Today on the Evangelist Podcast, Easter Outreach.
SPEAKER_01The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_02You're listening to the Evangelist Podcast, the show where we discuss all things regarding telling the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm Andy Brinkley and I'm joined by Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_00As ever. Good to be with you. How are you, Glenn? Yeah, I'm alright. Yeah, we had we had our first day of spring yesterday, and that was that felt lovely, and then back to normal, isn't it? Back to back to a rainy eleven degrees.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's your wife's birthday yesterday.
SPEAKER_00It was my wife's birthday, so we went out and I got a I got her a massage. Somebody somebody pummeled her and put hot stones on her. Um yeah, I know. I'm not I'm not sure what the meaning behind the hot stones is, but we didn't ask, so warmth. Yeah, probably. Hopefully muscle relaxing and that sort of thing. So she appreciated that, and it was a lovely day by the seafront in Eastbourne. Good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So uh but also you're in the middle of a mission.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Up in Sandbatch.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_02So you went there last weekend, was it?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I've been on the front lines and then I sort of rotated back behind uh behind our lines for R and R. So last week ends uh up in Sandbatch in Cheshire. Uh what did we do? We had spoke to the youth on Friday night, and then Saturday we had a market stall all day, and we were sort of giving away free free books and plants at the local market. Which is a great idea, actually, if churches wanted plants. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was so um it was different because everyone else was, you know, asking for money and we were just giving stuff. So um that sort of set us apart, and um it was basically you just ask people in church, you know, do you have any books that you'd send to the charity shop anyway? And let's have them, and and uh we put them out on these big tables and you had to have a good rummage around before you found something decent, but um people did and they enjoyed having a rummage around and then they were surprised to learn it was free, and we got to tell them all about the stuff that's going on uh over the the week of mission and I I got into let's see if I can still remember, I got into conversation with Peter, with Joe, with Anya, with Charlotte, and with one other guy. So and that was all in the space of about two hours um all of them speaking very deeply about their lives and and and one guy Peter said to me, um he didn't know, you know, what life was all about. He'd just lost his two parents in the last year and he just didn't know why God would take them. Now one thing you need to know about Peter is he is at least in his early seventies. Like his parents must have been very old indeed. But it was just interesting. It was it was almost like it seemed like the first time he'd ever had to encounter death before. He was like, Why did God have to take them, you know, in their nineties? And you think, uh And we had a conversation, I said, you know, when do you think he should take them? You know, in their hundreds, hundred and ten, hundred and twenty, at what point should God let them die and actually bring the true hope of resurrection? And we spoke about Easter and that sort of thing, and he was um very moved by that and and uh took a book and wanted to come back at Easter and and l all these conversations were like that, but it all just happened off the back of Would you like a free book or a free free plant?
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's excellent. And you're going back um again?
SPEAKER_00Going back again, so yeah. So a bunch of events last weekend, and then this coming weekend, Easter weekend, um uh on Thursday there's a pub quiz. On Friday there's a Who'd Done It Night? Yeah. Um so it's like a murder mystery sort of dinner evening. Um it's all sold out and very popular. And then Saturday doing all age stuff, and then Sunday preaching at the uh Easter services in the morning and the evening.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Busy, busy time then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is a little bit. This is a sort of the calm in between the storms at the moment, but um really worth doing. Really worth doing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good. So today we're gonna talk about uh the Easter uh outreach. We released uh the Easter video. That's right. Um and it's uh uh well, a poem.
SPEAKER_00Yes, uh I'm a one-trick pony.
SPEAKER_02About the resurrection. Yes. Um just just give us an overview of of what it is, and then perhaps go on to or maybe start with you know your ideas behind it first and then let's go.
SPEAKER_00I've wanted to do for a while something on John 11. And just that idea of of Mary and Martha, they've just lost their brother Lazarus, they're at the funeral, Jesus shows up late, and that that line, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. I mean, that's just that's such a powerful line. So I just I've for a long while I've thought, you know, I think I think there's a poem in that. Um Jesus comes late. Um and actually the m the more I've thought about that as a theme, the more I see it in the gospels, actually. Um Jesus just being infuriating, Jesus just not working according to the timetable that he's meant to work according to. Like even even yesterday I was sort of um reading Luke chapter five, and you know, Jesus healed lots of people and and the crowds grew and and Jesus is like, right, I need to leave, you know, I've come to preach the gospel elsewhere, and so off he goes somewhere else. And um just he's always frustrating people. Or you think of um Jairus, you know, come and raise up my little daughter, she's twelve years old, she's he doesn't say raise her up, he heal her, she isn't dead yet. You've got you've still got time, Jesus, if only you come and you can heal her from dying.
