Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we talk about Christmas and preaching. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. I'm Glenn Scrivener, and with me is Paul Feasy. The Feasonator. Was that your nickname?
SPEAKER_01Did you say that's what the PE teacher called me? The Feasonator. Cool, really. Come on, Feasonator. Feasonator.
SPEAKER_00Everyone else finished their cross-country run about three hours ago. Come on! Yes, purely ironic. I don't know. I don't think I had a nickname at school. Surely. I wanted people to call me Spud. Um, because Spud Webb was this amazing uh point guard for the Atlanta Hawks. He was five foot two and he once won the uh the slam dunk competition. Like he had this amazing jump and reach. He was called Spud Webb, and I wanted people to call me Spud.
SPEAKER_01And how it did, I mean, did you attempt to go about beginning that? Call me Spud! Do it! It's difficult to get that off the ground, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Like Glenn's not here Yeah, sorry, who's Glenn? Glenn Glen Glenn. Spud doesn't spud. No, so that didn't work. And uh I I was called Rev as a as a cricketer, so because I was the Christian.
SPEAKER_01Um When I was at university, actually, um I the uh people called me Chrissy P. Oh really? Christian Paul. That's what it was. Yeah. Christian Paul. I mean there's worse things you could be known for. Sounds like a member of the Pussycat dolls. Chrissy P. Well, you know, I was offered a spot, but uh but an old P injury took me out. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00The feasonator could not join the uh Don't you wish you could have?
SPEAKER_01Um you know there's probably some people listening to this going, what are they talking about? What are they talking about? Pussycat what? Pussycat dolls.
SPEAKER_00Uh don't Google them. Do not Google them, Mum. You will you'll regret it. Uh good. So we are thinking today about Christmas, and thinking about Christmas preaching. Um, because uh a lot of us who listen into the Evangelist Podcast, some some of us will be preaching at Christmas, and uh I guess most of us will be listening to Christmas preaching, and uh I guess we want to figure out what's the heart of the message and and what's what's possible and what's fruitful to say uh at Christmas. And Paul, you're you've got a Christmas sermon coming up, isn't that right? What do you what do you got? Three. You got three? Yeah. We've got Vickers listening in saying I've got thirty-seven.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Three. So what are your three? Well, uh so I've got one coming up this Sunday at King Church in Lewis where I'm speaking on uh John chapter one, verses four and five. Nice and primarily at least, so I'm I'm really using the uh the kind of angle of a light and dark, um, you know, talking a bit about the darkness of our world and actually you know picking up on Isaiah as well, people walking in darkness, seeing a great light. What is the light? It's this child, here he is, born into the world, the light, etc. And then the week after that, I'm speaking at our cafe service, um, which actually we because it's a more contemporary carol kind of thing, we're actually gonna use the four Meet the Nativity videos. Oh I hope you're gonna speak off the back of those. Okay, they better be ready then. So um, you know, we've got to pull that together, and then on the Sunday morning after that, I'm doing an all age on uh the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary. All age. Now that can be a tricky one. How are we approaching this? Uh at the moment, well, I haven't really put a great deal of thought into it, I'll be honest at the moment. Okay. I'm not a fan of pre-treating all ages. You know, I'm just not a fan of all age. I think the problem is I find when I do all age, I feel like I I could sp I spend a lot of time trying to think of some kind of gimmick to come up with to entertain children and and that doesn't it's not really my thing.
SPEAKER_00Big question. Big question is coming, it's gonna skewer you. Like the truth, it's gonna go through like a knife through hot butter, you ready? Yeah. You spend all this time thinking the big idea, the gimmick, the image, the hook. For the kids, do you spend the same length of time for the adults? Yes.
SPEAKER_01No, the thing is, I you know, I I you know, when I do a normal sermon, I I'm trying I'm a bit of a one point person. Yeah, okay. I'm not a big fan of I might have some headings. I might have some headings, but I want people to have one what's the one big idea, and I want my intro to be about you know setting us up for that, you know, maybe a problem or whatever, that things we all experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What's the answer gonna be? Well it's gonna come at the end of this talk. Um so I want to put all the pr I put a lot of prep into that because I think this is the big if I don't get this right, then the whole thing's probably a bit of a bit of a disaster. That's nice. Um but with the problem I find with all ages is I could do all of that and still sit there and be like, but how do I do this for children? Yes. And I was a youth worker and then I and I used to say sometimes people, Oh, I just I you know, I hate doing children's work. Right. And they'd be like, How can you hate children's work? You're a youth worker. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm a youth worker. Yeah. Not a children's worker. There's a difference between a kind of fifteen-year-old and a four-year-old.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um very different It's like Philip Larkin's old line, the poet. He said, Um when I was younger, I used to think I hated everybody. But then I grew up and I realized, no, it's just children I hate.
