Welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scrivener. So glad to have your company. These are some special podcasts that we are releasing as a response to the COVID-19 crisis. As the pandemic has hit, as lockdown has hit, and as we are all facing a health crisis and an economic crisis, people are starting to ask big questions. We've already dealt with questions such as how do I face my anxiety and how do I pray, perhaps for the first time. In this episode, we're gonna think about how do I face my mortality, my fragility. This really is uh the deepest question that you can ask. It's a sensitive question and one that we rarely consider, but it is so worth doing. And on these webinars that we held as lockdown began, we engaged the wisdom of Reverend Dr. Paul Blackham and Dr. Joe Jackson. Our two specialists will help us through this issue of how do we face death. These were live webinars held on Facebook. As you'll hear, there are many people who asked questions throughout it, and we tried to engage those questions as we went along. Uh fortunately, you can't engage with this as it is already recorded. But what you can do is listen and share these podcasts around the place. Thousands and thousands of people have been blessed by these webinars, and we pray that uh they would bless many more people as you share the wealth. So do be doing that. But without further ado, let's listen in to my conversation with Paul Blackham and Joe Jackson.
SPEAKER_03Welcome everybody. Uh, my name is Glenn Scrivener. I am from Speak Life, and uh all week we have been doing these webinars about adjusting to the new normal. And uh we're so pleased that you can join us on this very special Friday, this Good Friday. And we might be getting into why it is that Christians feel that today is such a good Friday. Uh, but uh for all these different webinars, we've been joined by two very special guests. Uh, we've got uh Reverend Dr. Paul Blackham and Dr. Joe Jackson, uh, both weighing in with uh the wisdom that they have from the scriptures and from uh their professional lives in terms of facing these new issues. We thought about anxiety on our first webinar on Monday. Uh, we then thought about uh how to pray on Wednesday nights, and now we are thinking about our fragility. How do we face our fragility? And it was interesting designing the publicity for this evening's webinar because actually what we really want to think about is our mortality. But how do you put facing your mortality onto an image that people will actually click? That was a challenge. Um, when we raise the issue of death, um, that tends to shut down conversations. And yet, in this last month, people are facing their mortality, facing their fragility in a really new way. Um, and I just thought it would be really interesting. Can we be grown-ups and can we press into this topic uh that we usually shelve? And can we see whether the scriptures can speak into these issues of today? Uh, we are speaking from a Christian perspective, and uh, we don't expect you to be Christians uh as you listen in, uh, but we hope that in the next hour you will hear that the wisdom of Jesus is more than able to meet the demands and the questions of today. And if you don't believe that right now, hang around for the hour, ask your questions, and see if the wisdom of Jesus is not sufficient to meet even your deepest fears. Um, let's uh introduce our guests for uh this evening. Um, let's uh go across to Dr. Joe Jackson. And uh if uh Joe, um people might not have uh been tuning in on Monday and Wednesday nights. So if you could give a brief introduction to yourself, and if you could uh talk to us about how have you felt fragile in the last month?
SPEAKER_00Well, good evening um to everyone listening in. Uh as Glenn said, my name's Joe. I'm a psychologist by training. Um I work currently as director of counselling at All Souls, Lang and Place. I'm married to Mark, um, who uh is a leader of Inspire St. James Clark and Martin. We have four children who he is currently watching over tonight, which I appreciate. Um, the question of when have I last felt fragile in the past few weeks? I think you know, when when all of this started, when we first entered lockdown, I think to be totally honest, I was feeling okay about it. Um I thought this was going to be a bit inconvenient, particularly having the kids off school and trying to navigate that, but there were also going to be some wonderful things about it, more time with family, a potentially slower pace of life. Um, and then it was one evening when I spoke to a dear friend of mine who now lives in South Africa, and she told me that her sister-in-law died and that they weren't able to attend the funeral. And she also reminded me that how um many people in South Africa will simply die of starvation as a result of the coronavirus, so not even of the virus itself. And I think um that conversation really shook me out of my probably somewhat middle class uh comfort um uh sort of uh mentality and and drove home to me the hideousness of of what we're facing as a world, really, at the moment.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we have a home to self-isolate in if we do. And if we do, um there there is privilege that we need to acknowledge. And yeah, yeah. How how about you, uh Paul? If you could uh introduce yourself to us as well, and uh and when have you felt fragile in this last month?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so yeah, I'm Paul Blackham, and I'm a I've been a minister for about nearly 25 years, and uh for the past 15 or so I've been doing church planting around the country in different places in South Wales um and now in London, and uh I'm married, I have three children, and I think the fragility point, there's two things. I think that the Boris thing was quite interesting because I knew people who had become ill and uh people I I knew of people quite close who died, but when you saw Boris who Boris Johnson, big powerful man, wealthy, you know, politically powerful, everything, and then he is in intensive care, that struck home. And it's if I without getting over kind of spiritual as well, uh the psalms this morning, the psalm was um one of the this evening was Psalm 55, which it's one of these psalms that's um it's kind of Jesus praying in thinking about the fact he's gonna die. Psalm 22 is the most famous example of this about him dying, but in Psalm 55, it's this kind of prophecy about him facing death, and in it it has him being completely overwhelmed with fearfulness and trembling in the face of death and wanting to just run away from it, and it that actually every it's really got me meditating on how Jesus does not take death lightly. And he, when on this day that on which he dies, and he's in this Garden of Gethsemane experience, and he's the most powerful man in what you know, the run ruler of the universe and all this kind of thing, commands angels and demons and the weather and everything. But when he and he knows what death is, and he must face this particular kind of death that we're thinking about on Good Friday, this God forsaken death, and it so rattles him that he, even the infinite almighty God, can dare not, cannot face it almost, and is almost overwhelmed by it. And it comes out in this psalm about just wanting to run away and escape from it, and it's too much, overwhelm me, horror, all this kind of thing, and it's that Boris in a much less way, but this Jesus thing is even the even he is completely shaken by it, and that left is several times in the past month, as I've meditated on that, I've thought it's right to tremble in the face of this.
