being seen to be an idiot.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Drying up and not having anything to say and looking stupid in front of people.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, welcome to our life.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, here we are.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: We face our fears on a weekly basis.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Just clinging on for dear life at this point.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: But this is why we're not afraid.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: Because we die every week.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: But I mean that's what comedians call it.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: Like when you do badly, you die on stage, you die, right?
18:34
SPEAKER_02: But you just go back out there and you die again, you die again.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, that's that's the way you get over your fear.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: But every kind of fear is a kind of death.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, if I fear losing my job, it's because I fear the status, and so there's a social death, but I also fear the loss of status, I also fear the loss of income because, you know, if you keep that going, then yes, there will be a death.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: And I I do think if you trace back all your fears to their source, you find death.
19:01
SPEAKER_02: But we're living in a culture in which um we just we don't see death anymore.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely not.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: And uh and that's what we're gonna be doing uh in this live cast.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be having a look at uh uh an interview that we've done with John Bear.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Not seeing death in this live cast.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: Well I don't know.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: The night is young.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: We'll see how we go on.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's see.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Um we'll be talking about uh an interview that I did with John Bear, an Orthodox theologian, uh one of the great patristics experts in the world.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: And really one of his major themes is is looking at this issue of death.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: And we we got into it on Friday night.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: And I think everyone who's watched it has had a strong reaction to it.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh mostly people have really, really liked it.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I noticed it had a really slow uptake on if you have a look at the analytics, the stats, because you know, right there on the thumbnail is facing up to death.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: And nobody wanted to click that.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: No, you know.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: I might just put Netflix on again.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: But this is how you get a heart of wisdom, you know.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: Let us number our days rightly, says Moses in Psalm 90.
20:07
SPEAKER_02: Let us number our days rightly so that we get a heart of wisdom.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna do something that's difficult, which is face up to death, and hopefully it'll help us um to get a heart of wisdom.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: But the first clip we're gonna uh have a look at with John Bear is um one in which he says our big problem in the West is that we don't see death.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, he he says um the biggest obstacle to preaching the gospel in the 21st century is dot dot.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: Like, how would you finish that sentence?
20:39
SPEAKER_02: You know, the biggest obstacle to preaching the gospel in the 21st century is I don't know.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: People don't know the Bible anymore, they don't know the biblical stories, you know, there's a sexual revolution out there, blah blah blah.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: John Bear says, no, it's people don't see death anymore.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: That that is the sinking sand against which the rock of Christ and the hope of of resurrection is is meant to be, you know, a shining beacon.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: But when you don't see that sinking sand, you don't see the need for the rock.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: So let's have a look at uh John Bear as he talks about uh the biggest problem in preaching the gospel today is that people don't see death.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: Let's have a look.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: We no longer see death, really, quite simply.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, um at the beginning of the 20th century and from time before that, um just by the statistics of life age, everybody would have had a sibling die in childhood.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Almost invariably, one of your parents would have died before you reach adulthood.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: You would have been with them as they were dying at home, looking after them, mopping their prayer, reading to them, all the kind of things you would have done.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: They would have died at home with family, neighbors, friends, relatives coming by, being there.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: You would have then prepared their body at home, kept wake over their body, kept vigil over their body, reading their prayers and All that kind of thing, taken their body from your house to the church, commended this person to God, this person lying before you commended them to God and then entrusted them to the earth from uh till the time of the resurrection.
22:14
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And that would have been something that you would have seen frequently.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: You would have grown up with that, you would have seen that.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: You would have seen it, you know, with your own family, with your neighbors, with your rel with your local community, and all those kind of things.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: You would have seen it frequently.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Whereas today, when people die, again, stepping back from the current situation, um, you know, really today you can actually only die two ways in our privileged West.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, you either die by accident, car crash or something like that, or you die in hospital.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no longer at home, but in hospital.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And actually, in hospital, you can't really die.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: The machine has to be switched off.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: To put it bluntly, uh, you can be kept alive almost indefinitely, not indefinitely, but but pretty much.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And at some point the machine has to be switched off.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then when the machine is switched off, the family are allowed a bit of time with the dead person, with their dead relative.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the the corpse is taken from the hospital to the morticians to be prepared.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not sure really what current practices are, having lived in America for the last 25 years, what the current practices are here, but in America, you know, having gone to the mortician, the body would then be placed for viewing in a funeral home.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And actually, they'd have pink lights in the funeral home to make the body look as living as possible, with the hope that you would say something like, I've never seen them looking so good.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And then the the body would be disposed of in a crematorium service, would be would be cremated, um, and a few people would come to that.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Increasingly today, people do not go to the crematorium service, but rather the the body is disposed of in that way, and then you gather together without the body there to celebrate their life.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a complete reversal, it's a complete reversal from being with the person as they die and then commending the person to God and entrusting it to the earth and seeing that aspect of death as you know a part of life, to um marginalizing that, erasing that from our vision altogether.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and in the meantime, we we've we we we now gather together without the body being there um to celebrate their life.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Father Thomas Hopker, one of the previous deans at St.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Vladimir's put it this way.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: He said, Today we live as hedonists and then die as Platonists.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, we live the whole of our life for the body, and then as soon as we die there, we say, Well, the body wasn't really the person, the person's liberated, they're now with God or whatever else, we're going to celebrate their life.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: It's a complete disjunction.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: So we don't see death anymore.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we don't even die anymore.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: Like unless you die in an accident.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: The doctor has to unplug the machine and let you die.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: This is it's a weird world we live in, isn't it?