SPEAKER_01It's like that. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I mean I just feel I mean some people let's set set the record straight. Paul does not hate children, and neither do I. Oh no, I I do. Seriously, just stop giving me these talks.
SPEAKER_01You don't speak for me. No, no, I don't hate children. But I mean I know some people who n they're just so natural at coming up with those things. And you sit there and you think, well, you know, maybe the passage is read and you think, where are you gonna go with this? Yeah. And they pull something out of the bag.
SPEAKER_00But is it the fact that so so if you were able if if you had to do a talk that was for kids, you could do it. And if you had to do a talk that was one point for kids, you could do it. But is the problem it's gotta be one point, it's gotta be four kids, and it's also got to follow these twelve verses sequentially and move through them like a commentary.
SPEAKER_01Hmm, maybe. I I mean people I mean people have this debate, don't they, about like what is all age? Who are you really aiming at? Like we say all age services, and sometimes we say family service. Yes. And do we mean family as in the nuclear family, or do we mean church family? So are we aiming at kids when we talk? Are we aiming at adults? Are we aiming at both? Yes. How do we do that? Um I'm not sure I've really got the answer.
SPEAKER_00And I think the way is is am I just being cynical, but is the way that a lot of people kind of solve that is by having that one gimmick at the outset and then basically talking to the adults in a slightly childish voice.
SPEAKER_01Uh that that's possibly the case. The way I sometimes solved it is by just pretending I didn't really know the children were there and just doing what I would have done anyway. Yeah. And my wife tells me off for doing that. Yes, and she said you never looked at it. She said you didn't do anything for the children. Oh dear. I've never I've never done it to quite that extreme, but um I would I did have the I mean one I had the story of Rahab, um which was I just thought like, why why do I get these ones? And you know, it's gonna be hard anyway, but because of the whole thing. That's what I said, shady lady, you know. And I think it was a week, you know, it was a kind of baptism in or something, and so a whole bunch of people I didn't even know as well. And someone actually said to me afterwards, you know, there was a point when I said she was a prostitute. Right. And the person in front clearly wasn't paying attention and just went, you say prostitute. So um you don't have to put on a headline. And then also the next one I had, I mean, probably within a month or two of each other, was the one with Solomon and all his concubines. Yeah. And I was just like, oh come on. What is a concubine? What have I done?
SPEAKER_00And then it was circumcision, and then it was yeah. Tricky, tricky, tricky. Yeah, because kids don't want to be fobbed off by your answers either. But we really want to press into it. Ask mum and dad when you get home about that one. All that. So, um what I thought we could talk about is um uh a little article that I wrote a couple of years ago, and I keep kind of bringing it out at Advent. Um it's kind of a little rant about Christmas preaching that I hear, and I have three A's that I always hear in Christmas preaching, and then I suggest three different A's that we could maybe um preach instead. So the the three A's that I'm always hearing, uh it's uh we get the abrupt mention of of you know the incarnation, which is basically um you're just traveling along and then you say, Oh, God in skin, isn't that weird? Yes. Anyway, and then you move on with wh whatever it is that you're talking about. You know, um so there's the abrupt kind of mention of God in skin that ha that forms no logical part of your message. Um whereas actually, you know, what we're gonna see is I I I think actually the fact of God in skin um gives you everything to preach from and gives you the shape of your whole gospel and your sermon and your proclamation. So there's the abrupt kind of mention of God in skin. Then there's the the there's the kind of the apologetic angle. And sometimes I I hear pa people come in and the way they deal with the incarnation is okay, so Jesus shows up in time and space. What that means for us is that he was a historical figure, and therefore we can investigate him, you know, according to the methods of modern historical inquiry and the reality, you know, the the New Testament documents are really very reliable, don't you know? And then you go off, you know, down onto the the reliability of the New Testament sort of thing. Um so there's the abrupt, there's the apologetic, and then there's the Anselmium. The Anselmian is uh based on Ans Anselm, so he wrote uh a famous book called Cur Deus Homo, which is why the God man. Why did God become man? And uh and his basic answer to that was a little syllogism that basically, you know, um man needed s you know, needed an atonement, and only God could provide the atonement, so God had to become man to get man off the hook, and um, you know, we needed the scapegoat to take the fall, and there he is in the manger. Um but the thing is with the Anselmian thing, it doesn't it the Ans Anselmian thing doesn't necessitate a baby in a manger. It certainly necessitates some kind of transaction happening on the cross. But the actual reality of the incarnation isn't kind of unpacked. So have you have you ever heard sermons like this, the abrupt, the apologetic, or the Anselmian?