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The 10 Christmas Scriptures No-One Preaches || SLP335 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:07
SPEAKER_01: Great, well hello and welcome to the live cast.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Um my name is Paul Feasy and I am uh in Crowbra at the moment at home, working from home, but I am still joined by Glenn Scrivener over in Eastbourne.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Hi Glenn.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Hello, Paul.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Nice to be with you.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: Good, yeah, good to have you as well.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
0:24
SPEAKER_01: You all good?
0:25
SPEAKER_02: Am I looking sufficiently Christmasy?
0:27
SPEAKER_01: You're yeah, there's there's something a little bit festive about you, but I can't put my finger on what it is that you've done together.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: For those of you listening on the podcast, Glenn's background is a Christmas tree and presents and Christmas lights.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: So what what's that all about, Glenn?
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Are you just feeling festive?
0:44
SPEAKER_02: Here's a good Paul.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: There was this guy Jesus, but he was more than a guy.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: And for that reason, we bring Spruce tree.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Spruce tree Spruce Forsyth?
0:56
SPEAKER_02: Bruce Springsteen inside.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: The boss himself.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: And uh he sings born in the USA to us.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Um have I have I got those uh I think that's about right, isn't it?
1:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know, it's it's advent starting this Sunday, so it's it's time to get our Christmas on, don't you think?
1:13
SPEAKER_02: Is your tree not up?
1:15
SPEAKER_01: No, I refuse to start Christmas until the first of December.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh gringe.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Yep, I'm happy to admit it.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: And all those people who've already put their tree up, but you know, my people who I know on social media, if I never see those people again, it'll be too soon.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: They're awful, awful human beings.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: So why don't you get into the into the Christmas spirit?
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, it it is funny how we yeah, we we start our Christmas preparations so early, and then by the time we get to the 25th, we're we're pretty much exhausted with Christmas.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: And you know, and that's kind of that.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Which is which is the opposite of in the Bible.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: Like in in the Bible, it's it's kind of you know, well, actually, well, traditionally, Christmas is the 12 days of Christmas and 25th of December is day number one, and you keep going right through to you know Epiphany.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we're we're pretty much we're pretty much done even before Christmas comes around, aren't we?
2:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think though that this year might be a little bit different.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: It might feel a bit different, because you know, normally what's quite exhausting, I guess, in the run up to Christmas is you know that you you get to the beginning of December, and you're if you've got kids, there's like some kids' Christmas play in school, or there's some you know school carol service in the evening, and then there's this church carol service and that church carol service, and there's this Christmas event to go to and yet work Christmas party or whatever it is.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: So by the time you get to Christmas, you've done about a hundred Christmas events already.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: And to be honest though, the odds of us actually doing any of those things this year are pretty slim.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: So uh we might be ready for Christmas this year, we might be kind of looking forward to it, but it's fresh as a daisy in 2020.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: Not tired anymore.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, raring to go for in whatever form we are allowed to uh to celebrate in.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: But uh, you know, as I often say, you know, Caesar Augustus made a decree in Luke chapter two, and um, you know, Caesar Augustus messed with people's Christmases quite considerably, but you know, God was still able to use that and uh and actually ensure that his purposes were being worked out even through you know massive governmental overreach and all those other things that people are worried about.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: God will make his Christmas happen in his way, even if Caesar Augustus does his worst to ruin it.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: So what what are we doing today, Paul?
3:31
SPEAKER_02: We're doing the ten Christmas scriptures that nobody preaches.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: Um what's what's the idea of this?
3:39
SPEAKER_01: So you've just answered your question.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing today?
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're we're gonna look at these ten Christmas scriptures that nobody preaches.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: So I guess you know um we we have probably have a good idea, don't we, of some of the the classic scriptures we get for um Christmas time that you hear kind of every year.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: So if you go to your nine lessons and carols type service, whether it's that or something like it, um, or you uh even just your average nativity, you know, you'll often hear the same kind of verses come out again and again and again.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, and particularly if you're if you're someone who maybe works in the church or has to do assemblies or whatever it is, um, I certainly remember that thing of kind of getting to Christmas time and thinking, right, okay, I've got these things coming up.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna say this year that's not just rehashing exactly the same thing I said last year?
4:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we've kind of put our heads together and just tried to come up with 10 verses or passages from scripture that we think you could preach Christmas from, but they're not the ones you might think of, and they're not the ones we always use.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna kick off with you, Paul.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: Um and this is this is one that is quite often used in a nine lessons and carols um kind of service, in a traditional service that, you know, that that kind of format goes back, I think, to the 19th century, sort of sort of Anglican churches and and King's College, um, Cambridge, those those sorts of nine lessons and carol services.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: It often starts with Genesis 3.15, but but quite often, if um the church minister has chosen the Christmas readings, they don't choose this one.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: Go on, sell us, sell us on Genesis 3.15 and why it's a good Christmas verse.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Great.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 3.15.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: So um it says, I'll put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I guess there's a couple of things we can say there, couldn't we?
5:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the promise after the fall, there's the promise, isn't there, of um this offspring who's gonna come, um, who will put right what has gone wrong.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: And I suppose, you know, you you could kind of take an angle that um I I don't know, you'd have to tell me here, Glenn, whether the word offspring here is actually the same word used for a seed.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Is that some yeah, yeah.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: The Hebrew, yeah, it could be a singular, could be a plural, but yeah.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we kind of get told in Galatians that you know, don't we, that the seed who the seed is.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: But um uh so you you could use this as a kind of way of saying, look, we've that the there's this promise here right at the beginning of the Bible of this one who is to come, the seed.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: And actually you you might have time just to trace it briefly through other scriptures as well, because it's a it's a picture that keeps popping up all through the old testament.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Um so when we get to Jesus, actually we're saying, like, this is here is the seed, this is the offspring coming into the world.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, and of course, you know, off the back of that, I suppose you you can talk a little bit about you know why what is it, what is he there to do?
6:38
SPEAKER_01: Well it speaks, doesn't it, of of the the conflict there will be between him and uh the serpent, the bruising of the uh the head and the um sorry, the um yeah, sorry, bruising of the offspring's head and the crushing the bruising of the serpent's head and the and the bruising.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I'm just uh trying to read this at the same time and speak to the camera.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I think you've got a couple of ways in there of ways you could go with it.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: Um and I think, you know, so I think that's it that that could be quite an interesting one.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: And you know, the fulfillment of this scene, you know, in a sense, this is what the whole Bible has been waiting for, um, leading up to this this event, which is the birth of the offspring into the world.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's an interesting angle to go on that we don't think of too often.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: It's also a powerful rebuke of your Grinch-like spirit, Paul, because you know, you you you think you shouldn't prepare too early for Christmas.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: God did.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: You're so ungodly wanting to wanting to curtail the preparations.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, God, God was making preparations even before December.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's fair enough.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right from the beginning, Christmas is on the agenda.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: And I I mean, I'm always struck in Genesis 3 that um Adam and Eve make this alliance with the serpent against the Lord, and you just think, well, who should the Lord side with?
8:02
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, they're feeling each other out, and the serpent, you know, the serpent kind of sows, you know, seeds of doubt in the couple.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: But then Eve, she she flat out lies and says, We can't even touch the fruits.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: And then the devil, you know, jumps on that lie and doubles down on her.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: But they're kind of they're kind of dancing together, and the Lord comes in, and like, who's he gonna side with?
8:23
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he should side with the serpent over us, but no, he so he sides with us over the serpent.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: And he says, I'm gonna join you guys, and I'm gonna crush him for you.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: It's uh yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful picture of it by grace alone, um, through faith alone in Christ alone, um, right there from the beginning.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: And then you've got one, you've got one for us, haven't you, and in in in Psalm 72?
8:47
SPEAKER_02: I just love Psalm 72.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's this royal psalm, it's it's um said to be of Solomon.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: And uh, of course, who is Solomon?
8:56
SPEAKER_02: He's the son of David in the most literal sense.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: He's the very first son of David.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: But every time you hear of Solomon, you're meant to be thinking, ah, here's a pencil sketch of the son of David, that messianic figure.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: And it's this idea that that when the king truly comes and truly reigns in righteousness, well, verse 3 of Psalm 72 says, May the mountains bring prosperity to the people, the hills, the fruit of righteousness.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, here's a king who doesn't just rule over people, he rules over the world, and the whole world is set straight by this king.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: And then verse 4, may he defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: So, how is he going to reign?
9:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's gonna be a just and gentle rule.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh, he's not gonna be like all the other tyrants of this world, he's not gonna be like Caesar Augustus, he's not gonna be like Herod.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, he's gonna save the children of the needy by becoming a needy child.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Why does he do all that?
