Hello and welcome to the Speak Life podcast. I'm Thomas and I'm joined by um Paul. It's Paul Feasy. Back in the room. Made it back. Back for the intro. We thought we'd tag team this one because you did it before, didn't you? And then when you left, obviously I had the the big shoes to try and fill. And fill them you did. Fill them you did. You've done it been doing an excellent job. Oh, that's very kind. But it's it's great to have you back now, uh someone who knows what they're doing. Um well I don't don't know about that.
SPEAKER_01I am back, that much is true. So yes. And and so now we're just thinking, well, we'll just do this intro together and we'll see how it goes. And we're just freestyling it.
SPEAKER_00We're riffing it. Riffing it, yeah. Um so Paul, what what what did you talk about in uh this week's episode?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so this week's speakeasy is all about Christmas and the big you know we had six things, uh six kind of maybe dangers to avoid, perhaps, as we come towards Christmas when we think about our Christmas services or our Christmas preachers, things along those lines. I don't want to give too much away, but there were kind of six things, and they may or may not all begin with one letter. A letter from A to Z. Somewhere in there, English alphabet.
SPEAKER_00And we should say this this went out um Monday evening, 8 p.m. As you'll hear, um, live comments are engaged with, aren't they?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's always good. The more people that comment, the better, quite frankly, because the less time that we're speaking, the better the content is. Enjoy the episode.
SPEAKER_05We're looking at yeah, Emmanuel as the the heart of um, I think our Christmas film that year. Yeah. Um this year, and particularly thinking about loneliness, so that's why we linked with Lincoln in the UK and spoke with Dr. Mary Northway last week. I think she was on the show.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_05So um, yeah, we're really excited to connect with them and to be part of that.
SPEAKER_03And if people want to get the film, you can go to speaklife.org.uk slash Christmas, or you can go to speaklife.org.uk slash Christmas and uh you can download that film uh along with our other back catalog. And yeah.
SPEAKER_01And no, yeah, don't need to ask to use it. No, I think most of December is spent just building emails from people saying, Can we use your video? Is that all right? And you go, yes, yes, it's fine, just do it.
SPEAKER_05Um, so yeah, they people can do that. Um, but we should change gears to talk about these six things, count them six or seats if you're Christophe.
SPEAKER_03He's in the comments, he's French.
SPEAKER_05Um yeah, so we've got six things that we want to look at in terms of trying a bit too hard in your Christmas talk and not just doing the Christmas talk. Um, the good old-fashioned old old story. And the first one of these is alternative. Alternative Christmas.
SPEAKER_01Did we say they all begin with A? Oh, yes, they are. They're they are alliterative.
SPEAKER_03They're all very alliterative. The seventh thing is the alliterative Christmas. And you definitely, you know, we are anti-alliterative.
SPEAKER_05Um but what do we mean by alternative Christmas? What are we saying? Where people try a bit too hard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I often get this when I'm asked to do student carols and like the the Christian uni at the Christian Union at some university will say, come and and we're we've decided to make things a bit modern. So we're deciding to, you know, do a jazz Christmas. And so we've you know, and jazz being the most modern of genres. Yes, yes, but you need you need it with a twist, you know, you need to spice it up. Grime Christmas, yeah, tramp, yeah. Then he dropped the bass. Um yeah, and so and you just and you just think we've got the carols, people like the carols. Why don't we just stick with the carols?
SPEAKER_05And it is incredibly hard actually to find good versions of carols just to play, you know, at home or in the car that you can sing along to as though you were singing them in a traditional carol service, yeah. Like the number of times someone will put one out and it's all this kind of you know, all this modern music.
SPEAKER_01Well, the thing is though, most most Christian like most modern Christian like versions of carols tend to be just done in the style of U2, which you know, this kind of classic chimey delay sounds, yeah, which are about 20 years old anyway. So no one's really yeah thinking I can't wait to get to this church to hear some U2 sounding stuff, or it's like pentatonics or something like that.
SPEAKER_05And you've got to be like, Oh, I can't we can't do can't take that note, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's exhausting. So the alternative to the alternative carols is just keep it traditional. The traditional carols, people want the traditional carols, exactly what we want. You already have the Christmas, yeah. You already have the Wesley, an excellent selection of Christmas carols, yeah, set to familiar tunes that your guests can join in with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Even if they've not been to church, yeah, people know the tunes to these songs, don't they? Yeah, they always do. Like when I teach guitar, I do some with the youngest kids, I do some carols, and I always say, Do you know this? And they say no when I play it, and they go, Oh, yeah, I do know that. Like they all know it, even like six-year-olds. Yeah, do it, do it.