SPEAKER_03In in the Garden of Gethsemane, which we remembered yesterday, so that the Thursday before the cross, Jesus goes up the Mount of Olives and he prays in a particular garden, and he says these words to uh just a handful of his followers. He says, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, which is fascinating because he's not just saying, Um, I'm sorrowful because I'm gonna die, he's saying, I'm so sad it could kill me. Um and just just that the prospect of of what he was about to go through says to us that that death is is uh is an enemy. And we're gonna think about that uh tonight. Death is uh an enemy according to the Bible, um, but he's an enemy that is out of sight, out of mind, mostly. In modern 21st century Western culture, we we try to keep death at bay as much as we can. And we kind of succeed in in some sense. You know, our our consciousness of our mortality is is not really front and center in people's thinking, is it, Jo?
SPEAKER_00No, not at all. I think you're you're exactly right. We we do, we try to avoid death. I mean, there is um there is death anxiety as um uh as an issue. Um and and it has been suggested that perhaps death anxiety is actually at the center of many other mental health conditions, OCD, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, depression, but it's not dealt with. And and interestingly, one of the and nor is it researched much. Um and and it suggested that perhaps one of the reasons it's not is because even clinicians don't want to think about it.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00Um, even researchers don't want to think about it. So um, you know, even when it comes to working with people in psychotherapy, dealing with the the kind of deepest issues and concerns in people's lives, even then, oftentimes um death is still pushed the corner.
SPEAKER_03Paul, is is there a problem in our culture where we're not seeing death?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think uh it goes quite deep in lots of ways that because people can realistically, most people can expect to live a fur age. Um, and the the just that sense of people dying at all kinds of ages in significant numbers is something that's receded certainly from modern Western cultures mentality. The idea is you don't really need to think about death for the vast majority of people for really till for ages, for ages. And there's all these kind of um subcultures like saying if I just eat the right stuff and exercise enough, I'm gonna live to be at least a hundred. And there's loads of that sense of if I just do the right things, death isn't really on my agenda for the foreseeable future, right through to the idea of let's have new um biotechnologies that will enable that to be uh extended and more plausible for more people, even right up to people who are the transhumanists who literally want to replace the flesh and blood human body with either robotic things or computer artificial intelligence, all of these things which just sound both nightmarish and ridiculous, and yet are totally in the kind of attention of certain echelons of elite people who really do believe that that is what technology should be about, to basically abolish death. And although it isn't realistic, even the way we play games and it'll say you've died, go again, go again, I've got several lives, it all embrees in us this idea, well, death maybe, I maybe, but I think I can find a way round it or to go again. And even when people know they can't, I was with a uh group of quite wealthy people, and I was talking about what happens when you die, and and I finished that, and we were having this lovely dinner time, and it turned out the majority of the people in that room had made arrangements so that were they diagnosed with certain illnesses, they were gonna go to dignitas and just uh end life as they put it when we decide. Which of course wasn't true because it means all they were really saying is we would like to be able to slightly accelerate it if it comes to it. But they wanted a sense of control that death was somehow not this inevitable outside thing, that they wanted to at least feel they had that level of control.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was um I was sharing the message of Jesus with people on the on the streets. Uh, this this is probably 18 months ago. And um, I got talking to a guy, and his big blockage, as we were talking about, I said, you know, do you have a faith yourself and what do you make of Jesus? And we got into this conversation, but his big block was, how could God take both my mother and my father last year? Last year, both of them died in the same year. What kind of God does that? And the one thing you need to know about this guy is that he was at least in his early 60s. At least in his early 60s. And it it it was like a bolt from the blue that he might in his early 60s lose his parents. Um now, just a few generations ago, to live to your early 60s, you'd done extremely well. And and he thought it was his birthright to have both his parents still living when they must have been in their, I don't know, late 80s, something like that. Um, it's just it's just not front and center in people's lives. And then coronavirus hits, and then we start Googling and we start figuring out, well, what's you know, what percentage of the population get the disease? And then if you get the disease, what percentage go to hospital? And if you go to hospital, what percentage go to ICU? And if you go to ICO, ICU, you know what percentage are intubated, and and what percentage of people survive when they're intubated? And and all the time, obviously, we're all infected with this, you know, fatal illness called life. And, you know, the and the survival rates are crazy bad. Um, but we we never think about that. You know, in in what ways have you seen coronavirus actually bringing death onto the agenda of people?
SPEAKER_00I mean it's so interesting because, as you said, a number of years ago, this this wouldn't have come as such a shock. I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said, in this world, nothing can be certain except death and taxes. Um, and there was a sense in which the reality of death was in the forefront of people's minds, and and now it's not so much. But with the coronavirus, I mean, I've looked up what the likelihood of is of me dying at my age. I'm sure a number of us have done that. Um and and it and it's frightening. Um, it's something that we're not used to, you know, particularly um in the worst, and particularly with the privileges of healthcare and um the wonderful NHS that we have, the expectation is that the doctor should be able to fix it. Um and and yet here we're in a situation where hundreds, thousands of people are dying and and we can't we can't fix it.