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: Although, I mean, I think until you until you hear him talk about those things, in some sense we don't think of that as weird because we are habituated to not think about death.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, for us it's normal that we don't see death, but we we we don't realise that that's strange compared to a good chunk of well, I guess even in the world today, but also people throughout human history, you know, when he talks about, you know, when you were you know a couple of hundred years ago, you would have just had siblings die all the time, you know, or not all the time, but you you would have likely experienced the death of a sibling, a child in your family because of you know just the mortality rates and stuff.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: Um you know, you would have seen your parents die at a younger age and they would have died in the home with you after you cared for them and read to them and all those things.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think we talked about it before, you know, that you know, uh uh a while back about you know certain certain places, it's very traditional, isn't it?
26:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, grandma dies, and of course what happens to grandma?
26:11
SPEAKER_01: Well she's not just in the hospital and cut it off to the undertakers to be you know to disappear.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: She's put on you know, she's on the kitchen table for a couple of days, and everyone from the village comes and they all sit and you know, sit round and have have this wake and there's a bit of a vigil.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Um we're just that's just not our reality, is it?
26:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we don't see death.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: I I when I was being prepared to be an Anglican minister, um someone came in to, you know, help us with how do you take a funeral, and we were in a room with about thirty other Anglican ordinans, that's people who are about to be ordained in the Church of England, and we were asked, you know, have you seen a dead body?
26:49
SPEAKER_02: And me and one other person had.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: Um someone has someone you loved um deeply, you know, died.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: And so few people actually put up their hands.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I was I guess I was in my late twenties at that stage, and you know, to to get to your late twenties and not to have loved ones like in your circle die is just absolutely ridiculous.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: And I suppose, you know, there will be m you know, I I didn't see a uh a dead body until I was, I think, early twenties.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: Um but then you know, there will be people who, of course, had people have had people pass away before that, but particularly I guess maybe if you're a bit younger, um, it you know, it may not be a lot of people would feel uncomfortable taking their children to see grandma, you know, right in the mortuary or whatever.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, kids don't go to funerals.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that kind of thing.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: Because it's not it's not it's not appropriate for children to be able to do it.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah, there is that kind of attitude among some people, isn't there?
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it is a strange thing.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: Have you seen the Tim Hawkins like sketch?
27:44
SPEAKER_02: Because Tim Hawkins is a American stand-up comedian, he's a Christian, and uh he he does this thing about like how weird it is to teach your kids, you know, that that prayer that they pray before um before they sleep, like, and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: And he does this massive thing about how really weird it is.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: But actually, down through the centuries, of course you prepare your children for premature death because you're gonna lose some of them.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you g you will lose some of the things.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: And he says, right, no night, see you in the morning, maybe.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, who knows?
28:19
SPEAKER_01: See if you make it through.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: And it's funny now because we don't have to do that.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Because we do yeah, we wouldn't even associate that with the the chances of that happening, yeah, it's just so slim for us.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And what do we make of that claim?
28:31
SPEAKER_02: He he says, like, the biggest obstacle to preaching the gospel today is that people don't see death anymore.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: And and more and more I'm thinking that's true, because I I think I've said before on the live cast, you know, I was I was doing um I was getting into conversations with people on the streets a couple of years ago, and um one guy's big obstacle to coming to faith was how could God allow my mother and father to die last year?
28:53
SPEAKER_02: They both died in the same year.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember it, I know exactly what you're gonna say.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: And the one thing you need to know about this guy is he was definitely in his 60s.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: Mid mid to late sixties, I would have I would have guessed, right?
29:05
SPEAKER_02: And he was appalled and outraged.
29:07
SPEAKER_02: How on earth could God take his parents, which who were probably in their late 80s, if not nineties.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: And like, what kind of God allows such a thing?
29:15
SPEAKER_02: Like, we we're just not prepared for death.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: No, and I mean I wonder as well, I mean, I think it's I think it's very true that people don't see their mortality, and so that is an obstacle.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: But I wonder whether I just think about the way we talk about it in church, even.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, when we talk about it's easy to just talk about sin and debt.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Um and whilst that's obviously linked, I don't know even whether in sort of our circles there's that that strong connection towards death.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, if if some if someone said to you, you know, like what is the greatest enemy?
29:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think even a lot of Christians would probably say something like sin rather than death itself.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: Um and I wonder whether maybe wonder there's a disconnect even in our Christian thinking.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't think about it in terms of death and life.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: Um we've got some great comments uh here in the comments.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: So uh Tom James says, uh, and the death we do see, e.g., video games and films, is not exactly a ri realistic representation.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: Like it's it's so true in video games.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: If you die in a video game, just go again.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: And there's no there's no and there's yeah, there's no consequences, is there?
30:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: It just reminds me of that uh Austin Powers, you know, the uh nameless guards, you know, and then it cuts to the guards' family.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Imagine if that happened every time you killed someone on Call of Duty and a quick cutscene to the family, you know.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: Or in clerks, you know, the Kevin Smith film, and there's a big like monologue about you know, no one ever thinks about on the Death Star.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: There were those who were working in construction, they were not part of this institution of eve at in the canteen or something, you know.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Just serve the chips.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: We don't we never we never see death, we never think about it in the right kind of way.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: Um Paul Brennan says, uh, we're removed from death in every area of life.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: Even the meat we eat arrives to us neatly packaged, we are oblivious to death and the earthiness of our existence.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh we were talking in the office last week.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Like, would you eat meat if you had to kill, if you had to kill everything that you ate?
31:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, you couldn't hand it off to the butcher to do your dirty work for you.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, if the only meat you ate was the meat that you actually butchered yourself, like we'd be very flexitarian at that point, I think.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: Um death happens out of sight, out of mind.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: Um Brandon John Kemeney says, uh, do you think a lack of exposure to death contributes to the lack of emphasis on legacy and children?
