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be great. Hey

0:59

friends, and welcome to the happy hour with Jamie

1:01

Ivey podcast. I'm your host Jamie, and I'm so

1:03

glad you're here. Each week on this show, I

1:05

invite a friend to join me and we chat

1:08

about the big things in life, the little things

1:10

in life, and everything in between. Hey

1:22

friends, I'm Nikki Ogden, team member of

1:24

the happy hour podcast. Due

1:26

to an unexpected crisis, Jamie is going

1:28

to be delaying her book publicity and

1:31

tour. She's also going to take

1:33

a break from social media, public appearances, and

1:36

recording new shows at this time. We want to

1:38

give her space to process, discern,

1:40

and recover. We are

1:42

so incredibly thankful for the community that Jamie has built

1:44

here at the happy hour. And we know that you

1:47

want to share your love and support for her. The

1:49

best way that you can do that is by

1:52

listening to this pre recorded show and

1:54

sharing this episode with a friend. We're

1:56

so thankful for you. Rebecca,

1:58

welcome back to the happy hour. Thank you

2:01

for having me, virtually. Long distance.

2:03

Well, long distance relationship continues. Continuing

2:06

relationship. And you were just on the show

2:09

in December, and I am never

2:11

tired of you. And I don't think the listeners are

2:13

tired of you either. And so as long as you don't

2:15

get tired of me, we'll continue to ask you back, Rebecca,

2:17

all the time, because it's an honor to chat with you.

2:20

That's really kind. Well, I want

2:22

to start before we jump in. Today's Good Friday, and

2:24

so we're going to talk about what

2:26

that means for us as followers of Jesus, and even

2:28

what Sunday means for us even more as followers

2:31

of Jesus. But I want to start out by

2:33

just telling you this is yesterday, we're recording this

2:35

on a Monday, and yesterday at church, Rebecca, was

2:38

we started our very first class,

2:41

and we're going through secular creed.

2:45

And I'm a table leader. And so I

2:47

got my little table leader discussions. And so

2:49

we're going through and it took everything in

2:52

me not to be like,

2:54

you guys, I'm talking to

2:56

Rebecca tomorrow. So your work

2:58

is infiltrating my church, and I'm super

3:00

honored and excited about it. That's wonderful. Thank you

3:02

for sharing that. Great. Okay,

3:04

so today's Good Friday as the show is airing.

3:07

And good,

3:09

I was telling, let me set the stage here. I

3:13

was actually telling my table yesterday as we're going through

3:15

your book, I was like, the

3:17

thing that I appreciate so much about

3:19

Rebecca is that I

3:22

would consider you and you would consider you and everyone

3:24

consider you very academic. And

3:26

yet, I am not academic, and

3:29

I devour your books, and I

3:31

devour how you present your words to us.

3:34

And so I think even as I think through

3:36

Good Friday, there's

3:40

conversations that I

3:42

have grown up in the church my whole life, and I think

3:44

I expressed this to you when we did our Christmas episode, I've

3:46

grown up in the church my whole life. And

3:49

so fortunately, and unfortunately, I

3:51

have just a lot of faith in Good

3:53

Friday, and I have a lot of faith

3:55

in the resurrection. Like I don't

3:58

think I've ever questioned. Do we

4:00

think Jesus really died? Do

4:03

we think that? I have just always had that

4:05

faith. When I

4:07

interviewed you for the Christmas episode about Jesus'

4:09

birth and his life, to me

4:11

it was this kind of wake-up call of like,

4:13

okay, Jamie, there are millions and millions

4:15

and millions of people who question the things that

4:17

you just take it like you believe it. You read

4:19

it in the scriptures, you read the Gospels, and you

4:21

believe it. I found myself

4:23

thinking that again as I read your book over

4:26

the weekend called Is Easter Unbelievable, four questions everyone

4:28

should ask about the resurrection story. So I want

4:30

to start by saying I'm grateful for your work

4:32

because it actually causes me who has a lot

4:34

of faith in these things to realize

4:36

I need to understand these. This

4:38

book, Rebecca, is wonderful. It answers four

4:41

questions. Is Jesus' death ethical? What

4:43

kind of God would punish sin? Who qualifies as a sinner

4:45

and how is the brutal killing of an innocent

4:47

man just? I want

4:49

to start with a question that I often

4:52

ask authors. Why this book? What made you

4:54

want to write this book? A

4:56

little bit like the Christmas book actually.