SPEAKER_03And I think it's it it really has been striking people. I think a lot of people thought it's an old person's thing. And if you have an underlying health condition, and as long as you're under 70, you're fine. And it's it's shocked a lot of people. Um it shocked me, you know, when the when the fur when um uh tragically, uh a few days ago a five-year-old died with coronavirus. And I'd been telling myself, don't worry about the kids. Okay, the kids will be fine because no one aged five gets corona, and then a five-year-old dies. And I I think people are getting that that sense of, okay, maybe I'm mortal too. Um, maybe death isn't something that happens to to other people, maybe, maybe it's us. Um should we should we move on to the the issue of of death in in the Bible is an enemy? Because I I think uh I think sometimes um sometimes people can see Christians as being quite blasé about life and death, and hey, it doesn't matter because you go off and you know you have pie in the sky when you die, and so you you don't you don't really worry too much about death, and yet the Bible gets very serious about death, doesn't it, Paul? How how serious does the Bible take death?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's that's I find that just constantly reading the Bible me is the best antidote for me to the culture's kind of blindness to it. The Bible just isn't blind to it. And so this living God, who at the beginning of all things made us and really said, I don't want you guys to ever die, but if you if you depart from me, you're gonna. I promise you that, that's what'll happen. And when we did, he throughout the scriptures, all the way from the first book to the last book, keeps it on the agenda. And really early on, if you start reading the Bible, he says this, and then there's these two brothers, the first two brothers, one of them kills the other, and that's right at the beginning, death, and then you hardly read any further, and then you get this genealogy where it's like this guy gives birth, you know, has this kid, he dies, next one, he dies, next one, he dies, next one, he dies, and it's just this relentless litany of death, and it and it's deliberate, and also when you're reading those first five books of the Bible, it all kind of centers on killing and blood and sacrifice and death. And some people go, Oh, I didn't like that, I don't want that sort of a Bible, I just want gentle Jesus, like you know, reaching out and playing with the kids and all that lovely stuff. Look, the Bible's not fantasy land, the Bible's real world, and that stuff about blood and death and sacrifice is real, and it's because it's dealing with the real stuff. And there's a psalm written by Moses, it's Psalm 90. You can look it up, it's these big psalm, this one. And when you read it, so Moses, he's like the second most important person in the Bible, other than Jesus, and he writes this psalm. And really, what is it? If you get one psalm and you're the guy who wrote the first five books of the Bible, you're the big law person, what are you gonna say with your one psalm? He says this life is super short. Lord God, help me to get that into my head and realize that you don't die, and my only hope is to connect to you.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah, help us to number our days rightly that we might gain a heart of wisdom. Um, yeah, we have a finite number of heartbeats and they're running out one at a time. Um and and Joe, how does that help us? Um, how does it how does it help us to think of death in those terms? Because that that that just might sound scary, but how is it actually helpful to think of death as an enemy?
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, I actually find it tremendously comforting because in the face of death, it uh I am totally unnerved, I am sad to my core, uh, it really disturbs me. And for many others, you know, I have counsel people who have lost loved ones, who have lost children, who have lost partners, um, as well as parents and and others. And it it's it's awful. It is a total tragedy, and it is and and it is right to mourn and to weep. And I love the fact that um when Jesus uh recognizes The death of his friend, he he cries. I mean it's the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept. Um, but actually, that's that's hugely reassuring because instead of thinking, Oh, I shouldn't be too upset about this because you know I believe in Jesus or I believe in life after death, or or do you know what this is just a natural part of uh the whole circle of life thing? Um, actually, no, Jesus is he's crying about it. There's something that is awful about it, and and not only does that mean that he then understands our grief, um, but is also present with us in it, um, which actually remarkably brings comfort. It's not wrong to mourn and to cry and to feel that that death is an enemy.