31:38
SPEAKER_02: I think maybe that is that we don't see beyond our own little generation.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Because we kind of think we're living forever.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: So why would I need legacy?
31:46
SPEAKER_02: Legacies for when I'm gone.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going, am I?
31:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's interesting.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: We know we never think about that.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Um so in this light, if we don't see death, but we should, um, what is it that is going to help us to gain wisdom as we face death?
32:03
SPEAKER_02: And that's the next clip from our John Behr interview we'll have a look at.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: What is it that we can learn as we face our death?
32:09
SPEAKER_02: Let's see the clip.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Um what what is the wisdom that we can learn as we seek to stare our mortality in the face?
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it goes right to the very heart of the gospel.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: And I would take for that my lead from Christ's words to Paul, my strength is made perfect in weakness.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Unless we acknowledge and recognize our fragility and mortality, um, we're never going to be receptive to the gospel.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel is precisely that powerful word which which uh perfects the strength of God in that weakness.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it used to be, I'm I'm from an Anglican tradition that um you talked about the liturgy of death that happens.
32:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, every Ash Wednesday, um, you know, ash to earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: Um you are you are marked with this sign of your mortality, and and you're you're meant to regularly um contemplate that fragility.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: But it's even it's even more than that.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would even say with regard to the you know, one of the two fundamental sacraments of the Christian tradition, baptism and Eucharist.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Baptism is clearly an anticipation of our death.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: So Paul in Romans said, if you have died with Christ in baptism, you will also rise.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's really interesting to note the switch from the past tense to the future tense.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Baptism done once for all, but you're not dead yet.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the resurrection lies in the future.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, live as if you are dead.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so baptism is not just kind of you know, entry into the club, it is entry into the manner of living in which you're now going to live as if you are dead.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and likewise with the other sacrament, the Eucharist, you know, we often take the words of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, the Eucharist is a medicine of immortality, yeah, the antidote of immortality.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: And we think about it as you know, participating and act of giving thanks and being nourished spiritually and all the other kinds of things, which is true.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: But most fundamentally, when Christ asks us the question, are you able to drink the cup I'm about to drink?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: What's he talking about?
34:24
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about, are you able to share in my passion with me?
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Are you able to stand at the cross?
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Are you able to take up the cross?
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Are you able to do that?
34:32
SPEAKER_00: That's what participation in the Eucharist is about.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: So when Ignatius calls the Eucharist the gift of immortality or the medicine of immortality, it doesn't mean as we tend today to hear it, take this and you won't die.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: No, obviously you're still going to die, you know.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: But um, as Paul says, only that which has died will never die again.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: If you share in the Eucharist as a sacrament, enacting your own death, sharing in the cup, then the life you're beginning to live through that cannot be touched by death because you've entered into it through death.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: We've substituted the question of life and death.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: We think that what we've got is already life, yeah, and that we can perpetuate it indefinitely.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: When Christ says, I've come that you might have life, well, that means we don't have it.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: I've come that you might have life, and this is how you enter into life.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Follow me, right?
35:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I thought what was really interesting about that clip is the way he talks about baptism in particular.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: Um I thought it was really fascinating that you know we when we think about baptism, well often the way we talk about it is when you're baptized that you got this kind of very visual represent representation of kind of going down into death and then you rise up out of the waters to new life.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: Um and interestingly, like he seemed to say something a bit different to that, or at least to my mind, that in baptism we're baptized kind of into death, but the the rising comes in the future.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: So actually rather than going down and rising into a new life now, he said we're living in the you live the death now.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Which means when when you're ha when you can say, Well, I've died with Christ, then actually it's it's easier to to die in everyday life because you're in this, you know, this this mentality or you know thing that you are already dead.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: Um which I'm not sure was something uh a perspective I'd I'd heard before, really.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: I've not heard it put that way.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: Um it's often like the the biggest argument for full immersion baptism is you well, you've got the you've got the visual imagery of down into the waters and then up again.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: So it's yeah, and so that's what we are.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: We're we've we've died and we've risen again.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: That death bit it was quite brief.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: We got through that quick.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: We got through that very quickly.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: And now I'm on the other side, and now it's all resurrection for me, which is not actually what Romans 6, which is the the big place that you go to when you want to when you want to do the whole baptism is burial and resurrection.
37:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, just check it out.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: Romans 6 verse 3.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his resurrection?
37:20
SPEAKER_02: Oh no, wait.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: No, it doesn't say that.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: What?
37:24
SPEAKER_02: Second there, right?
37:26
SPEAKER_02: Right.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: We're baptized into his death.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: And that yeah, we we kind of think of it as we're baptized into his resurrection.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: We're kind of we're baptized into his death, we were therefore buried with him through baptism into resurrection.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: No, into death, yeah, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: So we can live, and we can live a new life, but we're still awaiting resurrection.
37:53
SPEAKER_02: If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection future.
38:01
SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, for we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, it's very strong, even in the like the passage that you think of straight away as baptized into resurrection.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Say exactly what you thought it might have said.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: Baptized into death.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's kind of a it's a real kind of um challenge to the um the that Jesus is my life coach kind of approach, isn't it?
38:28
SPEAKER_01: Where Jesus says, you know, come and have your best life now, yeah, type stuff.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Um and there's obviously extremes of that, but even within reformed circles, there's there can be elements of that.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus really does say, you know, just come and die.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Come and die.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Where are you going?