4:58

I think that there is so much

5:00

familiarity in our

5:02

culture with the

5:04

basics of the Christian message or at least, I

5:06

mean, sadly, I think there's probably less familiarity with

5:09

the true basics of the Christian message than people realize.

5:11

But people are used to the idea that

5:14

Christians are claiming that this first

5:16

century Jewish man was the son of God

5:18

that he died on a cross and that

5:21

he rose from the grave. Like

5:23

that's something that people have heard and sort of become familiar with

5:25

whether they believe it or not. And like you say, there are

5:27

some people who say, do you know what? That

5:29

sounds completely implausible to me. I

5:32

didn't believe a word of it. I think there

5:34

are also a lot of people who think,

5:36

yeah, that's a thing that's out

5:38

there. Maybe it's true. Maybe

5:41

it's not. I vividly remember talking with

5:43

a young woman when I was an undergrad

5:46

and we were having kind of a

5:48

little Easter get together before an Easter service and

5:50

inviting all sorts of friends who weren't part of

5:53

the kind of Christian fellowship there. And

5:55

I remember talking to this young woman and

5:57

her saying, yeah, I think Jesus is probably the son of

5:59

God. And it was

6:01

like she could on the one

6:03

hand believe that at least at some level and

6:05

on the other hand it made zero difference. Like

6:08

it was as if that that knowledge,

6:10

that belief could just

6:12

exist out there like

6:14

a sort of theoretical belief that you and

6:17

I might have that doesn't actually change our lives

6:19

at all. Um, I

6:21

mean, it's going to be a little bit

6:23

weird analogy and potentially completely unhelpful

6:25

one. So forgive me.

6:27

But, um, as I look out

6:29

at the sky, you know, I walked down the street

6:31

and I see the sun and I'm like, yeah, you

6:33

know, I know that the earth revolves around revolves around the

6:36

sun. Like it's something that I know because

6:38

scientists have told me that's the case, not because

6:41

I've actually looked into it myself. It's just like, this

6:43

is what I've heard from science and

6:45

it doesn't make any practical difference in my life. I'm like, Oh,

6:47

this is some, I mean, the sun makes a difference, but like

6:49

the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, kind of thing,

6:52

like if the sun revolved around the earth, it wouldn't make any

6:54

practical difference in my day to day life. And

6:56

it seems like there are a lot of people who are

6:59

walking around thinking either, yeah, you

7:02

know, Jesus is probably the son of God.

7:04

Yeah, maybe he did that across. Maybe he

7:06

rose without realizing, no, no, no, this is,

7:09

these are life and death questions. Right. These

7:12

are like stake your, your whole, like put all

7:14

your cash on this question or not. We

7:17

can't be only moderately interested

7:19

or sort of, yeah, I'm sure,

7:21

but is it really worth our time to look into? So

7:24

part of the reason I wrote is he strong believable is

7:27

to help people say, okay, wait a minute, let's,

7:30

let's look at these claims of friendship and let's

7:32

get serious about a did

7:34

this happen and B if it did, what

7:36

difference does it make to me now? That's

7:39

really good because I would guess that that

7:41

would be, that would encapsulate

7:43

so many people in America

7:46

because it is such like a, it's, it's

7:48

felt as like this quote unquote Christian nation and

7:51

it's really easy to kind of believe these things, but

7:53

they don't actually change your life. Like you just said,

7:55

and I really appreciate it. Okay.

