I read through part of an article this week before I got interrupted, and that's always a credible start, isn't it? Like uh I saw a tweet about an article that had part of the headline in it, and you can trust me, I totally know what I'm talking about. But I do think I got the gist on this one. The article was about this year being the year that had the most credible UFO sightings in history. And I didn't get far enough to see what the metric they were going with to determine what is a credible UFO sighting or what is a UFO, but they had some pictures. I was like, yeah, I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. And they had some pictures of some other things that, you know, were all over Twitter, but it was like, oh, that's some kind of uh thing that got totally explained. Rocket test launch, or I don't even remember what they all were, but it's fun to watch that stuff pop up. And I have to think that the number of occurrences or claims or confusing, difficult to interpret video that could be read as a UFO sighting. I got to think that's up because everybody just has a camera attached to their hand all the time now. So you're gonna see more of those claims played out. Plus, we have a mechanism to circulate all of it, but that's not really what I'm talking about here. What I'm driving at is this. All of those seem fun and nothing more than interesting to try to figure out how the hoax worked or where the misunderstanding was. But if there was a really legitimate UFO or even alien encounter kind of thing that happened, I think the most fascinating thing about that, at least for me, would just be the paradigm shift. All the categories that everybody would have to think through again to regroup and make sense of our world now, beyond our world, our universe and our existence. And we have to take things we had in very comfortable categories and imagine them in new categories. We'd have to think through all kinds of ethical questions. The um, oh, what was the movie called? It was the one uh District 9 a few years back kind of dealt with the ethical questions that would have to come with some kind of first contact. And I think all of that is really fascinating because we are very used to a certain set of parameters that frame all of our debates and all of our thought and all of the limits that make the box that we're allowed to consider things in. And frankly, something like that would really mess with all of us. I don't imagine it's probably forthcoming, but it's fun as a thought exercise to game that out. And I think a big part of the reason it's fun as a thought exercise to game that out is because I think, in a way, the people who were living the events of the first three chapters of Matthew, which cover a span of like 30 years, so this is a big chunk of time. I think the people who are living those events, and I think the original audience who is reading Matthew in the original language, and they'd heard rumors and whispers about this stuff, but now they're going through an ordered version of the story. I think both of those groups would have got to the end of chapter three and had to decide how much they want to open up their paradigm for reconsideration. Because the claims that are happening here, I think have a larger and more sweeping effect than even if somebody showed up from another galaxy and some alien space shuttle and was like, hey, we thought you guys might be here, so we just came to check it out. That'd be a really big deal. But that still wouldn't transcend existence and time and death and guilt and ethics and order all of our understanding of history and solve what's broken about not just this world, but existence in general, I mean, entropy. But this is hinting at those kind of claims in who Jesus is being held out as being, in what happened starting in verse 16 of Matthew chapter 3, as kind of a culmination of these first three chapters of the birth and infancy narrative of Jesus and into his early life. I mean, remember, verse 16 says that as soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water, and at that moment heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, lighting on him, and a voice from heaven said, This is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased. As I said before, I understand that there are going to be people who read this and are like, I don't think that happened. I think that was some addition after the fact, or I think that is something that people made up to lend credibility to Jesus. For all kinds of reasons we have discussed, I think there's a credible set of reasons to believe that did happen. And as a Christian, I think that did happen. And for the purpose of this thought exercise, a lot of people in the original audience, both standing there looking at it and reading about it shortly after the fact, thought that happened. Think about how much that would change things. Just think about what it would do to your view of the world wherever you land on stuff. If you're a more liberal Christian, a more uh evangelical, Protestant, conservative type Christian, if you're a fundamentalist Christian who's got a lot of things that you're really concerned about behaviorally, if you are a Catholic or Orthodox Christian whose connectedness to that tradition is very important to you, we we've all kind of got our systems that work for us, right? And imagine if those age-old systems were suddenly rocked by the inarguable presence and voice of God in public in front of a mixed audience who don't already all think the same thing. A lot of people make claims about God showed up at our church and said some stuff. Yeah, to a bunch of people who all think the same thing. How come these occurrences never happen in mixed company, the group of people who are all going to have a different perspective on it? But that is what is happening here. I remember the Pharisees and Sadducees are still hanging around on the fringes of this conversation, monitoring it. And God shows up and essentially says, whatever trajectory this thing is with Jesus, I'm well pleased with it. So the gap between the theoretical and the eternal and the religious and the debated, the debated for hundreds of years with great passion and camps forming up, the gap between all of that theoretical spiritual stuff that people maybe hope is real or had some reason to believe is real, and just physical, day-to-day, mundane go-to-work, convert food into poop, pay money, earn more money to buy more food, to convert it into poop, get old, die, practical, mundane world. That gap between those two realities is obliterated in this moment surrounding the baptism of Jesus. And people who