SPEAKER_03So do the alternative to the alternative Christmas, which is Christmas.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so the alternative Christmas should be an alternative alternative, which is traditional Christmas. But what about abrupt Christmas? Okay, so the second way that begins with A, that we're thinking about trying a bit too hard at Christmas is the abrupt Christmas talk.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, what's an abrupt Christmas talk? Well, I often come across this when people realize kind of almost halfway through, you you just think like at some point in their preparation, the preacher has realized that this has something to do with the incarnation, but they've got a whole armful of you know stories about buying presents for their mother-in-law that went wrong or something, and and then but they they're like, Oh, where do I put the incarnation? And then, like 20 minutes in, there's this, and then God came in skinned. Weird, huh? Yeah, anyway, back to the mother-in-law, yeah. And it's uh and it's this this idea that the incarnation itself is off to one side, and we need to reference it, we need to name check Christ in two natures or whatever. Um, whereas the the burden of the rest of what you're trying to communicate is it lies somewhere else, and so it's it's this abrupt sort of shift to incarnation. Anyway, back to what I'm talking about, yeah, you know. So am I the only one that's come across this?
SPEAKER_01No, but I I think I think in certain circles, like because you see we see Christmas as an evangelistic opportunity, we tend to, uh, or at least in the circles I've been in, when we think of evangelism, we think evangelism means get to the cross and tell people about Jesus dying on the cross, yeah, penal substitution, you know, just get straight to that. And actually, I mean, I don't think I've ever been to no one's ever said to me, here's how you can use the incarnation to speak evangelistically. Like you I've been to a hundred camps or weekends away or whatever, or evangelistic meetings where you can hear the largely the same message about Jesus going to the cross, yes, and that's the evangelistic bit, but I've never really heard anyone say, and here's what you can do with Jesus coming into the world.
SPEAKER_05It is because the incarnation being that Christ, who is one person, now takes on a second nature, so he's got his divine nature and his human nature, and because that feels as complicated as trying to explain the Trinity, we just run away and go, Oh, non-Christians don't need to worry about this, and then we just Christmas is busy, you'll feel more peaceful if you accept Jesus, and we just sort of run away, yeah, rather than saying that the incarnation, the very, the very um miracle of Christmas, yeah, the mystery at the heart is itself the solution that we're looking for. Yeah, yeah, and don't just let that do the work.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's because we don't have a theology of incarnation, you know. We just we just don't. It's just it's just what you mean by that for us. So incarnation is Christ taking on flesh, carnus in Latin, um, which chili con carni is um, yeah, chili with yeah, meat meat, right? And so Jesus became meat, you know.
SPEAKER_05I thought the incarnation was Jesus becoming condensed milk. Incarnation. That was the joke that I said I was not gonna tell earlier on, and Glenn said he would laugh ahead of time. Oh, that was the joke. That was the one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that probably deserves that I gave it earlier. But so Jesus takes on me. It's the basest words that you know in John 1:14, the basest word that John could kind of reach for. The word became what? Socks, right? Which is in Latin. Which is American for socks. Which is the basest garment that you put on around your smelly feet, and the word took on flesh, meat. You know, you you ask a philosopher what is humanity, they might say we are rational animals. And you you ask a biologist what is humanity, they'll say we're Homo sapiens. You ask a butcher, what is humanity? They'll say, meat, you know, or you ask a family of mice, what is humanity?
SPEAKER_05What's a human being, mate? Mate. I'm good, thanks. Did I tell you the other day?
SPEAKER_03I was just reminiscing about when the Christian Union was about to uh invite me to speak, and the the guy who is leading the meeting sort of asks those really ridiculous icebreaker questions, like would you rather hands for feet or feet for hands and all that nonsense? And he and he said, if you're a food, what food would you be? And I said, I am food. So are you. He just said, Okay, I'm gonna pray for you now. And then I went and spoke, and it wasn't it didn't go over that well that that night. Okay, but uh what yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was just I was asked once, what's the biggest thing you've ever killed? Which is a strange open, like yeah, yeah, yeah. And what was it? Uh I think it's a pheasant.
SPEAKER_03No, with your bare hands.
SPEAKER_01No, well, it was with my hyundi, actually, but uh yeah, I just hit it. Wow.
SPEAKER_05That's a swerve through a field, but I got in the end eventually. I did chased him down, right? So that is the abrupt.
SPEAKER_01We weren't gonna finish that quickly, no?
SPEAKER_03But the abrupt thing is just like God in skin, isn't that weird? After what I was talking about.