8:00

to go through each of the four things. Guys, I want to

8:02

let you know this is a

8:04

book. If you're out there and you're like, Oh, I don't like really

8:06

reading. I'm going to tell you you can read this book in about

8:08

like an hour and a half, two hours. It

8:10

is really, really compact

8:13

and complex all the same time. So I want

8:15

to say this, let's just dive into Good Friday.

8:17

Here we go, Rebecca. You say that the love

8:19

shown in Jesus's death is even more stunning than

8:21

the love shown in his life. Can you kind

8:23

of unpack that because you start you talk about

8:26

all the things that Jesus did in his ministry

8:28

years, which we can

8:30

probably name them. Even if you don't even go to

8:32

church all the time, you could come up with some

8:34

things culturally that you've heard about Jesus Christ, but you

8:37

claim that his death showed more love than even the

8:39

things he did while he was alive. Can you unpack

8:41

that for us? Yeah,

8:43

Jesus showed extraordinary love during his, his

8:45

life on earth and his ministry in

8:48

ways that actually shapes how we even

8:50

think about right and wrong today. Um, and

8:52

we don't always realize that because again, we're sort of so

8:54

used to it and the way that it's shaped our culture

8:56

that for example, our belief, which

8:58

we probably share regardless of how we would

9:00

identify spiritually, our belief like all human beings

9:02

are fundamentally equal and that the

9:05

strong and the rich and the powerful shouldn't be trampling on the

9:07

weak and the poor and the marginalized. You know, men and women

9:09

are equal, that little children are important and precious in their own

9:12

right and not just like possessions that we can kind of

9:14

discard or abuse it. Well, like love

9:16

across racial difference is a good thing. Like

9:18

all of these things actually come from Jesus's

9:21

life and teaching and the disruptive impact that it had

9:23

on the world. So

9:26

why would I say that Jesus's death shows even

9:28

more love than his life? Well,

9:31

Jesus's teaching is profound and beautiful

9:33

and it ultimately led to his

9:36

death. But in the

9:38

moment of his teaching, it didn't

9:40

cost Jesus to teach

9:43

those, those extraordinary truths about,

9:45

about human beings and about God. And

9:48

Jesus went, went around healing people. And

9:51

it seems pretty clear in the gospel

9:53

stories that Jesus can heal people like

9:55

actually pretty easily. You know,

9:58

sometimes he touches people to to make a

10:00

particular point, but sometimes he heals people just from a distance. Like

10:02

he says a word and somebody's healed.

10:05

Sometimes he prays it out loud, but then he

10:08

usually points out like, I wasn't praying for me,

10:10

but for you guys. I kind of want you to think this

10:12

is for you guys. Yeah, this is for you

10:14

guys. So it's like Jesus can almost,

10:17

I mean, effortlessly, it's maybe slightly

10:19

too stressful, like almost effortlessly do things which you and

10:21

I couldn't do in a million years. And

10:24

yet when he goes to the cross, Jesus

10:27

is showing his love for us in

10:29

a way that cost him profoundly. And

10:32

we see this, we see

10:34

this actually especially illustrated and

10:37

communicated to us in the narratives

10:39

we have about the night that

10:41

Jesus was arrested when

10:44

he sort of famously goes with his

10:46

disciples to this garden called Gethsemane. And

10:48

then he prays

10:50

to God and to

10:52

the Father. And we see Jesus

10:54

sort of struggling in prayer there.

10:57

We see him agonized.

10:59

We see him like pleading with the

11:01

Father to, as he put

11:03

it, let this cup pass from

11:05

him. And if we look back

11:08

into the Old Testament scriptures as

11:10

Jesus's first disciples would

11:12

have known, the image, the measure

11:14

of the cup of the Lord in the

11:17

Old Testament is typically communicating God's judgment actually,

11:19

like against whole nations. This

11:22

cup that gets passed around and sort of devastating to

11:24

receive the cup of the Lord. And it's not something

11:26

that one human being takes, it's like poured out on

11:28

a whole nation's rebelling against God.