SPEAKER_03Right. I'm often when I when this topic comes up, I'm often reminding people of that very story. It's in John chapter 11, and um Jesus shows up late to a funeral. You know, the sisters of the dead man had asked him to heal Lazarus, and Jesus doesn't, and he delays, and in the delay, Lazarus dies. And I think it's a fascinating picture because um we want Jesus to heal the sick man. We want things to go down a little bit. We'll we'll allow them to go down a little bit. I mean, that makes for a better story, you know, a bit of a redemptive turn, that's fine. But Jesus allows things to go down to catastrophic levels and he dies. And so, and then he has the temerity to show up at the funeral, having not saved the guy from death. So it's this it's this incredible picture. God shows up late to the funeral, but then he outcries all the all the other Middle Eastern mourners, which takes it would take a lot to noticeably cry in such a way when there probably might have been you know professional mourners there and and people really losing it. And when God shows up, he really cries, he really weeps, and he really gets angry. You know, he comes to the tomb of Lazarus and he snorts with indignation at this this horrible thing called, you know, so he's he's sad and he's mad at it. And and isn't that uh lovely to know that uh the Lord understands our our own reactions to death, which is which is sadness and anger um in the in in the face of it. Um but Paul, death, death is even more of an enemy, isn't it? Because um it's not just that our hearts cease beating. Um the Bible has a much bigger, much grander, um, much longer lasting view of death, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it really does, because we see what is really just the almost the superficial symptoms of death. We look at this body and see that something's happened to it, something's left it, the spark has gone. Uh and you people look at a person who look at this body that has recently died, and they're like, I just don't recognize that as this person that I knew. It's they know that person is not there anymore. And although like in modern materialist society, the it's the idea, well, you know, you die, that's it, it's oblivion, and then not you know, there's nothing. But that isn't it. In the but human beings are, and we've talked on this on our other evenings, but the living God made human beings with such amazing dreams. We were made to be these eternal kings and queens of the universe to live with him and share his life, to marry the Lord Jesus, the eternal son, and share life with him for all eternity. And every human being we ever meet, they may be regarded as nothing by society. But this living God, Jesus once said, Listen, even if you gained everything in the whole world but lost one soul, one human soul, it's not worth it because one human soul is like so precious for an immortal kind of thing. Well, not so much immortal, because immortal means like resurrection life. That is his, but to exist in some way forever. The reason for that is human beings are so much more important and meaningful than we ever dream, and the living God will do anything for it. So that sense in the Bible, that when we die, there's this sense in which, when you leave your body, there's this phrase that the Apostle Paul used, absent from the body, like as if you can exist beyond your body, absent from the body for him, because he is joined to Christ and trusts this Jesus, he says, When I'm absent from the body, I'm present with Jesus, which is amazing. But, but for the majority of human beings, that isn't what it is. When you're absent from the brain, there is no home to go to. There is nobody to get hold of you. And there's this sense of sinking down into like an underworld, or sometimes it's called a pit. A pit, and it's called Sheol or Hades, this under like a place, like a realm of death. That's the way of the thing, a realm of death, and this sense it's a shadowy place of silence and gloom and a sense of torment where there's a loneliness about it. And you know, cultures all over the world have this sense that their ancestors are these gloomy, shadowy figures that are not, they kind of exist, but there's no real life. You get it even in like uh Homer, um Greek stuff, but it's in all cultures, um, Japanese culture, all sorts of cultures have this sense that without that that the natural human fate is to fade, to fade into this ghostly kind of shadow existence and to wait like that till the end. That is this terrible fate that is ours without Jesus.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, one of one of the Bible words, I guess, is perishing is a word that constantly comes up in that Gospel of John that we've we've mentioned already. Um, perishing. And I often think of like a Christmas tree. You know, a Christmas tree is kind of cut down and it looks and smells great, but as as as soon as you cut down that pine tree, it's dead. Um and you dress it up in decorations and you surround it with family and food and festivities, and it's it's great, but it's perishing. And the needles start to drop, and a bit of brown starts to show, and you you you you cover it with tinsel and you keep the show on the road, but at some point in January you you chuck it out, it's perishing. And the Bible says that that cutting off thing has already happened. You know, that that's that's one of the most confronting things that the Bible says about death. Um, we're dead already. Um cut off from our life source. If God is life, you know, the Father always pouring the life of the Spirit into the Son, He's a fountain of life. To be disconnected from Him is to be perishing. It's to be that sort of cut flower or that cut pine tree, that Christmas tree, and whatever you dress yourself up in, however good you look, however you know great you smell, um, Christmas trees look and look smell great, but disconnected we're perishing. And the Bible, I guess, says you don't want to get stuck in that perishing forever, because everyone lives forever. But you don't want to get stuck and and confirmed and hardened into that perishing, perishing, perishing, perishing. Um that that that is this this grand scope, this eternal scope that we're we're thinking of when we when we think of death. Um so Joe, what what kind of what kind of hope is there then? Um I guess we're on we're on Good Friday. Um how how how do the truths of of of Easter, let's say, um, relate to we've had the bad news, we're we're sinking down. How does Jesus make a difference?