SPEAKER_05So we're saying we're saying we ought, as the church, to preach the incarnation as the the heart of Christmas. Yeah, to preach that God took on flesh. It's not a weird, abstract thing that maybe could make sense to some weird theologians, it's a real heartbeat thing.
SPEAKER_03It's the heartbeat of the church, as Digital Gnosis says, the incarnation speaks evangelistically itself. And then Christoph has said, uh, it reminds me of how John Piper gave a talk on the essentials of Christianity with 1 Corinthians 15 as the text, and he managed not to mention the resurrection of Jesus. And I think I think actually the idea of incarnation or resurrection, we we just we've got this weirdly kind of hermetically sealed cross that happens, and it doesn't matter that Christ is man, and it doesn't matter that Christ has been raised as the second Adam, it just matters that God zaps your sins onto Jesus in your place.
SPEAKER_05Well, that brings us to our third, a third A of things which might be working a bit too hard, which is Glenn has a word Anselmian, which of course refers to Anselm, who lived in the 11th century. Quick Google Anselm of Kingdom and wrote a book called Cur Deus Homo.
SPEAKER_03Oh, come on, go on, man, go on, night.
SPEAKER_05Why God Man? Yes, why God why did God become man? Yeah, and 12th. Okay. You were saying that on this subject of the incarnation, when you press into the theology of it, that there is a danger in preaching an Anselmian incarnation rather than an Athanasian incarnation. Stick sure, people I'm sure Nathan in the chat, and loads of other people are going, yeah, we know the difference between those two. Yeah, but I'm not sure everyone in this room does.
SPEAKER_03So Glenn, yeah. Tell us. So, why did God become man? There is this logical syllogism for Anselm. Okay, a syllogism is you know, um, all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal, right? Right, okay, and and you know, the logic flows if the premises are true, then the conclusion naturally follows, right? So Anselm has got this logical, a watertight logical argument that's like, um, I'm not gonna be able to reproduce it, but but it's it's basically um the problem with humanity is our sin. Yeah, we must be judged for our sin. Um, in order for that judgment to be rightly taken, then it needs to fall on man. Yeah. Why did God become man in order to be the recipient of the zapping that would happen, such that the judgment falls on Jesus and doesn't fall on us. Right. Which is true as far as it goes, okay. But it's just it's it's just divorced from it's kind of divorced from the incarnation, divorced from the resurrection. It's just kind of what God really wants to do is express righteous anger at sin and zap it, and then once he zapped it, phew, he can be at peace.
SPEAKER_05So, in a sort of in a way, Jesus has to become fully human in order to take the price for sin on the cross. So his 30 years are basically relevant because he's just got to get to maturity and then he can be killed. Right. But nothing really that happens between Backlam and his triumphal entry is really important.
SPEAKER_03Is that what yep, yep, yep. Okay, and then once he's been zapped, it's kind of like the the static electricity has been discharged, it's all cool now. Okay, and we go back to you know being cool with God. Now, obviously, you know, he's shouting at me from heaven right now, saying, That's not what I should know this, you know. Um and so what but what I'm talking about is the the caricature has become what we think of as the preaching of the cross. And so often the preaching of the cross that I hear is like God is angry at sin and he has to zap a substitute, and it's almost as like the substitute, he could just zap the wood of the cross and and let all that judgment sort of discharge onto the cross, and then he can be happy with you. And but but you know, the incarnation doesn't really play a massive role, the resurrection doesn't really play a massive role. It's all it's all about just getting to the cross. Okay, but it's the cross in this very anemic, very you know, limited kind of sense, yeah, is the Anselm thing. And the better option is the better option, I would say, is just let's let's stick with the A's and go with the Antonation, yeah. Um, who is very much, you know, God became what we are, that we might become what he is, right? God became man, that man might become God. It's an ontological kind of thing, it's a be it's a thing at the level of being that Christ, you know, using the language of Luke 15, the shepherd who goes out and finds the lost sheep, he hoists the sheep onto his shoulders and carries humanity home. And yes, he must carry humanity through the judgment of the cross, yeah, because that you know, sin belongs to us, and therefore the curse belongs to us, and God's judgment belongs to us. And Christ hides us in his body and marches us through that, but but that's not where it stops, it stops with the feasts, and like through the judgment out Christ comes so that he really carries humanity home to the bosom of the Father, and it's it's it's it's far more about our being being you know brought back into communion with God, and so that the Athanasian approach has got a stronger sense of union with Christ, yes, yes, and rather than an Anselmian approach, which could leave the believer and Christ as sort of quite separate, it's transactional, and it yeah, it's just over there. Yeah, but yeah, like how many times does that do that gospel presentation default to um Jesus died for us over there so that we're kept safe over here? Yeah, whereas I think it's I think it's like 20 times in the New Testament talks about us dying in Christ.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And isn't that interesting? Like the New Testament again and again and again and again and again says I I died in Christ, or I died with Christ, or I was crucified with Christ, I was buried with him in baptism, and all that. And it's very much that Athanasian sense of Christ taking us to himself and like carrying us through the furnace and coming out the other side. Not the I'm glad that Jesus over there is taking the zapping, so me over here gets the blessing. Um, it's just it's transactional, it's distant, there's no kind of union with Christ type stuff going on. And then at the end, like the good news is I guess I avoided getting zapped. Good. But here I am, few grateful, yeah, yeah, but I I'm still there's still a distance, and I haven't been carried home to the father. I've kind of been I've got out of jail free, you know. Digital Gnosis says the Anselmium account account is as stale as a credit broker's calculations. Um, yeah, it is very transactional, it's very um and so are so many of our gospel presentations.