11:31

And Jesus is here picturing the fact that

11:33

when he dies on the cross that Friday,

11:35

he is going to drink the

11:37

cup of God's wrath down to the

11:39

dregs for us. This one human being

11:42

is going to take on himself the sin of

11:44

the whole world. He's going to take the punishment,

11:47

he's going to take hell for you

11:49

and for me if we would put our trust in him. And

11:52

that is a horrifying prospect.

11:56

But it's something that he takes on willingly

11:59

actually this. despite the cost,

12:02

ultimately out of love for us. And that is

12:05

why I think Jesus'

12:07

death points to his

12:09

love and demonstrates his love for us

12:12

even more than the beautiful things that he did

12:15

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12:17

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It's beautiful and profound to think about Jesus

14:07

willingly knowing and doing that because,

14:11

you know, some people would say like, was

14:13

this, you know, did Jesus know? Did Jesus

14:15

know that he was going to end up here? Was

14:17

he just living 30 years and then started a ministry

14:19

and all of a sudden he's like, oh wait, is

14:22

this how this is ending? And to know that Jesus

14:25

knew that this was the path for him to take the whole time

14:27

is like mind blowing. Yeah,

14:29

yeah. And he teaches his disciples and he

14:31

has to tell them multiple times they don't

14:33

get it. They absolutely don't get it because

14:35

it's the last thing they thought would be

14:38

the plan for God's Messiah. God's like

14:40

chosen King promised for centuries that was going

14:42

to come and save God's people. The absolute

14:44

last thing that should have happened in their

14:46

minds was for the Messiah,

14:48

the Christ, to be crucified, like

14:50

to suffer the death most

14:53

associated with slaves and rebels to

14:55

have like, instead of kicking the Romans out, which

14:58

was probably what they were hoping God's Messiah

15:00

would do for the plan

15:02

to be that instead Jesus should be crucified

15:05

by the Romans was like completely the opposite

15:07

of what they would have envisaged. And

15:09

yet Jesus there is defeating a much

15:11

greater enemy than the Romans. He's defeating sin

15:14

and death and hell for us. So

15:17

yeah, he's conquering. You

15:20

know, speaking of the cross, you

15:22

talk a little bit in here about how we've

15:24

kind of sanitized the cross over these 2000

15:27

years. I mean, you

15:29

see people wearing crosses around their neck. It's

15:31

like just in churches.