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, yeah. Um probably more probably more the abrupt the abrupt one, very much so. Yes. And I remember I remember a few years ago in kind of discussions, i and I think you say it in your article, don't you, about get away from the manger, let's get to the cross, you know, and it's like well hang and I remember saying, you know, but hang on a second, like why would we just preach the same thing as we preach at Easter? Right. You know, and of course, yes, we preach Christ crucified, um and of course that's gonna be the that's the core of you know gospel preaching, isn't it? But Yeah But you kinda think there must be something different about this, you know. It's not just Annie was a baby, great, let's move on, and quickly let's get towards the the bit while the meat is. As if that's the only part that matters. Right. You know, surely surely the the the birth matters and also the life matters and death and resurrection. I think you make reference to was it you in here that makes reference to that even even the resurrection doesn't feature particularly highly in a lot of even evangelical preaching. Right.
SPEAKER_00Um 'cause that's the Anselm thing. I think. And I think that's Anselm's sort of influence on it. That if the only reason why God became man was to do the scapegoating bit on the cross, then once Good Friday's happened, what's Easter Sunday? And the way that people then preach Easter Sunday is, well, it proves that Good Friday worked. So let's get back to Good Friday. Um so it's it's just it's just interesting. I th I think that kind of syllogistic um atonement preaching just focuses everything in on Good Friday. But but when you don't understand incarnation, then you don't understand who it is who's on that cross. You know, if God just needed to zap sin, if he needed to judge sin in one place, why didn't he just zap the cross? Like why why does there need to be anybody on it? Like what what is the connection?
SPEAKER_01And that idea of not really understanding who's on the cross. Yeah. Um I you know, that's something I came up against in terms of talking with students at the secondary school. Um you know, if you if you if you don't start I mean, and that's this goes back to starting Trinitarianly as well, that Jesus suddenly appears on the scene, you know, you've been talking about God, and then you've got Jesus, and suddenly it's a bit like, well, who is Jesus? You know, he's the son of God. Oh well he's God. Well, which is he? Is he God or is he the son of God? And people go, well, it's a bit confusing. Right. Um and actually if you don't if you don't lay that kind of if you don't have that incarnation stuff on the Trinitarian basis, yes, it is a very odd story for people to kind of come into. The whole thing is weird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And part part of the thing I've I've come to see in the last week or so is thinking about lots of Christmas sermons, because I've been in a lot of Christmas services where I'm about to preach, and people um twice now, somebody who's been introducing me as as giving the sermon, they kind of say, um, well Glenn's gonna talk to us about the beginning of the story, i.e. Christmas, um, but we also need to remember the end of the story when Jesus dies on the cross. Um and I just thought that's an interesting timeline they've got in mind. If if the clock starts at Christmas and that's the beginning of the story, and then the clock sort of you know reaches its fulfilment at Easter, I think that's really interesting. Whereas go to John's gospel, and he's just he's just going to 30,000 feet, he's j he's just shown you this cosmic time scale, and then all of a sudden, actually, Christmas is at the end of the story too. Like Christmas is this fulfilment that is on its way to the cross. Absolutely, we don't want to deny that for a second. But there's been this Trinitarian thing, there's been this thing with the creation and fall, and then in this moment of incarnation, if you've set it up right, if you've gone back b before the the manger, then the manger starts to be this atoning act where God becomes with us and takes on our humanity, and later he takes on our sin as well, and it's all of a piece. But it's just very interesting where we begin, you know. We might think, okay, we begin at the cross we we begin at the manger, but let's keep the story going. But I think we begin far before the the manger, and then the manger starts to be part of the heart of the good news, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well