SPEAKER_00Well, to go back to that story um that you mentioned, or that we talked about earlier, Glenn, about uh Jesus and coming to uh the death of his friend Lazarus and um arriving late uh and crying out and weeping and mourning. Um the story doesn't end there. Uh there's then this remarkable turnaround um where he actually calls the dead man's name. He says, Lazarus, come out. Um, and to everyone's utter shock, the dead man hears his voice, um, you know, stands up and comes out of the grave. Um, and uh, you know, just before that, he has an interaction with the dead man's sisters, um Mary and Martha. Um, and in those interactions, he says to them, Don't let me know that that I am the resurrection and the life. Um, and so the the the picture and the experience of him raising Lazarus to f from the grave is actually just a shadow of what he is going to ultimately accomplish for everyone who trusts in him. Um, that he promises that death isn't the end with him, that that he himself, the person of Jesus, is the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_03And how I I think uh I think I I love a band called Arcade Fire, and they've got they've got a um uh a song that says um afterlife, oh my god, what an awful word. Um and it's it's interesting because I I think the the lead singer's had quite a bit of contact with Christianity in the past, but I think the Christianity that he's rejected is this idea that there's an afterlife. That there's a you know, like real life is being in a rock band and touring the world. And that that sounds like a lot of fun. Who wants an afterlife? And he says, Oh my god, what an awful word, afterlife. And I but I think the Christian agrees, don't they? I think the Christian says the good the Bible never speaks of an afterlife. Um, the the Bible speaks of resurrection, the Bible says we're dead now. Um life is what we're heading towards. Um, what what what is the difference between resurrection and what most people think of as sort of the afterlife and hope beyond the grave?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's a great uh question because when people talk about this sort of um spiritualists and things, and they have these people floating around in some sort of light, and they usually have some totally stupid message about like, oh, I want to let you know there's 20 pounds hidden behind the mantelpiece or something, and it's just like, oh my goodness, that's all you've got to say. That tells me everything about how ghastly bored you must be. It's a totally terrifying, that's terrifying. That that's the only thing you'd have to say. Whereas that is nothing like what the scriptures talk about. What does like Glenn, you were saying there that the vision of reality that's in the scriptures is this like they the earth and the heavens, and there's this extraordinary vision of reality where there's this highest heaven and there's this throne at the center of all reality with hundreds of millions of angels and the saints of all the ages from all over the world, and this incredible sense of this fountain of life surrounded by this green rainbow that that's this sense of extraordinary, infinite, everlasting life. And that that is it's very much like on earth we're looking in on life. We're not we talk about space as outer, we look out into it. No, no, we are on the out, we don't really know what life is. We are like ghosts, we think we're solid and living, but in truth, we're barely alive at all because we've been cut off at the roots. And so there's this weird way, yes, when we die and we're absent from the body and present with Jesus, that's only a temporary thing. And the Apostle Paul actually says, Well, we don't want to actually get rid of our bodies and be unclothed. What we really want is to be clothed with a truly immortal, solid body that lasts forever, so we can live this physical life in all its fullness forever. And that's coming, that's coming. So he says, absent from the body, present with Jesus, which is absolutely wonderful because then we're sort of right at the source of the fountain for a while, you know, basking in this incredible amount of light and life. And there's not that sense of floating around on little clouds, twanging away with hearts and stuff. All that stuff's just popular culture. It's nonsense. In the Bible, that highest heaven is a place of incredible solidity and vibrant life and action and activity and intensity, really. But even that is only a temporary thing. What we really are looking forward to is what Jesus just calls um the renewal of everything. He says, one day I'm just gonna renew everything in the entire cosmos, the heavens and the earth, I'm just gonna renew it all, get rid of death, get rid of disease, get rid of decay, and let's just live life, physical life, in all its fullness forever. That is what the Christian hope is.
SPEAKER_03That sounds good. Sign me up, sign me up. I'm I'm into that. Uh, we've had a great question uh in Zoom chat. Uh H. Bellinger uh has made the point, Lazarus is just like someone rescued by the NHS. He had to die again in John chapter 11. So sometimes we speak of that story where Jesus raises Lazarus from that tomb and we speak of it as a resurrection of Lazarus, but that's not quite right, is it, Joe? Like how how how does Lazarus' experience compare to Christ's experience and compare to our experience?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um uh that that's exactly right. Lazarus will die again, he will face death like all the rest of us, um, which is different to the Lord Jesus. So, Good Friday today, um, we remember him dying on the cross, and as we look forward to Easter Sunday, um when we recall how three days later Jesus came back to life in a very different way to Lazarus. Um, not only did he need someone else to call him out of the tomb, he himself defeated death, um, is how it's described. He actually won the battle and didn't just come back to life like you and me, like Lazarus did, but a different kind of resurrection life. He had a body, the marks of the wounds of the cross, um, and yet also could go through doors. He could speak to his friends and eat meals, um, and yet also uh was taken up into heaven. Um, and the permanence of Jesus' resurrection is totally contrasting to anything or anyone else. Um, and and really it is the fact that he has defeated death uh and has gone ahead of anyone who puts their trust in him. He says, I will I will take you to be with me. I've I've prepared a room for you in my house and calls people to to trust him. And do you know what the uh I'm not sure who else you can trust. It's not like there's Jesus or you could follow so and so and so and so and so because there's there's no one and there's nothing that actually has been able to um defeat death in the way that he did.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Um so I I I find him pretty pretty convincing. And in one sense, as as his friend said, who else who else could we turn to? What other option is there?