15:33

It's just we have we have

15:35

made it different than what it was. But you talk

15:37

a little bit about the reality of the cross. Can

15:39

you speak to that a little bit about the

15:42

reality of what that would have meant in

15:44

that in that day and age when Jesus

15:47

was crucified by the Romans? Yeah,

15:49

I mean, in some ways, the crucifixion

15:52

was very familiar

15:54

to the first century

15:56

readers of the gospels and

15:58

the people who were witness. witnessing what was

16:01

happening to Jesus because it was the

16:03

way that the Romans dealt

16:05

with rebels and made an

16:07

example of especially of slaves who were sort

16:09

of trying to rise up. And

16:11

the cross was very specifically designed to be both

16:14

like maximally painful and enduring, like it

16:16

wasn't a quick death. It was a

16:18

slow and agonizing death. And

16:21

it was designed to be maximally humiliating. This

16:25

wasn't a sort of quiet execution in, not that

16:27

any execution is pleasant, but this was

16:32

not like a lethal injection done in a

16:34

way in a prison somewhere. This was like

16:36

a very public statement

16:38

of this is what will happen to you if you

16:40

try and stand up against the Romans. And

16:44

so I think it's hard for us

16:47

to really recognize both, not

16:49

only the pain, but also the shame of

16:51

the crucifixion. But

16:55

it actually completely fits in with the

16:57

ethic that Jesus was teaching

16:59

and modeling. I love how he explains it

17:02

to his disciples as to why it is

17:04

that leadership in his kingdom is completely the

17:06

reverse of leadership outside his kingdom. He says,

17:09

even the son of man, referring

17:11

to himself and connecting up with

17:13

an Old Testament, a sort of image of

17:15

this extraordinary figure who would receive

17:18

a kingdom from God himself that

17:20

would be like enduring and universal. So even the

17:22

son of man didn't come

17:24

to be served, but to serve and

17:27

to give his life as a ransom for many. That

17:30

Jesus is in many ways stepping

17:32

into the lowest place and

17:36

paying the price for us,

17:39

taking not only

17:42

like it's extraordinary how many things that

17:44

God is doing actually at the cross

17:46

that Jesus is taking the sin

17:49

of the world, the sin of anyone who

17:51

would put their trust in him as being

17:53

fully paid for and dealt with on

17:55

the cross. And at the

17:58

same time, Jesus is taking on himself. ourselves

18:01

are suffering and

18:04

our experience of brokenness

18:06

and physical pain and alienation.

18:09

And he's defeating death for us, which

18:11

is the thing which I feel like the older you get,

18:15

the less you can pretend you're never going to die. Many

18:18

of us in our very protected

18:22

and health conscious 21st century

18:24

Western culture can go

18:28

a decent proportion of our lives, often really,

18:30

without confronting the fact that we're going to

18:32

die. Maybe we've had grandparents die, or maybe we've

18:34

had parents die, or maybe people we've loved

18:37

to are closer to our age.

18:39

But the further we're going on in life, the

18:41

less we can fail to confront the

18:43

fact, yeah, you and I are going to die. And

18:48

Jesus on the cross is giving us

18:50

hope in the face of death, as

18:53

well as all the other things that he's doing. And there's

18:55

so much kind of bound up in

18:57

that he is the

19:00

one person who can take our

19:02

hand and walk us through death into resurrection life.

19:05

A lot happened in that one day, Rebecca, like,

19:07

oh, that was a lot going on. Yeah, yeah.

19:09

That was a busy day. You

19:13

know, historically, a lot of people can wrap their

19:15

brain around Jesus's crucifixion for a lot

19:17

of the reasons that you just said, like, it was common.

19:19

If you look at history, this is the way that the

19:21

Romans dealt with, you know,

19:24

criminals. And so they can go like,

19:26

okay, we can agree, like, okay, Jesus,

19:29

a rabbi, born of N n,

19:31

we can say that this man was

19:33

crucified. Yeah, but then we get to

19:36

the resurrection. And then we get

19:38

a whole nother thing, because now what we're asking,

19:40

or what God is saying is like, here's

19:42

what we could believe, we need to believe that

19:44

Jesus not only was killed, okay, historically, we can

19:46

wrap our brain around that, but he rose from

19:48

the grave. This is where people's minds just get

19:50

blown, you know, and so in

19:53

your book, you walk through four pieces of evidence

19:56

with why people can actually wrap their brain around

19:58

that. I'll say them to you. I would love for

20:00

you just to touch on whichever one you want. You

20:02

say the outbreak, the message,

20:05

the Romans and the women. And

20:08

so four pieces

20:10

of evidence that you say that

20:12

Jesus did truly

20:14

like he claims rise from the dead.

20:17

So can you dive into any of those that you'd like

20:19

to go with? Yeah, I think I'll start

20:22

with the outbreak. So what do I mean by that? When

20:25

Jesus died on the cross almost 2000

20:28

years ago, he was

20:30

the seemingly failed leader of a

20:33

tiny Jewish sect in

20:35

a backwater of the Roman Empire.