9:51
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 72, verse 4, may he crush the oppressor.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: So taking you right back to Genesis 3.15, you know, here is what the seed is going to do.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: He's gonna crush the oppressor.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: And then you get these beautiful Christmassy verses like verse 10 May the kings of Tarshish and of distant, distant shores bring tribute to him, may the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts, may all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Verse 15, may gold from Sheba be given to him.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: You're like, okay, it's it's it's a hugely Christmassy thing.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: And then it kind of culminates in verse 17.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: May his name endure forever, may it continue as long as the sun.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Then all nations will call will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed, which is a fulfillment of all the promises to the seed of Abraham back in Genesis 12.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: Um people will be blessed through the seed of Abraham, and uh and he will, yeah, he will bless all peoples, and all nations will find their blessing in him.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: He is the one conduit of the blessings of heaven to earth.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: He's the one who will crush the oppressor, he's the one who will set the physical world to rights, and he's the one who even you know earthly kings will all bow down to, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: Um beautiful.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: That's that's the one in the manger, the one who's been you know long expected.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: And uh I yeah, I I love Psalm 72.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: I I commend it to you as a Christmas meditation.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then another one we've looked at is Matthew chapter one, and we've gone from verses one to seventeen.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not going to read all of those verses, but it begins off the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you get the genealogy basically, um, all the way from Abraham down to Jesus.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, I I think you know, ways you you could talk about this at Christmas time would be again um pointing all the way back to this promise, the promises to Abraham and the covenant promises made to him, um, and how here we see that the whole of you know, all these figures who will will know a lot of these names from the Old Testament, all these stories are bringing us forward towards Jesus, who is the one who will come and fulfill the promises.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: All the promises to Abraham are yes uh in him.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it very similar, you know, I suppose to the Jesus being the true seed, he's the one that the whole Old Testament has been heading towards.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think as well, like you know, as you read through the the genealogy, you get people in there like um Rahab and Ruth, um Uriah, um we talk about the wife of Uriah, and here so we we get people who are outside of um the Israelites.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, so we see a uh a kind of uh this this this child who's who's come is actually someone who brings all people in underneath him.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: This isn't just you know the story of Israel and the Jews.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: This this is uh this is something that is for everyone.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: These the promise of the seed has a kind of international flavor to it as well.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Um which you know, as people come through the door, maybe not thinking they're um you know, Jesus would be for them or interested in them.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: Actually, if you look through the genealogy, there's a whole load of people there who would have been outside God's people but have brought in.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think you know there's there's some angles there as well.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: You might not want to use all these angles, of course, when you're speaking, but there are different things you might want to draw out in there.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's beautiful.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if if Jesus joins our family so we can join his family, well let's let's have a look at what our family's like.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: No, there's there's a lot of dodginess going on there.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, many of these kings are just uh horrible pieces of work, and and and the Lord is able to join himself even to this, you know, very dodgy, dysfunctional family, uh, in order to bring us into his family.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, that's a that's a great angle in.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: And then you've gone for another bit of Matthew, yeah, Matthew chapter two.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Matthew two and uh the genocide, the Christmas genocide.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Um doesn't often get a lot of airtime.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: I haven't I don't think I've seen a nativity play that it that even kind of hints at the at the genocide.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: Um it would be it would be very tricky to do.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: Um but um how amazing to think, okay, here is what the Lord is going to do in order to join us in our dodgy, dysfunctional um family tree.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: It's also a deadly family tree, it's a deadly world.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: And he he shows up in the middle of a genocide, utterly defenseless.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, they've got that saying, you don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: Um like Jesus has descended into a genocide, like completely naked, you know, completely unarmed, completely helpless.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, that's that's pretty stunning when you when you think about how the Lord might have chosen to show up.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: He might have chosen to be born in a palace, he might have chosen to be Caesar Augustus.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: Instead, he descends into the virgin's womb to be very vulnerable, to be very weak.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: And uh verse 16 of Matthew 2 When Herod realized that he'd been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity, who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the magi.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: And this is what human rule looks like.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: Human rule sees Christ as a competitor and therefore wants to lock the doors against Christ coming in.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: And you might think, oh, that's just one instance of you know dreadful evil out there.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible says, yeah, but that's also in you, isn't it?
15:36
SPEAKER_02: You want to lock the doors on Christ, and you feel He threatens your rule.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, you you you think you think of Herod as just this little tinpot tyrant who's just got a jurisdiction over a tiny little strip of land at the end of the Mediterranean.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay, he's a tiny tip tinpot dictator over a tiny jurisdiction, but um you're a tiny tinpot dictator over even smaller jurisdiction.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: You, you know, and you you don't like Christ coming and and claiming uh to be ruler.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: Um so you're not that you're not the genocidal maniac that Herod is, but there's there's something of that to each of us.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: We want to shut the doors against Christ.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: And nonetheless, he shows up in our midst, in the most weak and vulnerable kind of place.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's a real sign of the commitment of Christ to be one with us, that he would even join us in the middle of it of a genocide.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: So there's there's an angle you can take from Matthew 2.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Right, and then we've also gone here Philippians Philippians 2, verses 5 to 11.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, so let me read that out for you.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Have have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count a quality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, there's this really interesting uh one there.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, we talk about this quite a lot, don't we?
17:24
SPEAKER_01: That we talk about God quite often and assume people know what we're talking about.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Um But of course, you know, at Christmas time you may have lots of people come through the door, even if you're just of your church, or maybe just talking with people at Christmas time, whose view of God is is probably not going to be the the Jesus God.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: It's it's gonna be some, you know, kind of it's the the old man on a cloud or whatever, sitting on his throne with a beard or whatever.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Um and here actually we get a picture, don't we, of of what Jesus um what what the Jesus God is like.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, here we we have a picture is a God who steps down um from you know the place of power.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: He chooses to empty himself um rather than clinging to you know the the the rights and the power that is kind of rightfully his, um he steps down to become a servant in order to in order to serve us and to save us, which I think is is a really different picture for how people tend to view God.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: People tend to view God, I guess, as a you know, the the guy who's just saying, Well, you come and bow down to me um and do what I say or else.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Um and and of course there are those aspects to God's character that you know God is to be obeyed and to be bowed down to, but actually in the very nature of God we see in Jesus, who's the image of God, is to be the one who comes and pours himself out to serve, who doesn't come to um you know, to be served and to lord power over people, but to lay down those things and lay down his life for people.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that could be a really striking thing at Christmas as you see the the baby in the manger.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, is that how we view God as the a defenseless child in a manger?