38:43
SPEAKER_01: We're all gonna die.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: Alright then, you know, we'll come along later.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: Right.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: This is and this is what um this is what really inspired Cannonball.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: If uh you guys know the Speak Life film, the Easter film of 2016, I think, was uh an animation, and it really came out of.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've I've been a fanboy of of John Bear's stuff for quite some time, and so I've been thinking about a lot of this stuff, and um the idea of Cannonball is we're born sinking into quicksand.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: That's the first line of the of the video.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: Born sinking into quicksand, a sick land, a pit damned, and it's this so I was just gonna thought you were gonna spit some some rhymes, some lyrics.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: Some rhymes.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh as soon as I wrote it, I thought, oh, this is a rap.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: I can't perform this.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: It's not for me.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: It's not for me.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: And Governor B came and did uh a great job.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: We'll we'll put a we'll put a link in the um in the comments.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: But um, we're born sinking into quicksand, and the opening scene of this video is there's a baby and it's kind of crying, and it's in, you know, there it is in its cart, and there's kind of like these ropes around its feet, and it's being pulled down into this chasm, this abyss.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: And then the next scene is a husband and wife on their wedding day, and it's wonderful, and then you see that there's the same, you know, ropes are around their ankles, pulling them down into the chasm, and everyone's sinking down into quicksand, sinking down into death.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: And then the the idea of this film, Cannonball, is that Jesus comes not as a rescue rope.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: He does not come and say, Oh, let me cut the bonds, let me cut through those ropes and give you a hand up.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't give them a hand up.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: This is not the gospel.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: The gospel is not Jesus giving you a hand up from the grave.
40:16
SPEAKER_02: The gospel is Jesus like a cannonball, like a cannibal shot from the heavenly skies.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: What is it, Lim?
40:24
SPEAKER_01: You wrote it.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: On a mission of collision causing catastrophic fission to our carrying coalition with morticians, right?
40:32
SPEAKER_02: There is there is Jesus down here.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: Name right there.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: Like a cannonball shot from celestial skies from the father's side, a divine nose dive, like a cannonball shot using lover's ammunition on a mission of collision causing catastrophic fission to our carrying coalition with morticians.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: And down to earth he comes to reverse all natural ambition.
40:52
SPEAKER_02: The people said, stranger, you're doing it wrong.
40:54
SPEAKER_02: You should prolong your days and keep well away from the ravening graves.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: And yet Jesus doesn't.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: Everyone's trying to stop him from going down into the pit.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: He is a cannonball and he faces that that death, and he truly dies.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: He truly endures the storms of judgment and wrath and hell.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: He truly dies and punches a hole through death, comes out the other side, and the and the film finishes with Jesus on the far side of death, having punched a hole through that chasm.
41:20
SPEAKER_02: He then says, Come this way, come and I am the door.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: And I this is the way I think of the gospel, is that it's not that on the one hand Jesus says, Come and I'll give you life, and life to all in all its fullness, but on the other hand, he says, Come and bear your cross, you know, die to yourself, do all that nasty stuff called death.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: It's not, Jesus is not saying, On the one hand, I've come to bring you fullness of life, but on the other hand, I want you to die.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: It's you know, come come and die.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: That is the way to life.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: And and therefore, yeah, the call to fullness of life is the call to come and die.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: Which is and I wonder whether, you know, just try and just try and clarify some of it, maybe, that we we would often say things like, you know, it's it's suffering then glory, it's the cross before the crown, it's those kind of things that you hear.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: And and there's very much that sense, isn't there, that you you go through the suffering and the death, and then you get to this the good stuff over here.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: The good stuff, yeah.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: And I think what John Bear was saying was that like it's not so much that you go through one to get to the other, it's that by having the death, going through the death and the the suffering, actually in that is the full the fulfilment and the goodness.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: That is the good you know, the good life of of God in some way.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and you know we we we obviously you know we we say it quite flippantly, don't we?
42:44
SPEAKER_01: But oh it's better to give than to receive.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: That that sacrificial giving of ourselves in some way and martyring ourselves is actually where we find fulfilment and meaning in life and reason.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: Which is completely countercultural because if you know if you said that to anyone outside of this framework, they'd probably say well they might say that, you know, you do good stuff and that's okay.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: But the idea that basically just giving of yourself is the thing that you find the fulfillment in in the good life.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: Probably we we want to be in the box being fed the good stuff rather than giving of ourselves.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: And that's where j that's why John Bear started where he started.
43:24
SPEAKER_02: We need to face the fact that we're dead already.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: We need we need to face the facts of our mortality and he says more than just because I think you said at one point you know, that we're spiritually dead.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: And he said not even spiritually not even just that, just physically, like from the moment you you're born, you have this breath in you, and that breath will run out.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: There is that it's the physical death as well.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: And I mean someone I think well, Christoph Keating earlier said, you know, actually it's obvious, isn't it, that sin and death are linked, you know, so it should be more obvious to us.
43:55
SPEAKER_01: But I wonder whether we just tend to think only in the category of spiritual death when we think About sin and death, yes.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: Rather than physical death so much.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
44:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's why when we're faced with physical death, even as Christians, some people are kind of going, uh still quite uncertain about the whole thing.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:14
SPEAKER_02: And when you go to Psalm 90, when it talks about um numbering your days so that you get a heart of wisdom, it it says that we perish under the wrath of God, and that our mortality and our our physical death is part of God's judicial judgment against our sins.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: And we don't tend to think in those terms.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: We think of death as a technical problem that the doctors will solve, you know.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: Whereas it's it's a judgment that a righteous God gives for our sin.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible holds it far far closer together.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: I think because we've become so technologically advanced and medically advanced, we think of death as a kind of an intrusion to be escaped by being clever as opposed to a righteous judgment from a merciful God, that if we accept the judgment and die in the right way with Christ, then this is the path towards life.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: Um we're gonna die anyway, and John Bear is saying, you know, accept the good death in Christ and with Christ and through Christ, and that is the path, that is the path to life.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: But I think if we haven't faced the inevitability of death in the first place, then the the call to come and die is gonna we we're gonna feel like, no, I'm not gonna die, right?
45:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna die, Jesus, I'm gonna walk this way.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: And the whole of the scriptures say, You fool, of course you're gonna die.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: Your your one hope is not avoiding death.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: Your your one hope is dying in Christ and with Christ.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, Brandon uh Kemene has said uh there seems to be different kinds of death in the Bible.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm hearing at least three in this conversation.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: One, there's we're dead in sin, that kind of spiritual death.
45:55
SPEAKER_02: Two, there's death with Christ in baptism, and three, there is physical death.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think, yes, and and I think all those three things are more organically united than we're used to thinking.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: So that um my my death, my physical death is the wages of sin, you know.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: Um and that the way in which I pour myself out for my neighbor is to utilize those extra few million heartbeats, you know, for the sake of my neighbor.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: I am embracing death in order to serve life and love.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: Um I I think we need to hold these things um far closer together than we than we ordinarily do.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: Um but when we do, I think I think we have a much richer gospel, and I and I think we have a much richer view of who God is, because you know, for for John Bear, God is revealed at the cross.
46:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, so what what is the cross?
46:59
SPEAKER_02: The cross reveals God, the cross reveals true humanity, yeah, the cross reveals the good life, and all of those things are revealed as love and life poured out for the other.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: Who is God?
47:13
SPEAKER_02: He is love poured out for the other.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what's fascinating.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we're gonna have time to see the clip about the image of God, but you know, you you ask him about what do you think about what does it mean to be made in the image of God?
47:24
SPEAKER_01: And he he really interestingly, I mean, again, in our circles, I think we would always say being made in the image of God is you know, we're having this everybody shares in this divine, you know, the divine spark, whatever you call it, and um what's that that Latin?
47:38
SPEAKER_01: Imago day.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all that stuff, you know, and and it's all that kind of thing, isn't it?
47:42
SPEAKER_02: Um Oak Hill Theological Seminary right there as well.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: And really interestingly, he he ties it, doesn't he, to he says, well, you've got to read Genesis in the light of Christ, you know.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: So if you've got to read kind of backwards, and if you just read the word image, you're kind of work trying to work out what that means.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: But of course, in Colossians, it's there's just no doubt what it means to be the image of God, and Christ is the image of the invisible God.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: And actually he says in th in that chapter, Paul was talking particularly about you know the crucified Christ.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, the the true image of God is the suffering Christ on the cross.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think he says in the in the thing, you know, if you were just sitting in the you know Jerusalem Starbucks and you saw Jesus walk by in AD twenty twenty-nine, you wouldn't just be like, Oh, it's the image of God.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: It'd be like it's on the cross in particular.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: And then so he says that to be made in the image of God is to be conformed to be made into the image of the suffering Christ on the cross.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: And then he draws some very interesting ideas about um you know, in male and female he created them as well.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much you want to get into that, but yeah, um it was just a really, really fascinating thing.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the whole conversation was just so rich.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, just it's so much good stuff in there.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of thing that you you want to go back and watch three or four times to try and take it all in.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, yeah, you know, even earlier when we were trying to discuss some of it, there were these moments where I would just pause for about 30 seconds and go, well, hang on, there's this thing he said here, and it's and the these bits in my brain are colliding, and I can't I can't draw them together.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: But he just had a great way of talking about these things.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: Um really rich conversation.
49:21
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, like who is God?
49:23
SPEAKER_02: He is love and life poured out.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: If he's a fountain of if he's the source of being, he's a fountain of life.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: Where do you see the fountain of life?
49:31
SPEAKER_02: Where it is poured out.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: Where is it poured out?
49:33
SPEAKER_02: They're on the cross.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: So who is God?
49:35
SPEAKER_02: So, like you've never seen anything more divine than Christ on the cross.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: Which when you when you orient your thinking rightly, it's obvious.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: If God is a fountain of life, then of course you see God when he's poured out.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when life is being poured out.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, to the Muslim, that sounds ridiculous.
49:53
SPEAKER_02: Like, where do you what's the most divine thing you've ever seen?
49:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's Jesus choking to death on the cross.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: Like that sounds that sounds like a nonsense.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: But if you start again with Christ crucified, then you start to define God rightly.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh, he is love and life poured out.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: So who is God?
50:08
SPEAKER_02: He's love and life poured out.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: Who is Christ?
50:10
SPEAKER_02: His love and life poured out.
50:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, who am I?
50:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm meant to be in Christ.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:15
SPEAKER_02: And what is baptized into his death, and what is my good life now to pour myself out for for others?
50:24
SPEAKER_02: And um Brandon Kemeny has asked a good question.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: He says, uh Christ's death was the means of gaining salvation for us.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: Is there a way that our deaths are to emulate Christ in this?
50:34
SPEAKER_02: Do we earn or gain something by our death?
50:37
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, not our salvation, he says, Um, which is true, but it it got me, it put me in mind of Colossians chapter one, which we've already referenced.
50:45
SPEAKER_02: It's the it's the paragraph that begins.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: The Christ is the image of the invisible God, and it's the paragraph that finishes, he makes peace through his blood shed on the cross.
50:54
SPEAKER_02: Which is, you know, what is the image of God?
50:57
SPEAKER_02: What does God look like?
50:58
SPEAKER_02: Well, picture Christ in peacemaking sacrifice, the blood dripping down.