SPEAKER_05Never read Christmas everywhere, okay. But what about the ones? And I'm segueing here to uh the fourth of A, which is the apologetic, where basically the main aim of the talk is to show you how uh the very first Christmas fits into your historical timeline and is mainly there to teach you some first century Roman history.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean you can, and I think I guess we've maybe we've been go some of us, some of us have been guilty of this, but you can understand why people do that, don't you? Because it's that Jesus became a man in history, and we can say, look, here's the story, um, here's you know Herod, and here's these figures, here's the historical places where he was born, and we can see look geographically, this is where they are on the map, and we can see that you know, from these bits outside the Bible that Jesus was a real person, you know. Um, this story isn't just a made-up fairy tale. Um and I think you know, when we I think when we think about this, it makes me think of um the the Christian Union lunch bar thing, where you have your mission week and you say, right, here's five lunch bars, and we're gonna have all these questions that we're gonna answer for the non-Christian. And actually, actually, um it's quite possible that the non-Christian isn't really asking those questions. Now that there may well be people who turn up to your services. Yeah, yeah. In fact, it's highly likely there'll be people who've just turned up with family members because that's they've got to come at Christmas and they don't really want to be there, and they may think that the whole Jesus thing is a complete load of nonsense and he didn't even exist. However, I don't think the answer to even that is doing your apologetics talk about why we can believe that Jesus was a historically real character.
SPEAKER_03Or that Luke's gospel is good history.
SPEAKER_01Is reliable. Yeah, let's look at the first four verses of Luke and just you know um but actually I think but actually keep saying it now. Um I think what's works better is a bit like in 321, in the book three to one, you say just invite people into the story. You know, so you may have questions about this, that, and the other, whether it's historical or whether it's moral issues. Why don't you put those aside and let me just invite you into the story? Come and look round the house. That's the image you use, isn't it? The house of you know Christianity, and just show you round it. And you just you preach Jesus. So you give them Jesus, not an argument for Jesus being the real person. And Jesus himself is the one who speaks people's hearts, you know. Yeah. And brings people around. Um so I mean there's a place for apologetics. Obviously, I don't think the cow service is it though.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I that's a really interesting phrase that Jesus is a real person. Like we we feel like we want to say Jesus is a real person. So often, if we're just in this mode of apologetics, Jesus is a real person is he actually walked the dusty first century roads of Palestine, and you could have seen his footprints if you'd walked behind him and and he was a real historical figure. Whereas I wonder whether Jesus was a real person is best answered by saying he genuinely took on your humanity. You know, the the one who made you has genuinely got eye colour and hair colour, and he's got hair on the back of his hands, and he's and and you immerse people in the in the story.
SPEAKER_01And because yeah, but isn't that why people sorry, isn't that why people find it hard to preach that though? Because don't we think sometimes if we say God became man, it we the danger is that people go away thinking God just put on like a man outfit, yeah, like you know, dressed up for a little while, and and how do you actually bring across two natures, you know? I mean, you know, because people think like you said, this is this is top-level theology stuff, two natures, you know. Um, but actually, flipping keep saying actually, actually have a guess what our next A word is.
SPEAKER_00So we're now in the middle bit of the podcast. How do you feel it's going?
SPEAKER_01I feel so far it's going excellently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Did did you feel like that chat kind of went in the direction you were expecting it to?