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Um probably not.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: Um so I think lots of it, you know, we sometimes as we we talk about the sub Jesus being quite surprising, and I think for us as Christians, we forget how surprising Jesus is.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I think for the non-Christian, particularly in society today where people have la are largely kind of not as Christianized as they were, um, or lack kind of biblical knowledge.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: I think laying these things out is actually very surprising for people when they see God or they see Jesus and go, oh well, is God actually like that?
19:44
SPEAKER_01: That's not what I thought.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: So I love verse six there, though being in very nature God.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: He did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but he made himself nothing.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: And it's that being in very nature God, what would you do?
19:59
SPEAKER_02: If you were in very nature god, what would you do?
20:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, if it was me, I'd kind of snap my fingers and get my little minions to bring me a cocktail by the pool, and that's right, that's that's I would get I would get creation to serve me.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: Whereas being in very nature God, he humbled himself and became obedient, you know, and and poured himself out and became nothing.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: And and so what is the nature of God that Christmas reveals?
20:23
SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, it's the nature of one who who would not be served but serve.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, quite stunning, quite stunning.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: And in a similar vein, um, I thought of uh Galatians chapter four, um, which is um a brilliant verse.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: We we might get onto this um later on, but uh one question to ask like as you think about Christmas, is Christmas the beginning of the story or pretty much the end of the story?
20:52
SPEAKER_02: Is it the is it is it scene one or is it the final act?
20:58
SPEAKER_02: Um and what's fascinating is Galatians chapter four basically says, no, Christmas is the beginning of the final act.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: It's not like it's not you don't start the clock at the incarnation.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: The incarnation is the culmination of the ages, and it ushers in the final acts.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: So Galatians 4, verse 4, when the set time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls our Father.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: So when the set time had fully come, Christmas time, it's like, yeah, the story begins.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: Biblically, the story does not begin at Christmas.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: Biblically, the story begins before the foundation of the world.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: That's why the great Christmas reading, John chapter one, is in the beginning, because you can't tell the story of Christmas without going cosmic.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: The story of Christmas begins before the dawning of time.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: And then when Christmas actually comes, this is ushering in the The final act in God's redemptive plan that kind of Christmas and Easter kind of run together, certainly in Paul's imagination.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: Paul doesn't say a lot about the life of Christ, for instance.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, you just had that Philippians 2 thing, and we pretty much go from crib to cross.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Same in Galatians 4, we pretty much go from crib to cross, born of woman, born under law, to redeem those born under law.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: So what Paul is saying is that, yeah, Christmas is pretty much right at the end of our story.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: It's the culmination of the ages that the Son of the Father became our brother, so that we in him might become children of the same father.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's kind of the way Christmas has been unpacked for thousands of years.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: So Athanasius would say, you know, God became man, that man might become God, which is a pretty stark way of putting it.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: And um and obviously Athanasius had uh a lot of sort of Trinitarian conceptuality behind that, and he would unpack it in very Trinitarian terms, but he would say, God the Son took flesh, so that we who are flesh can become children of the same heavenly father.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: But another way of saying that is God became man, that man might become God.
23:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, and again, if you want to go for shock Christmas, that kind of shocks Chris Christians, isn't that?
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: Why don't we hear why don't we hear Philippians 2 and Galatians 4 more at Christmas, do you think?
23:32
SPEAKER_03: Uh I don't know.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess like you're saying, it's even for people who are Christians, it might be hard to get your head round.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: I imagine there are people who've heard what you've just said then and kind of gone a bit, ooh, like, ooh, sure.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: That sounds a bit much, doesn't it?
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Like bit strong.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Being in very nature God, he poured himself and made himself nothing.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: And that was the you know, that was the demonstration of his divine nature, really.
24:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, it's not me saying it.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: It's like Yeah, it's strong stuff, it's strong stuff.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the one of the reasons is um, so like Luther had this thing about a theology of the cross and a theology of glory.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: In his Heidelberg disputation, he kind of said, there's basically two ways to do theology.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: You could be a theologian of glory, where you basically try to climb up to God, whether through your works or whether to through your thoughts.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you either save yourself through your works or you understand God with your thoughts.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you're a theologian of glory at that stage.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: And basically, God just becomes the biggest power around.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: Um, so you could be a theologian of glory, and you know, your your way of operating is basically a ladder that you climb, or you could be a theologian of the cross, in which everything is about God coming down to you.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: And at that stage, you realize that God is revealed in weakness, in suffering, in death.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: He's revealed at the cross, and therefore he's revealed not as the God that you have to climb to meet, but the God who's come all the way down to meet you.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: And if that's the case, I I think Christmas kind of reveals whether we are a theologian of glory or a theologian of the cross.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: Because if we're a theologian of the cross, we're very content to look into the manger and to say, There is the little Lord Jesus.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: The little Lord Jesus.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: Um and we don't think that his lordship is undercut by his littleness.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: We actually think his lordship is expressed in his littleness, it's underlined by his littleness.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: And therefore, if you're a theologian of the cross, you can linger long over the manger, and you can look down at that that one wriggling on the straw, and you can glory in the kind of God that he is, the the God who makes himself small for us.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: Whereas if you're a theologian of glory, you don't want to spend too long at the manger, do you?