51:02
SPEAKER_02: There you're seeing God.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: Um and then um Paul says in verse 24, Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's affliction for the sake of his body, which is the church.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: So Paul is kind of continuing on with the kind of the sacrifice of Christ, not in the in the sense of salvifically, sure.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: He's he's not atoning for sin in his uh in his sufferings, um, but he bears on his body the marks of Christ.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: He's he says that in Galatians, he talks about in 2 Corinthians um how you know how many times he's been whipped and and and all that kind of stuff.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: He bears in his body the marks of Christ because in Christ and with Christ he has suffered too for the sake of bringing the free salvation of Jesus out to the world.
51:58
SPEAKER_02: He hasn't purchased the free salvation of you know for the world.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Christ has done that fully, perfectly, sufficiently on the cross.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: There's no adding to that, but now there is a participation in the life of Christ, which is a life of love poured out.
52:14
SPEAKER_02: So I think absolutely, yeah, wrestling with what these verses in Colossians 1.24 mean gives you a very rich understanding of what the glory of the Christian life is.
52:26
SPEAKER_02: And and what really helps me is so often when I hear about sanctification or holiness in the Christian life, I get this picture of what we're meant to do.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: Now we're saved.
52:38
SPEAKER_02: What I'm meant to do is to try and sin as little as possible and keep keep me pristine.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like going to the glass case, you know, keep myself pristine and ever more um squeaky clean.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: And because because I I have this false notion of godliness.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: I just want to stay godly w while I'm awaiting resurrection.
53:04
SPEAKER_02: I want to stay godly.
53:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, whereas, no, the New Testament is saying, no, you're buried with Christ, you're meant to die.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm not called so much to holy holiness in the abstract.
53:15
SPEAKER_02: Holiness is really martyrdom.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: What I'm called to is to use whatever heartbeats I've got for you, for the world, and to die well.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: You know?
53:28
SPEAKER_02: And one of the one of the tragedies of how the church has responded in 2020 is that we've we've wanted to keep safe more than we've wanted to die well, more than we've wanted to prepare the church and the world to die well.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: Face your mortality world and die it with Christ and in Christ and through Christ.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: Um so I you know So what should the church have done?
53:57
SPEAKER_01: Go on then.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: There you go, I'm just throwing that at you.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: No preparation.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: If if if our response has been perhaps not what it could have been, and people, you know, in some of the interviews we've done have been disappointed in the way the church has responded, what would have what would that have looked like in maybe in practice, or could it have looked like?
54:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think many churches have done this, um, and they won't get the headlines for it.
54:22
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
54:23
SPEAKER_02: Interestingly, Justin Welby in his public comments has come into all sorts of criticism for being just, you know, another wing of public health England, just you know, retreating to his own kitchen for Easter Sunday and broadcasting from there and not allowing people to go into their churches on a Sunday.
54:39
SPEAKER_02: And I've got problems with all of that.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: At the same time, he volunteered to be a chaplain, I think at St.
54:46
SPEAKER_02: Thomas's or maybe St.
54:48
SPEAKER_02: Bart's, like hospital, just anonymously, I've blown his cover now, but just kind of going from ward to ward, bed to bed, pouring himself out.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: I think I think that Justin Welby is a much better advertisement for the way in which Christians are meant to respond to pandemic than the public Justin Welby.
55:09
SPEAKER_02: And and and maybe maybe that's that is all the more to his credit that he has not done it for the cameras, you know.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
55:17
SPEAKER_02: And I think there are lots of churches that have just gone on, and many of them have just got on a met, right?
55:23
SPEAKER_02: And and they've tried to be as absolutely safe as they possibly can be, but they they they met even before July.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: And some of them got on and just really doubled down on the food banks that they were running and and really went to the needy and the weak and the marginalized.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember before lockdown we went uh we went through the history of pandemics?
55:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:43
SPEAKER_02: And um and we talked about, I think, six or seven historical examples of plague and how the church responded to it.
55:50
SPEAKER_02: Christians had gone in and interestingly, the Gospel Coalition got me to write that up into an article, and I was happy to write that up into an article for the Gospel Coalition.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: And just as I was sending it off, I I felt in my heart, oh, it's a little bit gung ho because people in the olden days, those poor benighted, you know, second century, third century Christians, they didn't know about virology or epidemiology, and they were just recklessly going out and serving the poor when they could have been carriers, not just carers, but carriers.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: And so I I put some caveats in the first paragraph, I put some caveats in the in the conclusion to say in olden days, Christians would you know go out and um minister to others, and that was a bit reckless, and we probably don't want to do any of that.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know any better.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: They didn't know any better.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: We're now advanced.
56:37
SPEAKER_02: And I look back on that article and I'm and I'm really annoyed with myself for making those caveats.
56:43
SPEAKER_01: Because in the s because in the sense, you know, you know, you know, I say they didn't know any better than to martyr themselves.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, you know, yeah.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: So you you may die in the process of this.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:59
SPEAKER_01: But that's okay.
57:00
SPEAKER_02: But that's okay.
57:01
SPEAKER_02: And and and this this flaming hope of resurrection sustained them in in the face of plagues that were far more serious than COVID-19.
57:10
SPEAKER_02: Now the comeback to that is, oh yeah, but what if they were spreading disease rather than, you know, and now we know better.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: But the more I think about that, the more I think, I don't think we know uh that much, right?
57:21
SPEAKER_02: If if if we think we understand how this plague has operated, well, why haven't we done better in in handling it?
57:29
SPEAKER_02: You know, every every age is really primitive.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: Like we are really primitive according to the wisdom of the year 2300.
57:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: Really primitive, right?
57:40
SPEAKER_02: We are just absolutely neanderthal.