20:42

If we were to go back 2000 years, there's very

20:44

little reason to think that anybody would be talking about

20:46

this 2000 years later. You know, this

20:48

guy never wrote a book. He never ruled an empire. He never

20:50

raised an army. He never settled on a throne. He didn't do

20:52

any of the things that usually get

20:55

you recorded in history. And

20:58

yet here we are 2000 years later, still

21:00

talking about him. And it's not just you and me because

21:02

we're weirdos. It's actually this

21:05

is a movement that

21:07

is all across the world and that

21:09

represents the largest global belief system today

21:12

and the most diverse in any way you want to

21:14

cut it. So

21:16

what on earth happened to change

21:21

this small,

21:23

I mean, probably there were like a few dozen

21:25

followers of Jesus after he

21:27

died, like a few dozen sort of disciples, not just

21:29

the 12 chosen apostles, there's

21:31

actually a number of women who travel with Jesus

21:34

and a number of other disciples.

21:36

So there was kind of little group. Yeah, small

21:39

group of heartbroken,

21:42

confused. In

21:45

many ways, cowardly, actually. I mean, they

21:47

run away from Jesus when the going

21:49

got tough the night that he

21:51

was he was arrested. Jewish

21:56

followers of Jesus, like, how did

21:58

those people turn

22:01

into a preaching team that

22:03

literally changed the world in ways that

22:06

we cannot avoid noticing

22:08

2000 years later,

22:10

sort of something must have

22:13

happened. And, you know, some people say,

22:15

well, you know, maybe Jesus was a charismatic leader, and

22:17

then the stories about him got more and more exaggerated

22:19

as time went by. And eventually, like before we know

22:21

it, like early recruits to Christianity were saying, well, actually,

22:23

he was raised from the dead. Problem

22:26

with that, a number of problems with that,

22:28

but one of them is actually know the

22:30

resurrection is intrinsic to the Christian message from

22:32

the foot first, there are no early recruits

22:34

to Christianity if there is no resurrection, right?

22:36

Like it's like Romeo and Juliet without Juliet,

22:38

you know, it's not a story other than

22:40

like, this leader died. So,

22:42

so what are we going

22:45

to make of this? And then we find

22:47

that, you know, the women is one of the examples I gave

22:49

there is like, oddly, strangely,

22:51

counter culturally and counter intuitively,

22:55

the first witnesses of the resurrection according

22:57

to all the gospels are these

22:59

these women. And to us, that

23:01

doesn't strike us as particularly strange. But

23:04

in that culture, and in that day, the testimony

23:07

of women was just not seen as as legitimate

23:10

as the testimony of men. Yeah.

23:12

So why on earth

23:14

would the gospel authors

23:16

record that it was women who had

23:19

first witnessed Jesus's resurrection, there are plenty of

23:21

other sort of more plausible men who were

23:23

knocking around who could have appeared to first, but

23:25

it seems like he didn't he chose

23:27

to reveal himself to these to

23:29

these women, even the first apostles according to Luke, like

23:31

didn't didn't believe when they're when the women came

23:33

back and told them what they seen.