26:16
SPEAKER_02: You kind of um you become uncomfortable.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's like you know, it's like the the Facebook comment that we got a couple of years ago when we did the video.
26:26
SPEAKER_02: Some Australian guy got on.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: And uh and he said, Why are you worrying about the baby?
26:31
SPEAKER_02: You know he grew up, don't you?
26:34
SPEAKER_02: He said, He became a carpenter, for goodness sakes.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I remember it well.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: What what really got me was he didn't he didn't say he's ascended to the right hand of of power.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: Like he didn't say that.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: He said, he became a carpenter, he grew up, he was a bloke.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, he got really agitated that we would that we would spend time on the baby Jesus and not enough time on the carpenter Jesus.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: Compared with heaven, I think both are pretty much on a level.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, if I learn anything from the uh Passion of the Christ film, it's that Jesus invented the seated table and chair.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: So it's quite an important innovation, really.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: It's I can't believe the Bible failed to mention it if I'm honest.
27:23
SPEAKER_02: Why wasn't that in Tom Holland's Dominion?
27:27
SPEAKER_02: 650 pages, and he didn't have time to talk about the invention of the chair.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're sitting there reading this book now.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, little did you know.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Christianity is a foundation for you in more ways than you can imagine.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: You rest upon it even now.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I do think, I do think um Christmas really reveals whether we are theologians of the cross or theologians of glory.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Are we able to look at the manger and see, ah, here's the culmination of the ages?
28:00
SPEAKER_02: And here is the the fullness of God being revealed to us in flesh, you know, now in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, if if God wants to glorify himself by being with us, we don't make him more glorious by distancing him from us and saying, He's not really with these kinds of, you know.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: He grew up, he became a carpenter, you know.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: Don't yeah, so I I think we should be become a lot more comfortable with the manger, actually.
28:39
SPEAKER_02: And actually preach a theology of incarnation at Christmas.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine?
28:44
SPEAKER_01: Don't be silly, Glenn.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: You and your radical ideas.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, that's that's a few of my thoughts on Galatians 4.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: And then and then you were thinking about um 1 Timothy 1.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: Um which is we don't think of it as a Christmas verse, but it really is.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 1 Timothy 1.15.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: So the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, I I guess there's different things you can about.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it tells us, doesn't it, that Jesus came to the world, it tells us why Jesus came to save sinners.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Now, I suppose like the default when you read that may be to think like, well, saving sinners is all about just getting to the cross and kind of and that's the danger, isn't it, that you end up you just do an Easter sermon on your Christmas, your Christmas Day or your Christmas cow service.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: But I mean I think that you know if you if you think about what does it mean for Jesus to come into the world to save sinners, what if you were going to save someone, I mean, you would again would expect that saving happens by a display of power and strength and all those things.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: And actually, similar to Philippians, I suppose, to actually come to save for God means to step down and to become the child in the manger and to put on flesh, um, you know, to become Emmanuel, God with us, and you know, to to get his hands dirty, um, you know, sweaty and messy, um you know, and um to be in that position of kind of um weakness um in some sense.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: It's a very different picture to how we might think of what a rescuer should look like.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: But of course, you know, the sun, God the sun becomes God our brother, he comes and rubs shoulders next to us, identifies with us in our in our suffering, comes down into our mess.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's really what's going on at Christmas time, isn't it?
30:45
SPEAKER_01: As he becomes this child, weak and defenseless and you know feeling nappies and all kinds of things, you know, that is the reality of the we're being we're learning something about the nature of God in that, you know, and and that that is the way he came to rescue.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Um and of course, as well, I mean, you there talks about, doesn't it, this is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: I suppose you know, there's a there's a a challenge in there, isn't there?
31:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, what what do we make of this?
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Do we do this demands to be accepted, to be weighed?
31:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, what do we make of this this God who steps down, who came into the world to save people?
31:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and there's a chance to talk about our natures in there, isn't there?
31:27
SPEAKER_01: That's that we are sinners who need saving.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: Um but perhaps the way we think about being saved and what that would look like isn't the picture we we get when you open the Bible.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: So and the fact that Paul finishes that by saying, of which I am the chief, or you know, I'm I'm the sinners, it's kind of like once once you really once you really see the lengths he's gone to, Christ has gone to to save us, you start to think, maybe I maybe I am in trouble.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe I am, you know.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: He hasn't he hasn't come down to Bethlehem for his own health.
32:07
SPEAKER_03: Right.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: Um He really seem seems to think there is a problem such that he would, you know, I I've told the story before about being in northern Nigeria in in Kaduna, and I was um by myself getting some stuff from a market, and then um I I I told the person who drove me down to the market, don't worry, I'll find my way my own way back to the the um uh the church where I was I was teaching through Romans, and um and I got a little bit lost on my way back.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: And we're talking about northern Nigeria, and I hadn't heard of Boko Haram at that stage, but um yeah, a lot of a lot of the violence that has since kind of erupted um was right there, right where I was in that market.