57:42
SPEAKER_01: They just stuck these bits of cloth on their face.
57:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm not an anti-masker for the comments roll in.
57:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think in years to come, well, j judge by the past, you know, like 40 years of peer-reviewed science, you know, sort of sort of said, you know, when it comes to these kinds of influenza type things, masks don't make much of a difference.
58:02
SPEAKER_02: And then suddenly in July, no, they do, because it'll help us get out of lockdown.
58:05
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, yeah.
58:07
SPEAKER_02: But judge by history, everybody's advanced and everybody's primitive.
58:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
58:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, and so they they they were not primitive people by less standards.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: And what they did was, okay, they had less knowledge comparatively than we did, but they were guided by love.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: And there are some really stirring quotes, and maybe I'll put in the in the comments um a link to the article because the the quotes from the early church were good, even though you know some of my caveats weren't.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: But the quotes from the early church was they took on themselves the death of those they cared for in order that they might transmit life.
58:42
SPEAKER_02: And you think, you know, how Christ-like, totally in keeping with all that we're talking about.
58:48
SPEAKER_02: And and I think that was the wisdom that you know ended up, the churches ended up being a heck of a lot more resilient because we are anti-fragile, and um viruses is is one way, and and our immune systems is one way that proves that we are anti-fragile, that actually in encountering the things that we've been fearful of, um, we get stronger, and the Christian church got stronger.
59:11
SPEAKER_02: And Rodney Stark said, you know, this is this is one of the key factors that led to the growth of the church in those early centuries.
59:18
SPEAKER_02: So, what are good examples?
59:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, go to go to history and and go to the quiet examples of a whole bunch of churches that just got on and served in their communities and figured out ways of meeting and figured out ways of getting out and loving the least and the last of the last.
59:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that and in one sense, the church I would imagine is always going to be in a a difficult position on things like that, because you you can do a very public work of good, you know, of serving those who need it during this time, and there will be those who say, look at you just parading your virtue before other righteousness and your virtue signalling, and then or you can do it very quietly, and people will say, Well, the church didn't do anything.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that is probably part of the reality as well.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm always mixed when people sort of talk about Justin Welby, and I I kind of think, well, which Justin Welby?
1:00:09
SPEAKER_02: Because I do think the public Justin Welby has been far too insular, whereas the private Justin Welby, ironically, has been far more outgoing.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: Um so there'll there'll be yeah, there'll be people who grab the headlines for being bold and meeting, we don't care, you know, who knows about it, and we won't wear masks and we won't socially distance and blah blah blah.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_02: And they'll grab grab headlines for that.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: But I and I'm not saying that, but I I but I I do think in a society in which okay, we we've said that schools mustn't close because education is really important, and the Premier League football matches, they must keep going because football's our religious, and we must protect the NHS because you know that is our great hope.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we we we do need our churches to be lighthouses at this at this at this moment and to be proclaiming something different to what the rest of the world is doing.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_02: And I think the rest of the world is being Epicurean.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: Um and apart from anything else, one of the great um drawbacks of being Epicurean is that it's not very loving.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_02: Look at look at the majority world that always has to cope with like a dozen diseases that are deadlier than COVID and that will kill people far more than COVID kills, and yet so many, so many developing nations are copying us when they can't afford to copy us.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: Um because they because it's not just the virus that is catching, you know, fear catches as well.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_02: So can we model hope?
1:01:41
SPEAKER_02: Can we model boldness?
1:01:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we were studying together um this morning about encouragement in the Bible.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_02: Why why does the Bible constantly talk about encouragement?
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: It's literally putting courage into you.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: And these days we think of encouragement uh as you know giving someone a little affirmation.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_02: You're good enough, you're smart enough.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's enough.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're lovely.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_02: You're great.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: That's not encouragement.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: You wear great jumpers.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: Not like Paul's.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_02: You have you have had some love in the comments.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: I didn't see that, yeah.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_02: There's been love for your comment, for your for your sartorial elegance.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: But you know, what was I saying?
1:02:19
SPEAKER_02: I had no idea.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_01: Derailed it.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_02: No, but there is there is courage to be put into the other person because we're in a battle, we're in a fight.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_02: We are all dying.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: And we need to we need to die well.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_02: And this is this is the the message that we have for the world.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: Come to Christ and and die well.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_02: Um these uh brilliant uh comments we're we're having.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_02: Um Brandon Kemaney comes back and says, Holiness is really martyrdom.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: Make it real, why don't you, Glenn?
1:02:50
SPEAKER_02: SJ Thomason, hello SJ.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_02: Loving this.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_02: Amanda Kay, with the perspective of the church, with the perspective the church needs to show how to die well, etc.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: It'd be different if this virus were killing children instead.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: This sounds like I'm making a point, but I'm not a genuine question.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh man, it's been such a mercy, hasn't it?
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this this is it's a horr- all plagues are are judgments.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_02: Like a death is a judgment.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: Plagues are a judgment.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we need to reclaim that.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: It's a judgment from a merciful God.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: The culture seems to think that these plagues are outrageous intrusions from a merciless creation or a merciless world.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: No, the Bible says that plagues are righteous judgments from a merciful God.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_02: And if you think that they are outrageous intrusions from a merciless world, then you're going to just do everything you can to try and sidestep it.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_02: If you if you can receive judgment from the hand of a merciful God and find the mercy in it, um, that is the path forward.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_02: One of the mercies is, I mean, the average age of death of someone with COVID-19 is higher than the life expectancy of a UK citizen.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_02: Extraordinary.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely extraordinary.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_02: In Psalm 90, it says, you know, our life expectancy is three score years and 10, or four score years if you have the strength.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_02: So it's either 70 or 80.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_02: In this country, the life expectancy is about 82 point something, or 80, 81 point something.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_02: The average age of death of someone with COVID is 82 point something.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, is there any more merciful way for God to say to us, no, you really are mortal.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_02: You really are gonna die.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_02: No, seriously, you're not sidestepping this thing.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_02: And he's given us a disease that kills us on average at the life expectancy at which we're gonna die anyway.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_02: And our children have been spared.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_02: This is the most merciful judgment.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_02: Are we gonna are we gonna pay attention to this?