SPEAKER_01I think so, because um I don't want to give anything away here, but if you've been listening to the Speak Life podcast for a few years at least, you may realise that we kind of bring this this one out every Christmas. Right. We just dress it up a little bit differently. Well, you didn't have to tell people that. I'll give you a getting away with it. Oh man, forget everything you just heard. Uh well, it would be good for people to know that um Speak Life is a charity and we rely entirely on people like yourselves for supporting us. And so we're incredibly grateful for your support in any way that you can support us, whether it's prayer or whether it might be um financially. Um if you do want to help us out financially, then you can head over to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give, and there are a number of different ways that you can get involved with giving there. And I believe, and this has all kind of happened when I've not been here, uh, that when you sign up to give in some particular way, you get access to certain extra goodies that the everyday folk do not get, including signing up to our Discord server.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so we have we create some discordance. It's all Discordant, all of it. Um by C and C sharp at the same time. Uh like a horror movie. Yeah, no, it's it's a good environment. We we you can share prayer requests, um, get access to some exclusive speak live content. Um, we share some memes. Yeah, we probably shouldn't mention that actually.
SPEAKER_01No, no, it's a very serious, it's a very serious place, actually, the Discord server.
SPEAKER_00So but no, it's really nice to to be able to engage um with with regular listeners, um with normal human beings. Back to the second half of the show.
SPEAKER_05Part of the challenge with the search for the historical Jesus is that there has been a shift, or there was there was a movement in the 20th century liberal side of the church to search for a historical Jesus and to basically question the historical reliability of the entire Bible and particularly the gospels, and to sow seeds of massive doubts as to whether this entire thing was just a complete fairy story that had no basis in uh in reality, as most people would understand that word.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so I I wonder whether there was a time in which a huge number of people were raising this question, whether it was at universities or they might be coming to a carol service and they go, Oh, this is all very nice. But of course, we all know that really it's all nonsense, and it's very nice for you to believe. And so there was a sense in which the church wanted to encourage people, you know, that phrase, you don't have to leave your brain at the door.
SPEAKER_04You don't have to.
SPEAKER_05No one was thinking about lobotomies. Which organ would you ordinarily be at the door? I mean, if you had to choose one. Um, and so in an in an attempt to try to encourage people to you know to not to throw the Bible away, off you know, to start with, yeah, because when you say to someone, okay, we hear the Bible says this, and then they go, but I don't believe any of that's true, that was a way to do it. But then, in a sense, that's carried on to a place where lots of people aren't asking that question and aren't coming with that as the starting point. So when you introduce it as a problem, yes, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of other people like, hold on, what?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, that is a problem. Oh, oh, great.
SPEAKER_05Even the vicar thinks that so yeah, it it is a it's a challenging one, but of course, you then miss out on so much of what there is to say about the glory of the incarnation if your entire focus is on the census um that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is just put there as simple fact. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Deal with it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it's a tangled, and it's a tangled issue. If you if you don't want to just take it on faith, you and you just okay, how do how do I kind of integrate that with what we know of Roman history? Yeah, your 12 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever you've got. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that time is gone. Um Nathan says, showing the incarnation speaks to everyone where they're at. It it cuts through all the genre of Roman bio, Roman lives, Roman um biographies. Um Christoph Keating says, I went to a Christmas service where the Church of England retired bishop spoke on Luke and how Luke wasn't intending to write history. It was still a good service because he only spoke for 10 minutes.
SPEAKER_01I knew someone who said that his dad, whenever a bishop came to speak, he would deduct them a point from 10 every time they mentioned Jesus. Because he said that meant at the end of every sermon he could say, Well done, bishop, 10 out of 10.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, oh, that's so that's so sad. Oh Christoph, that's so sad.
SPEAKER_04Oh my goodness, that is so weighty.
SPEAKER_05If anyone ever tells me that after a sermon, I'm gonna be hold on, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Christoph then says the service was really readings and carols.
SPEAKER_05Oh traditional, they are traditional, but we should move on to our fifth A of things to probably avoid because you might be working a bit too hard when Christmas is right there for you. His favorite phrase, but actually, what do we mean when we say don't preach a but actually sermon of Christmas?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's the one where we say, Well, you think you know what Christmas is about. We all know the story, don't we? We all know the story, but actually, no, you don't know the story. Little donkey, no, there was no donkey, there was no donkey, no crying he made. What are you talking about? Yeah, no stable, there's no innkeeper, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03The magi and the shepherds, they were never there together. You think you know, but you know nothing. Everything you've been told is a lie, but trust me, yeah. Yeah, deconstruction, deconstruction is a very popular thing, right? Now, but um like some of some of the most conservative biblical scholars kind of started it in terms of yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So why is why is that not a good thing to do then? Because we because it's it's true, yeah. Well, what's true and true in what sense?
SPEAKER_03So okay. Well, there was no there was no stable, you know. Well, I don't know about that. I mean, there's a manger, you know, which is a feeding trough. Yeah, for animals for animals, it's not feeding trough for people. Uh well, actual, actually.