32:50
SPEAKER_02: And uh and as I was just sauntering through the market, um one of my students um sort of grabbed me by grabbed me by the hand like and like forcibly said, not that way.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: And he kind of tugged at my hands, and we we went in exactly the opposite direction to get back to the church where I was um where I was teaching.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: And uh I I didn't think I was in trouble until the rescuer came and clasped hands with me and and said, uh, yeah, not that way.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: And and I just yeah, I think of that when I think of Paul saying, of whom I am the chief.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: He he suddenly he realizes you know the lengths that Christ has gone to kind of to be one with us and to rescue us out of our sin.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: Suddenly you're you're then free to think, oh, maybe there is a problem, and maybe there's a real problem with me, and and maybe now I can admit that there's that there's this problem with me, and and isn't that liberating?
33:47
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, maybe maybe that could be an outcome of a sermon on one Timothy 1.15.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, Jesus came for sinners, only for sinners.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, but when you say onto, you start to say, Oh, I am one.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I'm a pretty bad one.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'm the worst one, you know.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: It's like that kind of that kind of this dissent.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: What's the next one we've got on our list?
34:09
SPEAKER_02: Hebrews 2.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 2 verse 8.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: I think you were you had a few thoughts on, I think.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: I love I love Hebrews 2.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: So it's about like God laying hold of us.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: You know what Christmas is?
34:23
SPEAKER_02: Christmas is God laying hold of of you and me.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I I sometimes give a little illustration of my cat.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, when it when it's time for my cat to leave the house, you know, how how do I get my cat um to go out into the into the wild?
34:41
SPEAKER_02: You know, do I do I just clear a path for my cat?
34:44
SPEAKER_02: Do I just give the cat clear instructions?
34:47
SPEAKER_02: Like, what do I do?
34:48
SPEAKER_02: No, I have to grasp the cat, I have to lay hold of the cat quite forcefully and carry the cat outside into this new the domain, into this new realm, and deliver the cat into the into the new realm.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: And this is this is what Christ has done.
35:02
SPEAKER_02: So Hebrews 2 verse 14, since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: For surely it is not angels he lays hold of, it's that word word, it's not angels that he helps or lays hold of.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: It's Abraham's descendants.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: For this reason, he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, what is what is the incarnation?
35:45
SPEAKER_02: It's God laying hold of you.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: And and actually I I think that's that's both a scary and a relieving prospect.
35:55
SPEAKER_02: It's scary for God to catch up with you and lay hold of you.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: But also if you if you realize that you've got stuck in a rut and you can't save yourself, then it's it's pretty good news that God doesn't just give you clear instructions, he doesn't just clear a path and enable you to step forward into a new life, like He He lays hold of you and He delivers you from a bondage to fear and to death and to the devil.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: You've been held captive by things that are far bigger than you.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: You can't free yourself.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, just like I pick up my cat and deposit the cat in the new realm.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, so God, by Christ taking hold of us, he kind of shoulders us, you know, and the government will be upon his shoulders.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: What does Jesus do?
36:46
SPEAKER_02: A lot of the uh ancient church, they used to um look at the parable of uh the shepherd who finds the sheep and hoists it onto its shoulders.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: A lot of um early church commentators would would see that as a picture of incarnation.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: What has Jesus done?
37:00
SPEAKER_02: He's he's hoisted us onto his shoulders in order to carry us home.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: So Jesus, when he comes down into Mary's womb, he is shouldering humanity, he is taking humanity onto his shoulders and he's marching, what what are the gospels?
37:14
SPEAKER_02: He's marching through life, doing it right.
37:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, finally a human being is actually living the right kind of life.
37:22
SPEAKER_02: And he marches it through the atoning death that we all deserve.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: He marches it through that curse and that hell that we deserve.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: And he keeps on marching and he keeps on ascending right up to the highest heaven where he delivers us again and he deposits us in this in this new realm to be a faithful high priest for us.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: So that is that is what Christmas is.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: It's it's God laying hold of us, which again, I don't think even Christians think very much about that kind of that kind of theology of incarnation and atonement in that way.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: For us, atonement tends to be um God zaps Jesus on the cross so that I can get nice blessings over here.
38:06
SPEAKER_02: Whereas what Hebrews is saying is like it runs, it runs the crib and the cross together so much, you know, he shares in our humanity so that by his death he might break the power of the devil.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: Or verse 17, it says, he had to be be made like us, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest.
38:27
SPEAKER_02: It's like Christmas, therefore Easter.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: But that doesn't mean you need to hurry past the manger in order to get to the cross.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: It means that as you as you see the manger, you're seeing Christ on his way to the cross.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: No wonder the Magi bring him myrrh, because myrrh is what you use to embalm a dead body with.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, he's being marked out for sacrifice from the beginning.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: And you can kind of meditate, even at Christmas, on the nature of of Jesus, that he he would plunge down to that kind of depth and shoulder our humanity, knowing where it would take him.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: It would take him all the way to the cross.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, just just some thoughts on on Hebrews 2.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: And then we had one 1 John chapter 3, verse 8.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: So uh I guess um I wonder whether that gives it a slightly uh what's the phrase?
39:34
SPEAKER_01: I suppose like a the the uh as Jesus steps down um and comes into this world, it is an event of cosmic proportions, you know.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: As he this is he's coming to to come face to face with the serpent from back in Genesis that we've kind of already thought about a little bit.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: Um for there to be this kind of reckoning, you know, I suppose the this uh this killer blow.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Um and again, I suppose that there's an element of of what does that what does it look like to destroy the works of the devil um you know is it in in works of great power and strength?