I mean th I I think we've just had it so kind of drilled into us that you've got to get to the cross. You know, that that this is the bit that we must get to or or we or it's not gonna be much use. I mean, even even on Sunday night, like coming where I'm gonna be speaking at Lewis, I'm kind of I've taken a talk I did before and I've had to kind of chop it down to a shorter length. Um but I've very deliberately just put in a l a line about you know 33 I think I was saying like, you know, in 33 years later he took that darkness on himself. Yeah, whatever. But I kind of popped that in almost because I felt like I mean if I was if I was doing it at home on my home territory, yes. I which and I have, I did it, I've done that talk, yeah, um I probably feel I get away with letting it be more focused on the beginning. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I felt I had to I felt like I must put this in because people would be expecting that at least to be already didn't mention the cross. Yeah. You know, like you've got to kind of get it in there. Even though actually my big thing isn't it's not, you know, the talk it's not an explanation of atonement, what I'm doing. Right. It's really there's light in the darkness. Will you run Jesus is, you know, will you run to the light or from the light? Right. And that's my thing really. Are you gonna run to him or from him? There you go. Um and we talk a bit about, you know, why might you not go to the light? You know, the light reveals our darkness and all kinds of things like that. Um it's not a four-point kind of you know the the four points or whatever. Yeah, yeah. It's it's supposed to set people up, I suppose, to to go, oh yeah, actually. Yeah. I do see the darkness in the world, in me, whatever, and is Jesus the light?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And that's good. And I think that's the strength of, like you say, the the one point kind of sermon methodology that that's yeah, I I think people will go away with one point from any sermon. Even if you've got 17 points in your sermon, the most they will go away with is one point. And probably probably not the one you want them really to remember. Like that preacher is a bit fastidious. I don't know. Um that preacher needs to chill out a little bit a little bit. Um it's probably the one thing they take away. But I mean, if people are yelling at their iPhone right now and saying, no, but you know, we must preach Christ to him crucified. You know, nothing is Jesus. Oh yeah, your references there was there was a guy who left a comment. He was actually Australian, so oh dear. He um He left two comments, and uh he I I guess he felt he wasn't inflammatory enough after the first. So he just doubled down on it in the second one. By the second one, he was denouncing most Christians on on the earth. And uh he gave me the ultimatum repent or die. Um so but he started out by saying, What is what is there's some truth in that. That's true, no. But you know repent or die. But uh what are you saying, Paul? Because he took issue with meet the nativity because he said, you know, you depicted him as a baby. He grew up, for goodness sakes. He even called us idiots. You idiots, he grew up, he became a carpenter Yeah, for goodness sake, get away from the manger, get to the carpentry. Get to the carpentry shop, get to the wood shop. Come on. And I just I just thought that was hilarious. And and isn't that what people often do? They say, Okay, don't leave him in the manger. Remember, he grew up. And what they're trying to say is Jesus is easy to domesticate while he's a little baby, but he grew up to be a man, right? And you can't domesticate the man. Well, you can domesticate the man. He can't be domesticated all the time. And and and if you keep going, actually he ends up nailed to a piece of wood, stripped naked, choking to death. Like he is he is even more vulnerable on that cross. And so, you know, my my big thing is um absolutely when you see him in the cross, he is on a trajectory, he's on he's on a journey, he's going somewhere, and you should point to the where where he's going. But he's not going up in the world. Like from the manger, he goes down, down, down all the way to the cross.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, arguably as well, Jesus as an adult is probably more domesticated in the eyes of the world. I mean, if you say to someone, I mean, obviously at Christmas time, when you talk about Jesus, you instantly think about the birth of Jesus, the baby. But if you mention Jesus any other time of year, people probably think of Jesus the man. Right. And actually, what will they say? They'll say, Oh yeah, he was a good teacher or a good example. Yes. And so actually, even the man, with all the things he said, well, we'll just ignore those bits that we don't really like. But all here's the things he said which sounded quite nice.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And actually he's just as domesticated as an adult. Yeah. If not more so perhaps.