1:04:48
SPEAKER_02: Or are there gonna have to be other judgments?
1:04:50
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, if you rank COVID-19 against other plagues in the world, you know, I mean, the Black Death was was killing between a third and a half of people at various points in various cities.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, this has been yeah, this has been very merciful, and and I think we've taken for granted our you know immortality, even in the even in the face of COVID-19, and and and part of it has been, well, our children are okay, so I guess it's not too serious.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_02: I just think that's a dangerous game.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: Like God is really saying to us, You're gonna die! Like, you're really gonna die.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_02: This is the most merciful way He could he could do it, actually.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: Will we pay attention?
1:05:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_02: Ranting, ranting, ranting.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, lots of great things that people are saying.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_02: We've gone way over time, but hopefully um people think it's been worthwhile doing.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, guys, you really need to check out the um John Bear uh interview.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, tell them why why do they need to watch the John Bear interview, Paul?
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, it's just it's just excellent, it's just rich, it's full of so much good stuff.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, um, and and it's like I said, it's kind of thing you want to watch again and again because um there is so much in there that will just make you think.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: Think about things that you've you've probably you've probably got loads of ideas about stuff and you'll hear John Bear kind of say stuff and you'll go, Oh, yeah, never thought of it like that.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_01: That's really interesting, and well that's challenging.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: Um I think you know we could all do with that at the best of times.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_01: So it's yeah, it's great, really kind of edifying, yeah, very encouraging.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_02: And encouraging, it puts care it puts courage in you, and and even as I've been talking, I've been thinking how actually the lessons that you draw from John Bear are kind of the same whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_02: Like the the answer is die well.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_02: And some people are completely unprepared for death.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_02: But even as a Christian, I'm unprepared to die today, aren't I?
1:06:38
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_02: Am I prepared to die today?
1:06:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just thought it was fascinating when you basically this whole thing about baptism, baptized into death, and the resurrection is later.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: Um just kind of saying, Well, you're already dead.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: You're dead already, so you know, may as well just go out and die.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: Like no, you know, like in terms of just the way you live your life.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh I was like, Oh, yeah.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_01: You should have just said that before, really.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, what did someone say?
1:07:04
SPEAKER_01: Why did no one tell me this?
1:07:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, even though like 20 times the Apostle Paul talks about how we are crucified with Christ.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
1:07:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, because we tend to think, okay, substitution means Jesus died over there, I stay alive over here.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_02: Wheel!
1:07:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, yeah, we think we died, and then we quickly came in up into the new life and the new into the resurrection life.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_02: I have been crucified with Christ.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've lost so much.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we tend to think that because Jesus died for me, that means I don't die.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_02: Jesus over there takes the zap.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm over here, I get the blessing.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_02: Whee! At least I don't die now.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not that, it's Jesus takes you to himself and then runs headlong into death and shields you from the wrathful judgment of gods, but you still go through a fiery furnace with him and in him and come through the other side.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: There's no way around death.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_02: Let's die well.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_02: Um brilliant.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh another another great um resource on this is Nate Wilson's Death by Living.
1:08:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh, he really takes up these these same kind of themes uh in in terms of yeah, how do you how do you live well?
1:08:13
SPEAKER_02: Die well.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_02: Um so check that one out.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh later on this week we've got a great uh video coming for you.
1:08:21
SPEAKER_02: It's a poem by Dennis O'Driscoll called Missing God.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_02: And uh Thomas Thoroughgood's done a great job, uh, one of our interns at uh putting some vision on that.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, do check that out.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_02: I think it's gonna release on Wednesday.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_02: Then on Friday, uh we've got Wendy Olsup uh who uh has written the book on suffering, and and she's got a great book uh called Companions in Suffering that's coming out, and we talk together about Genesis chapter 3, about Job, and about how the good Christian life is actually walking through the valley of the shadow of death with Jesus.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh so we'll be continuing on with that theme with her.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh next week we'll be doing uh live casts in uh different cities, well, towns.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_02: So Crowborough and Eastbourne because of uh lockdown two.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_02: If you like lockdown one, you're gonna love lockdown two.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_02: And uh stay tuned.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_02: Next Tuesday, uh, we're gonna do 321 webinars.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_02: So uh we found that during lockdown one it was a really um really great way of reaching out, and we hope that you can invite friends along to doing 3-2-1.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_02: It's a gospel outline that we've come up with.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: And uh over the course of four different sessions, we're gonna look at Jesus' vision of God, the world, and you.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_02: And uh, you're very welcome to come along and uh be part of that.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_02: We we hope that hundreds uh come and do three two one with us starting tomorrow week.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh that will be Tuesday the 10th, I guess.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, but that should do us.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as always, you can follow us on all the social medias so Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, just search for Speak Life UK and give us a like, follow, subscribe, um, or whatever the uh terminology is on each platform.
1:09:59
SPEAKER_01: And then also you can head over to speaklife.org.uk uh to find out anything about us on our website.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_01: And if you kind of add a slash sign up on the end of that, you can get our email each week, which kind of rounds up all the resources we've done.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, do get signed up.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_02: Brilliant, brilliant.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_01: Well, have a great week and bye well.