40:20
SPEAKER_01: Um well actually uh right from the right from the manger, you know, we see again it's coming down into the the weakness of suffering and going through suffering, which of course then goes all the way through the to the cross as well, where we see the kind of ultimate fulfillment of that.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: Um but it's very much with that that thing that goal in mind of destroying the works of the devil.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, it talks here, doesn't it, about whoever makes the practice of sinning is of the devil.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: So actually, it's it's not it's not just this kind of thing going on over there somewhere.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Um there's this link there between sin, between the devil and sin and us, which could be quite stark if you draw that out, couldn't it?
41:03
SPEAKER_01: It could be quite shocking if you can allow people to see that link.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Um it was you know, I think people often think that they, well, you know, there's Jesus over here, and maybe there's the devil over here, and and maybe I'm not for Jesus, but I might be kind of I'm not for the devil, I'm just I'm on the fence here somewhere or you know, wherever.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: But I think Luther said, didn't Luther say something like we're beasts ridden either by Christ or the devil?
41:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Um which is a you know is is again a really shocking thing to hear, but you it's if if you if you're confronted with that, that you are a beast ridden by the devil, it's good news to know that Christmas is about the one who comes into the world to destroy the works of the devil and to give you freedom from that.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: And and if people object and they say, No, no, no, I'm not I'm not dominated by the devil, I only ever do what I want to do.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Um I I always go to Ephesians 2.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.
42:19
SPEAKER_02: And so it's this idea like we are absolutely dominated by the devil as and when we follow our own heart's desires.
42:29
SPEAKER_02: Like so, anyone who says, you know, I'm not dominated by the devil, I only do what I want to do.
42:35
SPEAKER_02: Like the devil's chuckling in the corner at that stage.
42:38
SPEAKER_02: He's just like he's like the good, good like I'm not dominated by the devil, I just gratify my own sinful nature.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's yeah, it's precisely one and the same thing, you know.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: And if we don't, if we don't think that our situation is so serious, then why did Jesus bother?
43:02
SPEAKER_02: Why did he trade heaven for a manger and a manger for a cross?
43:07
SPEAKER_02: If everything's hunky-dory.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, it's cosmic.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then finally you've got Revelation 12 for us, is that right?
43:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if we're gonna go cosmic, let's let's go cosmic.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, so man, you've got this this you know, obviously pictorial language in in Revelation, but uh you've got uh a woman about to give birth, crying out in pain, and really sort of typologically, this is Israel, you know, waiting for the time to fully come, and the great Messiah to to do his work of crushing Satan.
43:46
SPEAKER_02: Uh but you know, the serpent is now described as a dragon in verse 4.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule the nations with an iron scepter.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
44:07
SPEAKER_02: And so again, you know, the birth of Christ is not kind of the beginning of the story.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: It's the it's the fullness of time coming.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: It's the beginning of the final act in which, you know, again, like the from the crib to the ascension here is just sort of smashed together in in John's revelation here.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: Um but who would choose to come into the middle of a genocide?
44:33
SPEAKER_02: Who would choose to come into this Satan-dominated world?
44:37
SPEAKER_02: Who would choose to come when there's a dragon, you know, waiting for you?
44:42
SPEAKER_02: And you're not exactly dressed as a knight, you know, you're kind of born born wriggling in in this world.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: And and again, it it and and you know, throughout Revelation and even in this chapter, you know, Jesus is called the Lamb.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's the Lamb versus the Dragon.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: And it's the way of the Lamb versus the way of the Dragon.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: And again, we're coming across this sense in all these verses that we've mentioned that that not only the fact of Jesus engaging with this dark world, but the way Jesus engages with this dark world is just so different.
45:20
SPEAKER_02: He comes into a world that's all about power and force and domination, and he comes in the way of meekness and gentleness and kindness.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: And you think, well, who's gonna win?
45:33
SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna win in a in a contest between a lamb and a dragon?
45:37
SPEAKER_02: That's not gonna be pretty.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:40
SPEAKER_02: Um and yet, verse 11, they triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: Um so not just Christ is snatched up and uh and the lamb himself is enthroned, but the way of the lamb is enthroned so that all those who follow him um can now have have triumph over these forces of evil um as we go the way of the lamb.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: So again, there's a um a different way of preaching preaching Christmas, and you know, we did it last last Christmas with There's a Dragon in My Nativity.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: Um and uh it's funny, I I kind of I showed the poem There's a Dragon in my Nativity to to lots of people, and um not not many of them, even though uh these are Christians I'm talking about, not many of them kind of got the Revelation 12 you know reference.
46:31
SPEAKER_02: They they just thought that it was just an odd, you know, character being thrown into a children's book, the way you know the tiger who came to tea or something, you know.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: There's no dragon in the nativity.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: You're like, yeah, yeah, there really there really is.
46:46
SPEAKER_02: And doesn't that make the the beauty of Christ's um decision to come like all the stronger?