SPEAKER_00And actually, if we're celebrating the birth of him into the world, then we're actually saying that there's something about his person that is significant, that shapes the world. Whereas if you just leave him for instance, in the Sermon on On the Mount, you're saying, well, actually he just brings teaching rather than his person being important. But um So that's that's interesting. But but we are we are saying that we hold the crib and the cross together. The crib of the cross and the crown all go together, and you know, I I've I've preached pretty much the same sermon at Easter and at Christmas, Hebrews 2, because like Hebrews 2, you know, he um you know he laid hold of us. You know, he he helps us, he helps Abraham's seed. It's not angels he helps, it's Abraham's seed he lays hold of in order to be a merciful and faithful high priest and to make atonement. So it it's you know, it holds the incarnation together with the atonement, absolutely, and I think that's absolutely um vital. But what's interesting to me is that I don't hear at Easter lots of people saying, now don't forget to preach the incarnation. Yeah. You know, don't f don't forget that he was a baby first. Don't forget his full humanity as he dies for the sins of the world. Like no one does that. But so if you're really interested in holding together incarnation and atonement, then you know, then you know, keep preaching it at Easter as well. So so those those are that was my rant about sort of the uh the incomplete Christmas preaching, where you preach the abrupt incarnation, the apologetic incarnation uh incarnation, and the Anselmium Anselmian incarnation. And then uh on the positive side, uh I'd love to see more of an Athanasian incarnation. And uh and that's kind of what you were talking about, Paul, in terms of this Trinitarian basis. Unless unless you preach that he is the son of the father, full of the spirit, it becomes very hard to make sense of the incarnation. You I mean, because you can you can yell all you like about the one in the manger is your maker, and you can say, Lo within the manger lies he who built the starry skies, but unless you've got this Trinitarian framework for understanding how that's true, then it just becomes the abrupt it's God in skin. Don't ask me any questions. It's just God in skin. And so Athanasius has this you know this wonderful line that of course lots of people throughout church history have used, you know, in this marvellous exchange, he becomes what we are, that we might become what he is. And I just I just wonder, you know, how much Christmas preaching. You know, they're in the manger, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man so that we the sons of men become can become the sons of God. You know, the word became flesh so that we who are flesh can become children of the living God. You know, I just I just don't hear that kind of language. He joined our family so that we can join his family. You know. Where's that preaching?
SPEAKER_01Good question. Man. It's it's it's it's interesting though, because in some ways that some of that the language of Jesus stepping down, joining us, you know, jump jumping down into the pit, joining us in our mess, walking in the same darkness, all these kind of things in some ways that for me now has almost become second nature. Right. Um and it would feel strange for me to get to Christmas and not talk about those things. You know, I th I think maybe I'm almost almost going the other way and thinking like, I can't just talk about the cross. You know, it mustn't just talk about the cross. Um I've got to have, you know, a a better kind of incarnational um theology to and actually You know, I th I think I think there's I was just looking back at that bit about the apologetic one, which we didn't really mention, but I mean the thing I the apologetic one has its place, doesn't it? You know, Jesus was a real person in history and we can verify and all that. But it never that's gonna be useful for some people, I suppose. But it it it doesn't feel like uh it's gonna grab people's hearts, you know. I think where whereas when I think about the one who comes down to join us in our mess, walk in our darkness, and all those things you kinda go, wow. Yeah you know. Yeah, yeah. Not like, oh he was real. You know, it was just Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's kind of heartwarming. Right. And you know, someone who loves us to come down and jump into the pit, push us out of the pit. Right. You know? Um Right. That seems like that's a that's a different that'll preach.
SPEAKER_00That'll preach.
SPEAKER_01That'll preach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Cause yeah, I mean that's that's what I'm always saying. Uh, you know, if you're in a pit, what does love do? Love comes down and joins you in the pit and says, Your darkness will be my my darkness, your debts will be my debts, and you know, this is this is Christmas. And um yeah, so so yeah, and the Ancel Anselmium sort of not the Anselmium, the Athanasian helps you to do that. Here's the Son of the Father joining you in your mess. And and that's kind of the second A that I like to see more of in in preaching, which is the atoning incarnation. Um actually there's there's something about Emmanuel that means that is part of what atonement is. At one moment. Well, you know, what does atonement mean? At one moment. Um and so now God and man are at one. Like, like, wow. Okay. Yeah. And there's still work to be done, because he still needs to, you know, take our sin and you know and and pay for it and cleanse it, and he still needs to be passed through the furnace of the cross and brought out the other side to the you know, but um at the heart of our at one is the God man. And there he is in the manger. And um and therefore, you know, when you preach, you can kind of say you can say to people, what is God's attitude to the human race? Well, look in the manger. Um you know, he's not just the God for the little guy, he became the little guy. You know, he he he he really wants to draw near, doesn't he? He really wants to draw near. The word becoming flesh and making his dwelling among us.