23:36

So that's like embarrassing. So

23:38

there are also some reasons why the

23:41

resurrection claim sort of wild as

23:43

it sounds, has had

23:46

this extraordinary impact that we need to

23:48

figure out like, what did

23:50

happen, like if the resurrection didn't happen,

23:52

what on earth did. And then I

23:55

think it's important to recognize that there are probably a lot of a lot of

23:57

people who would think, you know, I can believe that there

23:59

is a God. Like maybe there's a God who made the world. But

24:02

the idea of somebody being raised in the dead, like that

24:04

just seems like a supernatural bridge too far. You know, that's

24:07

like, that's pushing, pushing the envelope a bit. But

24:10

actually, if you think about it, if there is a God who made the universe

24:12

and everyone in it, it's not at all

24:14

irrational to think that he could do a miracle like raising somebody

24:16

from the dead. Like, it's actually kind of irrational

24:19

to think that couldn't be possible. Right. So,

24:21

so, you know, if there's no God, of course, somebody couldn't

24:23

be raised to the dead. But

24:26

if we're, if we're open to possibility, yeah, maybe there is a God,

24:28

then we should be open to

24:30

the possibility that God

24:32

sent his only son, not only

24:34

to die for us, but also to be raised so

24:37

that we could live with him forever. And that's the

24:39

peace, I think can get lost even

24:42

by well-meaning Christians as we try to

24:44

articulate our faith. We sort of explain why Jesus

24:46

died on the cross to pay for your sin and for mine so

24:49

we could be back in relationship with God. Oh,

24:52

and then Jesus rose from the dead. We're not

24:54

quite sure why, like maybe it's certainly proved that

24:56

what he'd said was true, but how it's relevant to

24:58

us today. We're not always quite

25:00

sure. And actually the invitation

25:03

of the Christian message is to be

25:05

united with this, with this Jesus who

25:08

died for us and who

25:10

rose to, not only to

25:12

pave the way for us to have

25:14

resurrection life, but actually to live with

25:16

us, to be, as he explained to

25:19

one of his first female disciples, Martha, in John's

25:21

gospel. He is a resurrection and

25:23

the life. And

25:25

none of us truly can have life apart

25:28

from him either before our death or afterwards.

25:31

You know, speaking of the resurrection, you tell a story in here.

25:34

You started, you were talking about heaven at the end of this

25:36

book and you talk about your friend Grace. And

25:40

at the point in the book, I don't even know, I should have asked her

25:43

before I brought this up, at the point in the book, she was

25:45

battling cancer and she had already previously

25:47

lost her spouse a decade before. And

25:51

I got a little teary-eyed when I was reading it

25:53

because what you hear

25:55

a lot of people say, and I just want to

25:57

confess, like this really convicted me, like when I read

25:59

this. You hear a lot of people say,

26:01

like, I can't wait in

26:03

death to be reunited with my loved ones. And

26:06

I can't. And we would have expected your friend Grace to say,

26:08

I can't wait to be reunited with my husband, who she'd been

26:10

apart from for a decade. And

26:12

that feels very real and human, you know, like

26:15

this desire to be back with the people that

26:17

we've loved so much. And in

26:19

the book, you tell that your friend

26:21

Grace actually said we're often setting our sights too

26:23

low. And for her,

26:25

it was being united with her Savior.

26:28

So can you expand on that a little bit? Yeah,

26:31

and I'll drop my tears up over here. Grace

26:34

died a few months ago and went to be with Jesus. And

26:36

I got to know her after she

26:39

was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I

26:41

had no idea what a gift it would be for me

26:43

to get to know her in that period. I had reached

26:45

out because this has been announced to the membership of our church.

26:47

And I thought, you know, she's a somewhat

26:50

older lady in our church. Our church, 10

26:52

trends very young. So, you know, she was brilliant. I think

26:54

she was in her early 60s, thereabouts. You

26:58

know, we fought like after 40 there, the

27:00

demographics of my church sort of slimmed down. So

27:02

I was like, oh, you know, sister in Christ who I know

27:04

is single and, you know, facing

27:06

death and I wanted to reach out to sort

27:09

of offer love. I had no idea as to

27:11

say kind of how I would benefit from

27:14

our friendship. Yeah, one of the things

27:16

she shared with me was conversation. She had

27:18

sort of similar conversations actually both with her daughter

27:21

and with her brother in law. He

27:23

was saying, you know, you know, daughter was saying, I think

27:25

if heaven is a place where we get to see Papa again, you

27:27

know, having dearly loved her father and

27:29

knowing how much her mum had loved her

27:31

father and who died 10 years

27:34

previously. And Grace's response

27:36

was, I think we're setting our

27:38

sights too low. And that

27:41

just so beautifully

27:43

expresses the biblical

27:46

truth that even in the best human relationship,

27:48

even in the most intimate

27:50

and fulfilling human marriage, what

27:53

we're getting is a tiny

27:55

little echo shadow for taste of

27:57

Jesus's love for us. And in marriage is actually.