46:56
SPEAKER_02: That yeah, the baby would show up in the middle of a genocide with a with a dragon waiting.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, yeah.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: In fact, um should we should we play the um uh there's a dragon in my nativity uh as a way of kind of summarizing these themes.
47:22
SPEAKER_04: There's a dragon in my nativity.
47:25
SPEAKER_04: Dreadful and immense.
47:27
SPEAKER_04: The shepherds quake, the wise men shake, and spill their frankincense.
47:33
SPEAKER_04: The castle are alone, and the baby is awake, while Joe and Mary tremble.
47:37
SPEAKER_04: Oh, this must be some mistake.
47:40
SPEAKER_04: There's a dragon over Bethem.
47:42
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how he came.
47:43
SPEAKER_04: I didn't think a donkey could have borne the dragon's frame.
47:47
SPEAKER_04: I don't believe the senses have been called for such as him.
47:50
SPEAKER_04: And I'm certain that when dragon knocked, no room was at the inn.
47:57
SPEAKER_04: There's a dragon by the stable.
47:59
SPEAKER_04: I don't know why he's there.
48:01
SPEAKER_04: He hasn't bought a present, and he only seems to glare.
48:04
SPEAKER_04: He hovers over David's town that still beneath him lies.
48:08
SPEAKER_04: Yet no one sleepers dreamless underneath his piercing eyes.
48:12
SPEAKER_04: This dragon isn't visible with ordinary sight.
48:16
SPEAKER_04: You cannot snap a selfie or televise his flight.
48:19
SPEAKER_04: Unseen, he stands for every power that stands against the earth.
48:23
SPEAKER_04: A death, disease, and darkness overshadowing each birth.
48:31
SPEAKER_04: This dragon is an enemy, all that's good and true.
48:34
SPEAKER_04: This monster lies and steals and kills.
48:37
SPEAKER_04: He's coming after you.
48:39
SPEAKER_04: Above each crib, the dragon hovers, short a swallowed hole, rulers, empires, beauty, joy, a flesh and blood black hole.
48:48
SPEAKER_04: But dragons always meet their match, they always meet their doom.
48:52
SPEAKER_04: The hero rises to the fight to cast them into bloom.
48:56
SPEAKER_04: And so at this nativity arose another player, the baby wrapped in swaddling clots.
49:01
SPEAKER_04: He was a dragon slayer.
49:03
SPEAKER_04: He'd come to fight through heroes' plots, through dangers big and small.
49:08
SPEAKER_04: He took on evil, sickness, death, and triumphed over all.
49:14
SPEAKER_04: A dragon or a baby, did he win the fight?
49:17
SPEAKER_04: It wasn't really fair.
49:19
SPEAKER_04: The travel was a knight.
49:22
SPEAKER_04: From high above and long before, he knew what must be done.
49:26
SPEAKER_04: He knew the dragon waiting him, and still, he chose to come.
49:31
SPEAKER_04: There's a dragon in my nativity, a fierce monstrous danger.
49:36
SPEAKER_04: But fierce is still the bravery and love within the manger.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: So that was one of our Christmas films from last year.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh, There's a Dragon in My Nativity.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: Do stay tuned for our new Christmas uh film that's coming out called Let Me Go There.
50:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you're gonna want to see this one.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: It's about a father and son going into a curiosity shop.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: There's a snow globe, and the son looks and he sees in that snow globe there's a little figure of him.
50:15
SPEAKER_02: What's that all about?
50:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, he clicks on the try button and actually he ends up descending into the globe, and what he sees there will change him forever.
50:23
SPEAKER_02: Are you intrigued?
50:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I hope so.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: I think two and a half years we've spent on this one, actually, uh, in terms of pre-production and everything.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: So uh that's gonna come out uh for the first of December, and we really hope that you can uh share that one around.
50:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh as I I I think again it shows how the decision to go there, the decision for the Son of God to enter into our world, embraced not only the crib but also the cross, not only Christmas, but also Easter.
50:55
SPEAKER_02: And you get to see the love of Jesus all the more when you see that uh he was embracing a very dark world that includes dragons and that includes genocidal tyrants, and it includes sinners like you and me.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: And still he chose to come.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: So that's the beautiful thing about Christmas.
51:12
SPEAKER_02: Great, looking forward to it.
51:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how can people catch up with us, Paul?
51:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, you can find us on all the socials, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, um, obviously YouTube, that's where you're watching us at the moment, um, or you might be listening on the podcast.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: So um, you can find the podcast on uh Spotify as well as on kind of Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or whatever provider generally throws your podcast towards you.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: We're pretty much going to be there, hopefully.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Um so do give us a like or subscribe or whatever is the uh the kind of terminology on that platform.
51:43
SPEAKER_01: And then of course you can always head to the website speaklife.org.uk and find out lots more stuff there.
51:48
SPEAKER_01: You can check out back um kind of part of our back catalogue there as well of the podcasts.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: If you're to speaklife.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you can always go back on YouTube and find more of our stuff there.
52:05
SPEAKER_02: Brilliant.
52:05
SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks everybody for joining us this week, and we hope to catch you again next time.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: God bless and bye bye.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, guys.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: See you next time.