SPEAKER_02And then he gets interrupted. Then he gets interrupted by the woman at with the issue of blood.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, who's like grabbing hold of him. Yeah. And and then he brings everything to a massive halt. And he stops. And like like when you understand that he is off to save a life, this is just incredible. Imagine putting yourself in Jairus's shoes. You know, it's meant to be a race against the clock, and Jesus is stopping and chatting with a woman who would have been excluded from his own synagogue because she's unclean. And he just brings everything to a halt and he has a chat with a woman. He could have a chat with her tomorrow, you know? Like, have a sense of priority, Jesus. And he doesn't have the same sense of priority at all. And I think that's because he can raise the dead. You know, the reason my to-do list looks the way it looks is because I can't raise the dead, and I'm racing against the clock, and I'm there is a finality to my life, and all my other priorities must take shape from the fact that you know, when you're dead, you're dead. But Jesus Jesus can raise the dead, so he can stop and have a chat. Or when Lazarus, you know, when he's told that Lazarus is ill, he can stay where he is two more days. Which is what he does in in John 11. Um which is infuriating. But it's because he can raise the dead that he actually allows our little cross-like situations to develop. And I just think that's a really interesting theme. That because he is the resurrection and the life, therefore the valley of the shadow of death will come upon us. That almost like it's inevitable because he is into resurrection, therefore he allows death to happen. Which is infuriating. But at the end of the day, it it's kind of what we all want. Because, you know, like Peter, who is this guy at the marketplace in Sandbatch, you know, at what stage does he let your mum and dad die? Does does does he does he constantly come and heal your mum and dad so that they never die? Uh well no, nobody nobody thinks he should continually heal them until they're three hundred years old. Well, what we really want is actually for him to allow our loved ones to die and then to raise them up incorruptible, so that they will never die again. And that's actually what he does. But it's very confronting. And so putting yourselves in the shoes of Mary or Martha saying, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died I think puts you in touch with where all of us spend our lives, because we're always writing to Jesus, praying to Jesus, saying the one you love needs help. We're always doing that. And he doesn't always seem to help the way that you know we want him to. So how do you make sense of that? And and I guess this poem is a way of doing that.
SPEAKER_02So the poem sort of starts with, you know, uh it's like first person view as if the the cameraman is Jesus. That's right. And you're speaking to the camera as if as if you were Martha or a good turn at being Martha.
SPEAKER_00Mary, probably. I'm probably more of a Mary. I don't know. I'm not very helpful, so I'm probably more of a Mary.
SPEAKER_02And then um and then you you sort of turn it round and there's a sort of a realization that Jesus raises the dead, so kind of Yeah, exactly. So Well at let's at that point, let's just uh stop and we'll uh we'll play the soundtrack. Yeah. Um you can watch this on on the post uh for this episode, um but if we'll just listen to it for now, and then you can hear the words.