SPEAKER_01Well do you come up against much uh kickback against that in the sense that Um So you know, you uh you think about you know that that you you've kind of done the play on the song, haven't you? In my God is so big, so strong, so mighty, and you flipped it, and you know, my god is so small, so weak is so helpless. Yes. Do you get kickback against that that people say, like, well actually even in the manger Jesus is not weak and helpless, he's he's he's the sustainer and ruler and you know, people and w and what do you kind of when people say that kind of thing, what what's your response?
SPEAKER_00I think well, what they're assuming is absolutely right to assume, which is that he is the word through whom heaven and earth came into being, he is the Son of the Father, he is the omnipotent Lord, Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Um yes, absolutely. And what does he do with all that lordship? What does he do with all that godness? Um because he's not just faking it, he's not you know like Philippians Philippians two, Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a slave, uh you know, being found in human appearance, he you know, he humbled himself and became obedient even to death, even death on the cross. So again, that's holding Crib and Cross together. But it's it's all about what does what does the one who is in very nature God do with his deity? And what he does is pour it out. Like, if God is a fountain of light and life and love, then what does he do? We see that fountain most expressly when he's poured out. Poured out into our humanity and then poured out with every drop of his blood on the cross.
SPEAKER_01So So it's not to I mean so so perhaps it's it's a different way of thinking in the sense that it's not that in in the incarnation Jesus divests himself of deity. It's actually you need to reconfigure your view of deity to be include an incarnation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And maybe you need to begin again with this incarnate one. If he's gonna be Lord, if he is if he is the Lord, if it's the little Lord Jesus, then what's your what's your concept of lordship? And this is not to diminish our concept of lordship, it's it's to actually make it, you know, far more um far more impressive. You know, it's it's like, you know, when I when I debated Masharraf the the the Muslim earlier in the year, you know, that the the guy who sees the drowning girl in the muddy canal and keeps on walking because he would sully his clothes is not as great as the guy who dives in and gets messy. Um and this is what his lordship looks like. Um it is a greater lordship. And I think it's it's kind of I think a lot of people I think a lot of people's theology of glory is exposed at Christmas. They've basically got this idea of God who is defined by bigness, um, and therefore whatever's going on in the manger, you almost want to kind of not take it too seriously, and you just go, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. But we but we know that he really is He's still big. He's still really, really big. And this is just a you know, he's just on holiday for his from his deity at this point. Whereas, you know, Philippians two is saying, no, he's expressing his deity. This is what deity looks like, which is why Luther said, No other God have I but thee, born in a manger, died on a tree. So whatever God you're thinking about, who wouldn't stoop to the cross because he's so big, you're not thinking about the living God. You know this is what the living God looks like.
SPEAKER_01And you think some of that is because even even as Christians and and even as you know faithful Christians, we can still kind of carry around kind of that ph philosophical God. Yes, you know, the omni god. Yes. And anything that suddenly falls outside of that, we go, Oh, that's not God. Yeah. You know, um but actually we have to say, well, wait, Jesus is our window and God. That's that's what you say, isn't it? That's the kind of phrase. Yeah. Um so anything Jesus is like, God is like. Yeah. And we have to let that shape our view of God rather than say, here's a predefined thing of what God looks like, here's the mould. Yeah. Because if Jesus then steps outside the mould, we start getting kind of worked up about it. We do.
SPEAKER_00And we say, Don't look at the manger! Remember he grew up, he became a carpenter. Remember that. Like And that's that's coming totally from a theology of glory. Like that guy, like, he grew up for goodness sakes, he became a carpenter, you know, don't put him in a box. No no no, we we put him in a manger, and then we nailed him to a cross, and that is his glory. And we're always we're always wanting to like save him from that shame when in fact that is his glory, and he keeps on saying it's his glory.