SPEAKER_03Yes, because no one else is even no one else is even daring to offer us um what Jesus offers us. You know, like is there hope for these bodies in this world? Go to every other religious system, go to every other secular philosophical system, and just ask them, is there hope for these bodies in this world? And they'll all go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And you come to Jesus and he says, absolutely. Like, well, that's different, you know. Um only Jesus has has this kind of talk to us a little bit, Paul. You you've spoken to us a little bit about when we're absent from the body and present with the Lord. Um, talk to us a little bit more about the renewal of all things, because the ultimate Christian hope is that Christ comes and on the pattern of his own resurrection, raises up the world. Um, get us ex get us excited about resurrection hope.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, that's the real Christian hope. This um, and as you say, I I mean just the phrase that Jesus uses at the renewal of everything. And I feel as if people probably said, hang on, you don't mean everything. Don't you just mean sort of some little spiritual thing? And he's like, nah, everything. I don't like that's it with Jesus, it doesn't mess about, it's I all or nothing. And and that that that's the whole this Easter thing where he's sort of getting hold of this whole world order and saying, let's just kill that off and let's take everything to another level. And it's amazing that in his resurrection, I don't know what people think the resurrected Jesus is like. Sometimes he's painted in this weird, ghostly way. Moderns do this. Modern people depict him as if he's kind of a little bit feeble or ghostly with this kind of weird expression on his face looking into the middle distance. Whereas um the first thing he does is make a fish breakfast. He's hungry, he's just defeated death. I want to eat something with my friends. He goes down to the beach, gets a barbecue going, he's like that. And then you can imagine the site, what? What's going on? And at first they think, so everything's just gonna be exactly like it used to be. Let's hold on. And he's like, Whoa, whoa, you can't just hold on to me totally. I mean, yeah, everything is gonna be kind of like it was, but not right now. I've just, if you could just think, I'm just gonna go to the center of the universe to take control over everything so that we can do this for the entire universe. So let me just do that, and then we'll do this forever. It's an amazing vision of what it is. There's this wonderful little thing in John where uh Mary Magdalene, who's this amazing sort of Christian, she sticks with Jesus even at the cross when the disciples are like scared. She ain't. And uh, she sticks with him, and she's the first person the resurrected Jesus meets. And when she sees him, she's all upset, and she sees she and it says she thought he was the gardener. That is a really profound insight because if you go back to the beginning of the Bible, the Lord God makes this amazing world and there's no death, it's just absolutely amazing, and he plants a garden at the beginning of it all, and he kind of says to Adam and Eve, okay, I've started you off. Look, this is the sort of thing we can do. Okay, now off you go, let's do some amazing things, and then they don't, they mess it all up, say, nah, I we've got our own ideas, and he's like, Oh, and then the tragedy, death, pain, sorrow, all the evil. But it's as if when he steps out of the tomb, it's like as if scripture's saying, now then, um, Jesus, like, now where was I? I was doing something with a garden. Let me get on with that again. And it's this wonderful vision that this is just an interruption in what is the never ending story of what this living God has designed for us. Jesus's closest friend, probably, is the Apostle John. And uh, John just says in one of his letters, and this is John, who's had visions of heaven and Is just crazy theologically deep and everything. And he just says, I tell you, I don't even know what's gonna come next. I even I like you're like John, surely you do. He's like, No, I don't. All I know is when we see him, will we just like him with these amazing resurrection bodies for immortality? But I I don't know. Who knows what he's got on the agenda? But to live human lives led by somebody like that, you know when you meet somebody who gets more out of you than you knew you had, that's what this Jesus was like in the gospel's thousands of people crowding you because they could see what I'm round him. That's the best me there is when I'm with him. Right. That's what it will be like, where he raises everybody up just like Lazarus, but this time forever. And then he says, Let's have a fantastic meal together, and he's actually looking forward to serving at table, bringing the food around to everybody. It's a zany thing. He that's what he's looking forward to most, actually waiting on people.
SPEAKER_03He'll do the washing up, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then he's like, after that, right, what are we gonna do with the universe? It's huge, I've got big plans, let's go.
SPEAKER_00And uh what what I liked about that that story that you reminded us of, Paul, is that the best thing about uh eternal life um is that we will be with Jesus, which is quite a weird thing to get one's head around, particularly if you don't know him personally. But uh there's a psalm which talked about one thing I ask of the Lord, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, um, which is Psalm 27. And and there is, you know, if you can believe it, it is knowing Him, um, it is seeing Him, it is being with Him that will be the most fulfilling, the most rewarding, the most joyous, the kind of fullest experience that we could ever have. Uh, which I think is really important to remember because it's not just the things, and I think we know that as well in day-to-day life. You know, it's not the things that are really important to us, and the coronavirus has highlighted that, it's the people, it's the relationships that we have. And actually, Jesus offers us a relationship with Him where our souls will be satisfied beyond what we can possibly imagine, um, and that will just be captivating, along with the party and the celebration and everything else, the beautiful, renewed uh creation.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. But Jesus himself at the center of that, you know, the the the good place, uh, you know, a series that's on Netflix has gone through many, many seasons of imagining what the the afterlife might look like. And it's just sort of one sort of earthly kind of pleasure after another, after another, after another. And they get to the point of saying, yeah, that would be kind of dull after a while. After after a couple of thousand years, like, do you really just want to keep on jet skiing around the world with martinis? And and and and actually, you know, I won't spoil the ending for for other people, but um even the writers of that show know that that is an unfulfilling vision of the future. And I think if you don't have the glorious Lord Jesus, the fountain of life at the at the center of that vision, um, then any kind of ongoing delights, um, it's that's not going to do it for anyone, really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and if I I studied this guy from the 17th century um called Thomas Goodwin, and he there's this thing that's haunted me for 30 years, that he says, and it's right on that what you're saying, that he said, Imagine if you could sort of know Jesus. And no, say you say that when you die, you could go to this like incredible place of earthly bliss and all the most wonderful things in life you could have forever and ever and ever, but you would never know Jesus. That's option one. This isn't real, of course, he's just sort of thinking about the value of Jesus. So he said, Imagine that you could die and just have all the earthly bliss forever and ever, but you never know Jesus, or you would know Jesus in this life, but then when you die, you'd sort of go to hell forever. What would you choose? And he said I would choose the second option because if I had known Jesus, even just for this life, so amazing is that that even if I was in hell, I would have the memory that I once knew him. I once knew him, and just the thought of that would be worth it.