SPEAKER_00If you'd been here, my brother would not have died. If you'd tried. Were you otherwise occupied? Were you hiding? Biding your time? For what? A deeper challenge, a grander entrance, a brighter glory, a better story? The nick of time is a good story. That would do. 11th hour you'd come through. Midnight you would you. Now tap us to. Where were you? If you'd been here, my brother would not have died. You were meant to ride in on the white horse, enter the fray, the dragon slay, save the day. Did you hear us pray? Did you want it this way? If you'd been here to stop him dying, why are you crying? You're meant to be death-defying. Why are you sighing at the tomb to cry in mortal ruin? Why in God's name are you queuing for the same? Your commander-in-chief. We demanded relief. Now you landed beneath all our sorrows and grief. Now it's you on your knees, empty-handed, bequeathing as none of our pleas. Is this what you chose? To bring only tears? We got plenty of those. Why are you here? You say to draw near. And then to sink like a stone past the brink of the chasm we desperately fear. In darkness unfolded our terrors you shouldered while pierced by the nails of the spear. You have been here. You've stooped far below all the depths that we know. Engulfed in our weeping in the morning. Submerged in the grave, then risen to save, offending assumptions we've made. See, if you'd been here the way that we pray, we'd only succeed in this late. We'd only live the weakness. Yeah. And I think and bec and again it's this idea that because he is the resurrection, therefore there will be death. Um so, you know, the the the line that I nicked from George Herbert, um, the old uh uh poet of the 17th century, he um he spoke about um death being a gardener. Death used to be um the enemy, but through Jesus death became a gardener. What does a gardener do? Puts you in the ground. And when you come up, you come up again better. And so I just ripped off that line Um Through you, death's a gardener, and we are the seed, and this is the path resurrection decreed. That actually because there's resurrection, then the path that we must go on is through death and out the other side. Um So yeah, that's that's really the the the big message.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, that's why I have 1 Corinthians 15, as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all arise. That really if you want to wrap your head around Easter, you've got to wrap your head around both those movements, the down and then the up, the perishing and then the salvation, the death and then the life. Um which is Good Friday and then Easter Sunday. Yeah. Um that what Jesus does is not from on high zap us with heavenly blessings. What he does is dive down beneath where we are. He stoops lower than we'd ever be prepared to go, and then punches a hole through death and comes out the other side. So, in a sense, you know, it's the it's a similar theme to Cannonball from last year. You know, Cannonball um different genre, you know, kind of a a rap and a and a um uh a cartoon, basically a comic. But it's that same thing that in Cannonball last year's video, you know, we're born sinking into quicksand, we're sinking down into the pit. What we what we think we want is a rescue rope. What God actually sends is a cannibal, and the cannibal comes and you know, dives down deeper than where we are in order to punch a hole through death and come out the other side. And so Jesus again says, if you want to follow me, you're coming through death and out the other side to resurrection. Um and I guess I just bang that drum again and again because I think I think as evangelicals we're very good at saying Jesus died for me. But sometimes what we mean by that is He died over there, so that I remain sort of pristine over here. Um whereas I think what it really is is Jesus died for me in that he kind of clings to me and takes me down into the death that I deserve and takes me safely through it and out the other side. So that Jesus doesn't just die for me, but I die in him and rise in him. And that's that's sort of been the theme really of the last two Easters, because I think once we once we grab hold of that, then ha you know, the question of how we deal with our own suffering becomes a lot more clear. I've I've had many people in evangelism say to me, uh, Well, if if Jesus died for me, then why would bad things happen to me? You know, 'cause he's died for me. He's taken all the bad stuff, so there must be no more bad stuff for me to go through. People say that all the time. And I think that's sort of this idea of Jesus dying for me without me dying in him. But what the real truth is, Jesus dies for me because I die in him, and he carries me safely through the judgment and out the other side. But in him carrying me through that, I will take the same path that he takes, which is down through death and out the other side.
SPEAKER_02Good, okay. Well if you want to um share the video on uh social media, etc. Just go to the web address speaklife.org.uk slash te p and uh you'll find the link there at the top um or a little way down if uh you're listening to this later. And uh you can share that on uh Twitter, Facebook, etcetera. Mm-hmm. So uh what what have you got coming up for doing over Easter?
SPEAKER_00So back to Sandbatch. And um while I'm there I'm gonna be yeah, looking forward to preaching. I'm preaching on Good Friday on Psalm eighty-eight and that psalm of lament and total despair, really, and how Jesus takes our songs of sorrow onto himself at the cross and sings them for us. So that's my Good Friday sermon. And then my Easter Sunday sermon I'm gonna be preaching uh about Thomas, uh, what would it take for you to believe? What would it take? Um and uh yeah, we we might we might try and get recording um of it, but um but essentially I go through the the six things that resurrection makes sense of. Um six things, let's see if I can remember them. Six things are resurrection makes sense of the universe, number one. Um because you know, if you don't think that there's anything beyond death, if you don't think there's a bigger power than death, then really you are probably a naturalist, you're a materialist, and that means that you think that the universe came from nothing, out of nowhere, for no good reason, that you know, order has come out of chaos, that