SPEAKER_01You know, and I think as well, I mean, I I like Sunday night again when I'm down in Lewis, part of my thing about, you know, here's this the child born into the world, stepping down into the darkness. I say, you know, you know, think look at every other you know, go and f look at every other god. You will not find a god who steps down and joins you in the in the mess, you know, who comes down into the darkness and whatnot. Um they'll stand at the top of the pit, the mess and say, sort yourself out, climb up, get out, whatever. Yeah. But actually they won't get down into the pit with you and and help, you know, push you out, right pull you out. Yeah. Um actually that is that is what is unique. That is one of the you know, one of the very unique things about about Jesus, isn't it? And so actually we to not to not have that in our preaching seems a strange thing.
SPEAKER_00To and to apologize for it and to want to leap over it and say Yeah, yeah, obviously he was in the manger, but he grew up, you know. And and that's why I always want to say, like USP. Yeah, it's right. I but I always want to say, like, he didn't Yeah, it's not that he grew up from the manger, he stooped down and he continued to stoop down from the manger all the way down to the cross.
SPEAKER_01And that that again is a Philippians 2 kind of a, you know, um And it's a different it's a different picture, you know, it's not the God who just says I'm in charge and I'm the ruler and do what I do. Yeah. Say what you know, b and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. The God who comes down and walks with you is a again, I think it's just a far more attractive. Uh I mean which is should be unsurprising, you know, really. God himself should actually be more attractive than our made-up versions of Trump stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and the way he takes charge of things. Like, so okay, if your if your definition of God is he's the one in charge, okay, right. Well the way he takes charge is if you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself. And so God the Son, yeah, you know, becomes man and does it, does exactly what we cannot do and do not do and never do and don't want to do.
SPEAKER_01Not the ego and power trip in the sky. Yeah. Very different.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so and that's the abasing incarnation of the third A. The abasing incarnation is is that my God is so small, so we can so helpless. The little Lord Jesus. Um, there's nothing that he will not do for you. Um I just think that's a beautiful a beautiful thing that we get the chance to preach at Christmas, and it would be a shame if we if we didn't take that opportunity, really. Um So I I offer those three to you. Be be more like Athanasius, preach uh uh more of an atoning incarnation and an abasing incarnation. And I think um, you know, you've you've referenced that sort of going down into the pit thing, and and you know, I'm always using the the story that Hudson Taylor used to tell. Um he converted this guy who was a uh an expert in uh the ancient Chinese religions, and uh this Chinese guy, when he was explaining to everyone else why he's gone with the Jesus thing, he kind of said, Well, imagine a man falls into a into a pit and he can't do anything about it. And uh Buddha comes to the top of the pit and he looks down and he says, My child, you need to realise this is all the veil of illusion, and walks away. And and then Confucius comes to the top of the pit and he says, My child, if you'd listened to me, you'd never have fallen in the pit. And he walks away, Jesus comes, sees the man in the pit, dives down, picks him up in his arms, and lifts him out again, and and that's that's the difference. And I think Christmas gives us a beautiful opportunity to preach that kind of a gospel. Absolutely. Good. Alright, well, everybody, we uh we do wish you a very, very happy Christmas, and uh make sure make sure you've got something to wash the turkey down with if uh those tubs of brandy butter. Yeah, my auntie Mabel, she just bastes it in brandy butter, and we love it. Yeah. Yeah, go figure. Um, Brilliant. So have a very, uh, very happy Christmas, and uh, we hope that uh you enjoy your incarnation fest. And uh, Paul, uh I want you to have a very happy Christmas. And you? And you I hope you do too. Merry Christmas! God bless us, God bless us, everyone. And uh we'll see you in uh 2018 for lots more exciting stuff at Speak Life. It's been a fantastic year in 2017, and uh do like us on Facebook uh because things are hotting up over there. I think we've we've at least doubled our likes over there in the last month or so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, more, more than.
SPEAKER_00And uh lots more content that we're working on. We've just been uh working on some more thorny questions videos using the Wonder of Sock puppets as well. Beautiful. Like the Muppets. Yeah, tune in. Like, yeah, like that, but better. And like better, and uh yeah, so happy Christmas, and we'll see you in the new year. Merry Christmas! Bye bye.