SPEAKER_05Uh, who was laid there, whose body was laid for us to feed?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. In the in the house of bread, the fifth, whole ham.
SPEAKER_05He's done you there, um, yeah, and I think that the issue that people are trying to debunk is it's the nativity tableau.
SPEAKER_03But the nativity what?
SPEAKER_05The nativity tableau, by which, of course, I mean at the end of a uh children's nativity service, you will have the beautiful scene of the little baby Jesus in the manger, and then Mary and Joseph just behind him, and then usually to the right, you'll have like the shepherds and maybe a little sheep, and then just behind Mary and Joseph, maybe a cow, and then just to the left, you've got three wise men kneeling at various sort of heights, so that they can all still be seen in the picture. You've got some angels at the background, and then a star in the middle, and it's a perfect image to capture a sort of glorious cosmic reality of the incarnation, yeah. That right there in the heart of the picture is the god who has become man to dwell with us, the light of the world around which everything else orbits. Oh, we're gonna get to that as well. Yeah, we should do a Chris Dingle in a minute. Oh, yeah, that and then sort of going out from him, you have the rich and the poor, the sort of the unlearned and the learned. You've got different um, you've got Mary and Joseph, you know, sort of um in one sense, a kind of Adam and Eve kind of you know, figure or figures. You you have the angels, yeah. So you've got uh the heavenly host are right there, and it's kind of set within this little frame of the humble stable. So that tableau, which is recognizable to pretty much everyone in in the UK right now. If you would just show them that and say, What do you think this is a picture of? They would recognize it, and yet in our Christmas services, we want to go, nope, that wouldn't have been there, they wouldn't have been there, you can't have that. Why would they all be facing the same way? There's no camera, it's nonsense, you know, yeah, sort of thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And what is I mean, just and what do you gain? Like you've just okay, you've you've traded away that beautiful cosmic scene, yeah, in which on the y-axis you've got angels above and you've got donkeys and oxen, you know, below, and on the on the x-axis you've got shepherds at the one end and and the kings or the magi, you know, at the other end with Jew and Gentile, like it's the most cosmic picture imaginable. Let's trade that all for what? For gritty drama. This kind of hyper Protestant desire to trash everything traditional and get back to the Bible, adjust to the Bible. And and I think there are good biblical reasons for saying there was an oxen and a donkey, you know, Isaiah no, Isaiah one. You know, the what is it that the oxen doesn't know its owner and the donkey doesn't know its manger?
SPEAKER_02What is it?
SPEAKER_03Anyway, Isaiah one. Uh, where is it? Isaiah one verse. Stick with me, people. It will be here. Uh I'm gonna search for ox. The ox knows its master, the donkey its own manger that Israel does not know. My people do not understand. Um you know, it's kind of yeah, but that's in the old testament, Glenn. Isaiah is like the biggest Christmasy like this, yeah. But yeah, there's this there's this desire to kind of undercut everything that's traditional, yeah, and just get back to the basic Bible. Um, and you just you've you've thrown out the cosmic incarnation, you know. Like people athrilled by it actually.
SPEAKER_05Although, as preachers, it is I mean it's good to have feel that you've got some, you know, there's some movement in the sermon where people are thinking, you know, one thing and then you're able to show them it's something else. Yes, that is a way of teaching, you know, way of moving people and captivating them and taking them through the story.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But yes.
SPEAKER_03But that so this actually that we're describing is trading off the magical for the prosaic, isn't it? It's like, yeah, there's this kind of sentimentalized sort of tableau thing, but I'm gonna give you the gritty reality. I think there's a much better like like you preached whenever it was two weeks ago, you didn't actually. So you always do an actually usually like all three of my points are actually. You think this wrong, but your actually was the opposite way around. Your your actually was it's defeating the 5,000. Everyone thinks this is who cares about that. Actually, yeah, it's awesome. So I I think I think there are good ways of doing actually. Um, you know, you you think it you you think Christmas is a sentimental little you know thing around a half, yeah, and you're all watching Christmas films until you fall asleep full of quality street chocolate. Actually, it's bigger than that.