SPEAKER_03Wow, wow. How good that we don't have to have that choice. You know, I refuse the dilemma, but yeah, that's very challenging, isn't it? Very challenging. Uh, we've had a great question on uh chat in Zoom. Uh Ruth, um actually it was a question from Facebook. Ruth uh has asked, what does the Bible say about us being fragile and how do we live with a strong faith to help us persevere? I think we've said quite a quite a bit about the fragility of us. We are dust, and to dust we'll return. We're like cut flowers and all of that. Um let's let's address that second part. Um, how do we now take all this stuff that we've been talking about, Joe, and and how do we now, how does that inform us so that it can help us persevere in the face of our own mortality?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think let's remember what we said earlier that actually facing death is still a terrifying thing in many ways. It is still an enemy. But uh not only do we have hope after death, but we also have the Lord Jesus with us through death. So um you may know that at the point at which he was crucified, he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And one of the things that he desperately uh was sorrowful about was the thought of being separated from his father, you know, the one who he has been with for all eternity in this perfect relationship. Um but Jesus was separated from his father as he hung on the cross. Um, and that is to ensure that anyone who follows him will never have to be separated from our Heavenly Father, from the Lord Jesus, that because he has defeated death, he he promises that he will be with us. There's an amazing psalm, and and actually I think it's probably one of the most well-known psalms for many people who who aren't Christian who don't go to church. It's Psalm 23, um, it's about the Lord being my shepherd. And uh it says, even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil. Oh great, Glenn's put it on screen. For you are with me, and your rod and your staff, they comfort me. So we can be absolutely certain that no matter what we face, no matter when we face death, because we will, um, no matter when we face death, if we have put our trust in the Lord Jesus, then then He will not leave us. Even though no one else can come with us through that door, you know, even and and I suppose particularly um with the coronavirus and everything that's going on now, it's one of the awful and painful things about it is that people are dying on their own because their family and friends aren't allowed to be with them. Um, but even if we have our family and friends around us, there is only one person who can walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death and into uh to life everlasting, and that is him. So um, how do we face death? I suppose that in one sense it's just it's remembering Jesus, it is getting to know Jesus, it is reminding yourself that he won't leave you. Um, and uh that's what reassures me. You know what? I don't I don't know what my faith is going to be like when I face death, but I know that God is faithful. Um, and it's to him that I look.
SPEAKER_03So get to know, get to know the good shepherd, um, the one who himself got through that great valley and who uh promises to to shepherd us. Um what what other advice would you give Paul? Someone's asking, okay, how how can my how can a faith, how can Christian faith help me as I walk through the Valley of the Shadow?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think there's two things is how you set your heart and mind day by day and the and being doing that in a church family, because um it's we the church family is so important because um the it it you surround yourself with people who um who know him and carry you, encourage you, hold up before you this reality, this hope. And the scriptures is all about encouraging one another with all this in mind, surrounding ourselves with this family of people who, and then each week when we get together and we take this bread and wine that is about this is what he has done to deal with death, and we eat this meal, this bread and wine, thinking about that, that he's done the big thing, he's done it, and that also we're thinking about the fact that one day we will eat a meal with him. So we're kind of fellowshipping with him in this way, but there's this very much strong sense that we do this until he comes. So it's that's very important, but also I find that this the scriptures tell us to set our hearts and minds on this hope that is above. See, if we, and this is particularly strong for modern, we live in a very materialistic society where everything's about here and now, and I want stuff and I can order it from Amazon, it's here tomorrow. All my hopes are now. It's really easy to get caught into that. Jesus talks about the busyness of life taking over our hearts and minds, and everything becomes about this, what the Bible calls passing life. But scripture is constantly like that Psalm 90 that Moses wants us to meditate on, is to say, no, set your heart and mind on these things that are above, that are coming, things that belong to the future age, the age to come, so that we live. The Bible is constantly saying, live in the light of that Christ. Set your heart and mind upon this resurrected Lord Jesus and this, and even when we pray, our Father in heaven, in heaven, like we are setting our minds on something, this age to come, the Christ who's resurrected above all things. If we don't do that, if our if day by day we just get sucked into the here and now and all the hopes and demands and busyness of here and now, then when death suddenly or the fear of death or the urgency of it hits us, we are not prepared. Jesus at the end of the Sermon on the Mount says, he tells this story of two guys going through life. One of them is just building on the sand, he hasn't made any provision. The other one builds on rock. What is the rock? It is the words and commands of Jesus. It's Jesus. And he says, when that, because that guy does that and day by day sets himself on the words of Jesus, the reality of Jesus, when the storm comes, he is ready. He's he's got foundations for that. It doesn't mean that he won't feel the the intensity and the pain and the trauma of death. Yes, but he's on a rock, and that makes all the difference that we live with our heart and mind fixed. And the scriptures are always talking about that. And there's this wonderful just hope about it. I love that story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man sinks down into Hades, the poor man, little man called Lazarus, who nobody's bothered with. Chariots arrive, angels in chariots to carry him away. And you just think that sort of story, or the thief that dies next to Jesus, and Jesus says to him, Today you and I will be in paradise together. Uh, you know, a chariot for two, he orders, and he takes the guy with him. That sort of truth needs to be before us. I don't, I think every single day for at least 40 years, I think about that.
SPEAKER_03Wow, wow. So you're saying do the opposite of what the net the natural inclination is to keep death out of sight, out of mind. You seem to be saying prepare for it. Absolutely. And that church is preparing us for dying.
SPEAKER_01You know, church is preparing us for dying. It actually says that when you become a Church of England minister, you say that that's what you're gonna do. Prepare people for death. It's not what a lot modern people often don't think of that as church, but that is in a way so important to prepare to meet your maker. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Let's um finally think about not just our deaths, but we need to cope with the death of loved ones around us. And um, Joe, in many different capacities, you've helped people with with grieving. Um, what is it that our faith can offer um when it comes to the this this process of of mourning?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh it's right to mourn. Um it it you know, there are more psalms of lament than there are of any other type of psalm. Um, and it just goes to show that actually there is a time and a place for us to cry and weep and grieve. Um, but with uh I think of one um extraordinary woman who I counseled who had faced probably one of the most distressing losses, and that is the loss of three of her children. Um well, there were two things that she held on to. One was the fact that Jesus was with her, was with her in her grief, and would be with her every day, whether she was numb, whether she was angry, whether she was sad, um, whether she was happy. Uh, and the second was that um a verse that she reminded me of and would speak about was that that weeping uh may stay for the night, um, but rejoicing will come in the morning, that there is a limit to the pain that we encounter here. Um, and that there is a certainty with Christ that that pain will end, and actually the mourning, weeping will turn to joy. One of the um Beatitudes, one of some of the most famous teaching that Jesus gives, uh, he says that blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
SPEAKER_03And Paul, how how would you offer um help through the grieving process? What what difference does Jesus make to that?