were there, maybe they talked themselves out of it afterwards, but assuming this thing actually went down, the people who were there must have just had their brains melted. I mean, what would this do to you? We're talking this week, and I understand that this is a a bit of a touchy subject and a little bit controversial, like right now, but there's a certain expression of Christianity where I I've heard rumors and seen tweets and articles that uh apparently a member of this certain expression of Christianity had a tragic loss of a child this week. I the details are vague, so if I'm getting it wrong, my bad. And uh and this kid died, and uh, I know what it's like to to lose a sibling. Thankfully I've never had to experience what it's like to lose a child, but I've sort of been around it a lot doing what I do for a living, and I I I mean the grief is paralyzing. But this group is has decided that they're gonna do a worship service, maybe they've already done it, where I they've raised money. That part is sketchy to me, but they're gonna get together and they're going to try to effect a resurrection. Who uh I'm not quite sure what to do with that practice. On the one hand, I admire your faith. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like God has promised that that's something that's gonna happen for people. And if that was something we could just whip up, wouldn't everybody do it? I don't know. I I'm I say I'm conflicted. I'm not even really that conflicted. I think it's strange, but grief does strange things, and I don't want to begrudge somebody else doing their best to live out their faith and petition God for something way beyond what would be normally reasonable to expect. It's it's a strange situation. But my kids were asking me about it, and they were like, Well, what if it happens, Dad? And I explained why I don't think that is going to happen. I don't have any reason to believe that would happen in this set of circumstances. But what I told them is, if it does, we're quitting everything we do, and we're probably gonna need to move there and join that. If legitimately somebody was dead for three days, some people did a church thing and now they're not dead anymore, my paradigms are wrecked. I I I I'd have to go see. I would have to go and pursue that and track that down. And maybe that's a long and roundabout way of getting at it, but a huge part of this exercise for us is that I I want us to game out together how this would have been received in the first place. And before we even get into any of the crazy miracles or other things that are coming, all of which happened again in mixed company, you know, we get to the end of chapter three, and I think the paradigm is already shot. The paradigm at this point is God's been distant for a very long time. Maybe he'll do something again someday. In the meantime, we've replaced this vital presence of God with this frustrating ongoing left-right religious political debate and constant political tension with a variety of overlords, and this is what we do now. That's the paradigm. Then God shows up, the heavens part, the Trinity is there, Jesus is there in the flesh. Like God doesn't go away after this. God in the flesh is still with these people. They can walk up to him, they can talk to him, they can yank on his robe and see if it makes them feel better. He is right there with them. And now this original audience has got an undetermined in their minds amount of time to find out what the deal actually is. This is unbelievable, unprecedented, unfathomable. We go from God has been quiet for so dang long. What are you doing? Are you even there? Do you even are we even your people anymore? To God with us. No, literally, he's right there. Did you see what just happened? Do you have any questions? Is there anything you'd like to bounce off him? Well, he's right there, the guy with the beard and the outfit, right there. And he's a little soggy and wet and stuff, but that's him. Just got baptized. Are there any questions? That is insane. And further, that paradigm shift goes beyond just the moment of being able to say, I want to talk with him and figure some stuff out, all the way to if this is true, death is not the chief reality of human experience. Death doesn't actually defeat life and God and humanity. And if this is true, it means there is an authority who could actually settle the endless debates and bickering and partisanship and could actually just authoritatively be like, no, I'm king, there's a kingdom, this is truth, these are my values. I want you to be on board. I can fix that which is broken with humanity to make you fit to be citizens of my kingdom, sons, daughters, heirs, like all of this language is not just New Testament language, it's drawing on Old Testament principles. That's the paradigm shift. So we go from the kind of mundane, drab, frustrating hopelessness that comes along with the normal rhythm of life to not just a hope, but a whole new set of ground rules that frankly are just gonna take some time to think through. Well, in this respect, I want to try to follow the pattern of the original audience and take some time to think it through. So I'm glad you're with me and I'm glad we're doing this. And I realize that these kind of exercises can often seem like, oh, somebody went and figured out all the things they're pretty sure are true, and now they're going to slowly dish that out to get everybody on board with their thing. Not this though. Um yeah, I got things that I think, but I'm doing this in good faith. Uh yeah, I've been all the way through the book of Matthew multiple times. I've taught about it, I've read about it, I've written about it, but it's kind of fun. I'm in a little different position doing this thing with you. And it's really fun to unpack it and let it mess with my paradigms in a really fresh way. And I I hope that this kind of strange format for processing the Bible together is maybe having the same effect on you. So yeah, thanks for doing this with me. And let's uh see about picking it up after the weekend here. Oh, wait, I'm messing with you. I'm not gonna pick it up after the weekend. I'm gonna take Christmas week off and hang out with my family. I need to put some time and thought and energy into them. So it's possible that I might take uh some old content that I've made, divide it up into five parts, and put it out there. I really haven't decided yet. Or I might just see a the week after Christmas resuming as we've been going, starting in Matthew chapter four. Alright, I have no idea what we're at time wise. Just been talking with you and thinking. I really do appreciate you, and we'll catch you soon.