SPEAKER_05And and so I think there are ways of doing the actually that go in the other direction, and and there are ways of doing the actually about the hearth and the Christmas movie and the quality street chocolate that doesn't say all those things are rubbish, aren't they? They're terrible. That's not what Christmas is about, right? But saying no, if you push through Christmas movie, the hearth, the Christmas tree, and the uh the quality street to see what they're really images of, yeah. And it's the it's it's it's you don't it it's the classic um Lewis oh weight of glory, right? Right, you know, we're far too easily satisfied. Yeah, it's like you want your Christmas to be cozy, right? You want to put on your woolen socks and watch, you know, yeah um it's a wonderful life with a fire and some hotel chocolate, then that's you're content with that, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like, no, you need something that's that but yeah, way bigger, and it embraces it because it's the incarnation, and therefore to have a carnal Christmas is quite cool. Like it's like like our response to the over-commercialized or over-sentimentalized Christmas is not to become Ebenezer Scrooge, right? It's it's it's actually to embrace what we can of that and and feast because this is a it's the feast of the incarnation, yeah. Um, and on the sentimental point, it's not that we think it's less sentimental, but it's it's it's it's a much more weighty thing to say that at the heart of the cosmos is a family, and we're inviting in Jew and Gentile, shepherd and magi, you know, from far and wide, and that would be costly and all the rest of it. And so there is a family thing to Christmas, but it's so it's a bigger thing than what you think, yeah, not the opposite of what you think.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and uh, so I was at a conference in Birmingham, Alabama back in January this year, and it was called the lamp, no, what was it called? Church revitalization conference, and it it the major theme that they use is the lampstand. Okay, it's about churches as lampstands from Revelation, and just looking at the tending of the lampstand, what that represents in terms of the church's life and and and growth and witness. So great conference. Um, although I can't can't remember the name, Harry Reader, Dr. Harry Reader was the uh the guy who runs it, and uh the images of this lampstand, which is shaped like a tree, and it's a tree of light, and it's there in the the holy place of the tabernacle, in which you also have this table of the bread of presents and the incense, and then you go through, and what do you go through into the most holy place to find? You find a seat, the throne. And so I was looking at that, I was thinking, wow, we're all sitting around in late November and December, sitting in a room with a tree of light, you know, a table of the bread of you know, like the food, and lots of presents, and and we want to be in that seat seated in that chair. That's where we want to be. But that actually what Santa's throne, is that what is grasso? That's it. Take your kids to the shopping mall, and but that that's what Christ takes his people as the high priest through into is to sit at the right hand of the father in a family room of of warmth and joy and fellowships. Like we think we've you know come up with this because oh, it gets a bit darker, you know, in the winter. Yeah, no, it's this is this is in a sense a picture of reality, and we're just far too easily pleased.
SPEAKER_03Well, there's an actually I wasn't expecting pushed in an extra actually, yeah. But yeah, okay. So we we're okay with actually as long as they add to the magic.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, go through and beyond, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Go, yeah, yeah. Don't just go, uh Christmas is not less than sentimental, it's more, it's not less than commercialized, it's more, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Let's finish on one more, which is angry. I forgot that one. The angry Christmas talk. Oh man. When does this come out and what does what does it do? What does it look like?
SPEAKER_03It came out of me 20 years ago. I was thinking actually this afternoon, it would have been 20 20 years ago. I was preaching in a central London church at a lunchtime Carols concert, and all the solicitors and architects had come into the church, and the church was packed out, and I was speaking after Oh Come Let Us Adore Him. And at some stage in my talk, I said to the people, you've just sung Oh Come Let Us Adore Him. But do you do you? I mean, adore him. And then I I think I even said, Doesn't I mean the word adore, I mean, doesn't that just turn your English stomachs? Oh no. Angry. I'll say angry. Where does that go? And I I was shocked that I'd said that, and then everyone else was shocked that I'd said that. And I think coming out of me was just the the angry vicar who's just like, you know, where were you the other 51 Sundays of the year? Yeah, yeah. I know you show up just because there's mild wine. Um is appalling, absolutely appalling. But yeah, it can be it can be in the heart that and and I think that's a good point.
SPEAKER_05That for a lot of the people who are doing Christmas talks and Christmas sermons, part they've been doing quite a lot of them. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're a bit sort of what am I gonna do for Christmas this year? And if if you have forgotten the reason for the season, if you've taken Christ out of Christmas, you've turned it into you know, not because you're trying to, but you've become jaded about the incarnation. You feel that you have just want to recycle years old talks, you can see how you could come there and go, I stand here every year, and these people turn up, they're not CRV, they're C Andy, they're Christmas and Easter, and nothing makes any difference. And so I'm bitter that I I we put on this religious festival, and then they leave unmoved. And that that but you can see how that that wearing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because they're not have you preached an angry Christmas, Paul.
SPEAKER_01No, I don't think I have actually. Actually, I know uh specifically because I do remember being at a service, not at Christmas, but it was actually actually back to church Sunday, um not at the church I'm currently at, where the the vicar took it as an opportunity to just berate people for not coming for the rest of the world. Why weren't you here?