life has come from non-life, that consciousness has come from non-consciousness, all through natural processes, um which are the some of the most extraordinary miracles ever imagined. You know, uh I think that the non-living Jesus became living again. But if you're a naturalist, you think that inorganic chemicals became life. And that's a far huger miracle. Um inorganic chemicals became life with nothing or nobody to do that. You know. So the resurrection actually makes sense of the universe. We live in a universe in which we find ourselves living and conscious in an ordered universe where existing and not non-existing. Um so all those miracles make sense if there's a God of resurrection. They don't make sense if there's not. So resurrection makes sense, number one, of the universe, number two of the Bible, and just the Bible makes hundreds of prophecies of the Messiah and of his uh resurrection from the dead. You know, twenty-nine um key prophecies from the Old Testament are fulfilled on Good Friday. And the Christian is just saying, you know, three days later, a whole bunch more came true. And if if all these other prophecies are being fulfilled in Jesus, why not this one? So the resurrection makes sense, one of the universe, two of the Bible, three of the first century facts. So the first century facts that pretty much any historian kind of agrees to is that Jesus died under Pontius Pilate, he was definitely dead, he was definitely put in that tomb, they definitely knew which tomb it was. Three days later it was definitely empty. And then people, lots of people, had experiences of meeting with the risen Jesus, and within a few weeks the Christian movement kind of begins and takes off at the very point, in the very place where the tomb is meant to be empty. Those are the first century facts, and you might come up with all sorts of theories about how you account for that, but I think the best explanation is Jesus rose. So, the universe, the Bible, the first century facts, then fourthly, world history Um how do you make sense of the fact that today well over two billion people call Jesus Lord? You know, if he really did just die age thirty-three as this crucified nobody, how on earth is he the most famous person who ever lived now? Like if that if that's where the story ended, why are there four and a half thousand new churches this Sunday? And there'll have to be another four and a half thousand new churches the Sunday after, and another four and a half thousand churches the Sunday after that. This huge sociological phenomenon, the biggest movement the world's ever seen, how do you you know, you know, the the they they uh discovered the big bang because they looked at an expanding universe and they just wound the clock back and they think they thought, well, if it's expanding, then there must have been like this zero point where there was a big bang. Well, you do the same thing with the church. The church is just this massively expanding phenomenon. You wind it all back, and it and it really does begin AD thirty with an extraordinary explosion of energy. What is that explosion of energy? Well, we believe it's the resurrection. So the universe, the Bible, first century facts, world history. Fifthly, your heart. Um okay, your heart, you go after things that are beyond death. You think that your life has meaning beyond death. Um you don't just live like we're on the Titanic and we're all just going down and we'll all be extinguished. Um If you did, like it wouldn't matter whether you went down hugging people or whether you went down mugging people. Um those things wouldn't matter if we're just headed for extinction. But we do prize personal reality and relationships and love and goodness and truth and beauty and all these sorts of things. We live as though death is not Lord, we live as though there's something bigger than death that gives our lives meaning. Well, we think, yeah, there is, there is something. There is a God of resurrection who is bigger than death. That's the fifth thing, your heart. And then sixthly uh what is the sixth thing? Oh yeah, Jesus' identity. Um you just gotta figure out who is this Jesus. Like 'cause if he's the Son of God, it would be really extraordinary if he didn't rise from the dead, right? And that's that's what the Apostle Peter says in Acts chapter three. A few weeks later, he gets up and he says, Well, he's the author of life. It was impossible for death to hold him. And I guess, you know, open up the scriptures, have a look at who Jesus is, and think to yourself, could this guy be bigger than death? No one else is bigger than death, but maybe could this guy be bigger than death? Could he be the Son of God? If he is, then of course he beat death. And and so therefore the resurrection makes sense of all these things. Believe in Jesus. Okay, so there's six points for my next term. There we go. For those taking notes. Yeah. Yeah. Can you remember any of them? No.
SPEAKER_02Well, I could, but you put me on the spot. Okay, alright. Great. So then uh you're you're preaching at Easter and then Yeah, and then coming home and collapsing a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and um Easter Monday, etc. Yeah, no, plenty of other stuff in the diary, but uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we're getting ahead for uh reading between the lines at the moment. That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're up to in the we're in the eighties, almost into the nineties now. So I'll feel I'll feel better when we're in three figures.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. For those that don't know, Reading Between the Lines is a daily video which you can get on YouTube, on our YouTube channel.
SPEAKER_00Get into that. And also, and if you want to figure out where I am and what I'm up to, the Speak Life Daily would be great to keep you in touch with all those things. It uh helps you know what I'm doing and and the various preaching engagements, and I really value your prayers for those things. Uh, but it also gives you some great stories about the gospel advancing around the world that you can pray for that, uh, and also other little devotional thoughts um that should inspire you for your own life of witness.
SPEAKER_02Great. Okay, well, we better leave it there. Thanks so much for listening, and uh, we'll speak to you next time. See ya.