SPEAKER_01No, I agree. I think that that sense that like Psalm 23, that we often read at funerals as we've looked at, and just that sense that there is a good shepherd who has been through this valley and is there for you. I remember talking to um Johnny Ericsson Tata, who's um suffered a lot of physical pain, she's paralyzed and things like that, and sort of what she says is like in all the tragedies and grief and suffering and mourning of life, we might think we want lots of answers and information, statistics, I don't know, that sort of thing, explanations, why this? But she says, actually, what the Lord God does is he doesn't give you that sort of stuff that could be printed on paper, he gives you himself, and that is the most wonderful thing in all. But when we're in all this mourning and grief and our hearts are broken by things, there's this amazing thing that when you get on board with Jesus and you say, Lord Jesus, like as best as I know how, I want in on what you've got. And he says, What I've got is this eternal relationship with my father, and I want you to be in on it. And then suddenly to be embraced by this heavenly father while you're holding the hands of the good shepherd. Suddenly things look different. They then you still got the broken heart, maybe all that, but suddenly things are very different when there's a little child with this father and this older brother and this Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03So it's very much that that whole sense of uh Psalm 23, isn't it? The Lord is my shepherd. And um maybe we could just finish by um just I'd I'd love to read this. Um it's a famous psalm dealing with uh these deep issues. And it is it showing on people's screen right now? Um Joe, Paul? Yep, definitely it is for you. Fantastic. Um let me see. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is truth, this is our fragility. We're walking through the valley of deep shadow. We are sheep, sheep are moronic. This is us, we are spiritually moronic, and we are perishing, but we have a Lord, uh, a good shepherd who has gotten through death. That is what Easter is all about, and he promises to get us through death as well. And uh, I just love to uh offer a prayer um now, and it's a prayer that anyone can pray right now. If if you um if you are afraid of death, and on on a very deep level, we all ought to be. If you're afraid of death, if you know that you're perishing and you need a shepherd, I'm just gonna pray, uh, Lord Jesus, be my shepherd through this dark valley. And uh maybe if you'd like to echo this in your own heart, it could be a way of you starting following after the great shepherd Jesus. Let me pray for us. Lord Jesus, it is uh frightening in this dark valley, and I'm sorry for the ways that I've made things darker through my own selfishness, through wandering from you. But Lord Jesus, would you be my shepherd? Thank you for dying, my death. Thank you for rising again for me. Please lead me, guide me, walk with me through this dark valley and out into your feasting joy. Amen. Joe Paul, I can't believe that this this week has come to an end. Uh it's been such a such a pleasure um to have you guys. Do you have any any final words of of wisdom for the people, Joe?
SPEAKER_00Um no, I'm I'm I'm done really, but it's been a joy to be a part of this.
SPEAKER_03That was that was throwing you the hospital pass, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00Happy Easter. Happy Easter, yes.
SPEAKER_03The best thing you could say, yes. Paul, I don't I don't if I give you the last word, we might be here till 10. But go on, go on, go on, have a have a go.
SPEAKER_01Worth a risk, yeah. No, I would just say that we've thought about anxiety and prayer and death, and in it all, we're just all of us, three of us, just trying to say this Jesus, this Lord Jesus Christ, the man full of life without measure, he is the living God. He is the greatest man who's ever lived, he's everything that God can be to the max. He's there, he's all that humanity's dreamed of. There's a reason why our calendars center on him. There's a reason why civilizations all over the world rise in his name. There's a reason why hospitals are called after his followers all over the world. This man, Jesus, he is the answer to anxiety. He's the one who makes prayer possible, and he's the one who means that his followers, not, I mean, there's amazing stories of his followers who there's a man, I used to live in a flat that had the name of this man who, when it came the day for him to die and he was executed because he was a follower of Jesus, he woke up that morning so excited because he knew he was gonna meet Jesus. And there's so many Christians who've had that experience recently, you know, not too long ago. We saw Christians who were beheaded on a beach because, but they they did it and wouldn't let go of the name of Jesus. Why wouldn't they? Because what could be worse than dying? Well, they were like, no, dying wasn't fearful to them because of this man, Jesus. So all I would say to everyone who's listening is look, call on the name of Jesus, even if you've never done it before, or you even if you think, I don't really understand all this, doesn't matter. Listen, call on this name of Jesus, and as best as you know how, may this Easter be the start of something that you begin this journey that goes on for all eternity with this man who is. There's so many titles of him, but this concept of him is being the source of all life and logic and love. And even the Most High God, when he thinks about him, says, Isn't he great?
SPEAKER_03Amen. He is he is great, and we thank you for uh infusing us about the Lord Jesus. And uh guys, if you want to find out more, just uh give the Facebook page a like and we'll give you daily uh inspiration to look at the Bible and see on every page it's all about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for joining us on the Speak Life Podcast. Do give us a rating and review if you can. And uh, if you're on social media, you can keep up with us at Speak Life UK. That's our address, Speak Life UK, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We are speaklife media on YouTube. You will find everything you need on speaklife.org.uk. But thank you so much for joining us. Tune in next time. Bye bye.