SPEAKER_02Because this is what you're like.
SPEAKER_01So I don't really know why I'm here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. But again, if it's a microcosm of if if Christmas is a microcosm of all of ministry in the post Christian West, you know, I I wonder if that diagnoses a bit of a problem. But you know, I was I was at a conference this last weekend and it was all about the 95, you know, 95%. Of naught to 18 year olds are not in church on a Sunday, only 5% are. Okay. And like I gave this talk about, you know, how are we meant to think about those figures? There's 5% in church, 95% outside of church. And actually, I sort of got thinking, you know, if we're meant to be, if the church is meant to be the royal priesthood of 1 Peter 2, well, think about the priesthood in the Old Testament. Like the Levites were a twelfth of Israel. So they were like 8%. And their job was to minister to and bring, you know, the presence of the Lord to the 92%. And did they do that angrily? Did they do that like with annoyance? Where they just like, I can't believe they've forgotten the reason for Passover. It's just like, you know. Actually, no, like written into the Passover is the youngest member of the household says, Why is tonight like not like any other nights? And their spiritual elders not then berate them for their spiritual forgetfulness. I can't believe how ignorant you are. It's like, oh, what isn't that joyful? They don't know. I get to tell them. Yeah. And what if what if what if the 92% or the 95% have no idea what the reason for the season is? And what if that's exactly the way God wants it?
SPEAKER_01What if you've actually got good news for people? Yeah. Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And what if it's our privilege and our joy to just say, hey, I love that you love this stuff. Jesus built it. And I know that you know that on some level. And let me give you the good news of you know, because the whole world is stopping to honor the incarnation of God. Like the and and people on some level kind of know that. They know that Jesus is the most significant figure in world history. It's the year 2021, it's 2021 years since Him, since Christmas. The whole world grinds to a halt to honor the single most important figure in human history. Like people know it's a big deal, and they're coming. And hooray, they're coming. And they might they might think it's about donkeys and mulled wine. Okay. Yeah. Can we work with that? Or are we gonna berate them? And you know, I've I've spent too long doing the angry thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
SPEAKER_01Stop getting it wrong.
SPEAKER_05Um, yeah, we as we'll do an angry one to finish about um about how people are getting it so wrong. Um, but I think that is what we have got through all of our A's, alternative, abrupt, apologetic, and sell me and actually and angry.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that was wonderful that we finished on angry, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yes, good way to finish.
SPEAKER_05Um, but yes, uh, we thank you very much for joining us uh on this first full speakeasy. Um, and we ask um that you would leave some comments or whatever else it is if you're watching this not uh as it's going out live. Thank you very much. We hope you're well. From me, Nate Morgan Locke.
SPEAKER_01And from me, Glenn Scrivener, and from me, Paul Feasy.
SPEAKER_05Good night.
SPEAKER_02Ciao.
SPEAKER_01Well, there we go. That was it. That was our our thoughts on Christmas and the things you should or should not do. Now we're in December, technically, at this point of recording.
SPEAKER_00I feel I can begin to be Christmassy. Yeah, we've been putting on Christmas music as we've done some DIY stuff in the building today. It's been very exciting. Oh we've been painting, fill in holes, polyfiller.
SPEAKER_01We had a little polyfill session, didn't we?
SPEAKER_00Earlier today. It was great. It's brilliant. Um yeah, it wasn't a monofiller, it was a polyfiller. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01Stereofiller, low way. This is all gold. And remember, there's more of this if you give us money and join the Discord server. Um anyway, well, we hope you've enjoyed this week's uh podcast. Hope you have found it helpful, and will indeed uh continue to find it helpful over the next few weeks as well as you go into Christmas services and bits and bobs, and maybe you are maybe you work for a church, maybe you've got services that you're running, maybe you go to a church, um, and uh maybe some of these things will be helpful for you and bits you're involved with. Um and hopefully over the next few weeks we'll have plenty more kind of Christmassy content for people in all kinds of different ways.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And can I just say, Paul, this has been said once, but I'm gonna say it again. It's great to have you back.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's very kind. It's good to be back. Oh, brilliant. Well, uh, Merry Christmas. To one and all was it into all the good night? I don't even know.
SPEAKER_00God bless us, everyone.
SPEAKER_01You there, boy. What day is this? Oh, today is Christmas day.
SPEAKER_00Um I think we need an intervention. Yes. Um thank you very much. Uh we've been doing too much pulley filling, we're now just filling the podcast. It's all the paint fumes, I think, from the painting, giddy, giddy like schoolboys. Um, yeah, thanks so much for listening, everyone. Um we'll uh we'll catch you next time.
SPEAKER_01Take care.