28:00

at its best designed to show us Jesus's

28:03

sacrificial love. And so

28:06

we're actually foolish if what

28:08

we're looking forward to after

28:11

death primarily is being reunited with

28:14

those we've truly loved in

28:17

terms of our human experience.

28:20

We're foolish if that's the thing that we're most looking forward to because

28:23

even at their best, those relationships are pointing us

28:25

to something even better. And

28:29

Grace knew that and it was a joy to me to sort of

28:31

walk with her through her final months and just

28:33

get to kind of observe

28:35

what it looks like for a Christian

28:37

who believes in the resurrection to die

28:40

with confidence and faith. The

28:43

very last text she sent me, she

28:47

was a writer as well and had

28:49

written a number of articles for a local news station. And

28:53

they decided they wanted to sort of chronicle her

28:56

cancer and sort of stay with her basically to

28:58

the end of doing various sort of video and

29:00

kind of audio projects with her. And

29:03

her last text me says, you know, they've

29:05

decided to follow me kind of to the

29:07

end and I'm praying for opportunities to share

29:09

my faith. I was thinking, you know, that

29:11

is how I want to die. All

29:14

the way to the end. Yeah. Well,

29:16

I read that and was

29:20

really convicted and remember praying

29:22

and just asking God to like redirect my

29:24

heart because it's not like I didn't, it's

29:26

not like I wasn't aware of like

29:28

our greatest joy. It's not like I'm

29:30

unaware of that marriage is a slim

29:32

reflection of what it is. I have

29:34

all this knowledge, but then sometimes

29:36

my emotions can get in the way and I

29:39

would feel myself like Grace's

29:41

daughter saying, oh, this

29:43

would be what I would be most excited

29:45

about. And just really asking God, man, it

29:48

is like you said, it is a slim reflection

29:50

of the love that Jesus has for us. And

29:52

so I appreciated that story in there so much.

29:55

And I'm sorry about your loss as

29:57

well, but I'm super happy that Grace has been united

29:59

with us. our neighbor like she was looking

30:01

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31:01

be great. You

31:05

guys, this book is

31:07

really, really, like I said, compact and

31:10

very, very, very informative

31:12

as well. It's called Is

31:14

Easter Unbelievable? Four questions everyone should ask

31:16

about the resurrection story. You can get it anywhere.

31:18

You buy books. I really appreciate it. Rebecca,

31:21

while I have you, I know that you

31:23

also just released a Bible study called Navigating

31:25

Gospel Truth, a guide to faithful reading the

31:28

account of Jesus' life. I

31:30

was thinking about this Bible study because

31:32

as we've been even speaking today, we

31:34

have said numerous times, you have said

31:36

about how this would have been so,

31:40

this was so out of the disciples'

31:43

concept of what Jesus was to do. I

31:45

was thinking as you were speaking earlier, I was like, man, I

31:48

have grown up in the church my whole life and I

31:51

wonder what it would feel like, Rebecca, to

31:53

not know the end of the story as

31:55

I was reading the gospel. Like

31:58

I'm starting in... Matthew 1,

32:00

and although Jesus predicts his death throughout, but what if

32:02

I was like the disciples and it's just like, what?

32:06

This happened? I didn't even know it.

32:08

And so I would love to hear, just tell

32:10

us a little bit about this Bible study, Navigating

32:12

Gospel Truth, A Guide to Faithful Reading and Accounts

32:14

of Jesus' Life. Yeah,

32:17

I had a lot of fun writing that study in

32:21

some ways because my

32:23

background is in English literature. I

32:26

did a PhD on like metaphors and Shakespeare, which, you know,

32:28

people don't ask me to talk about that a whole lot

32:30

these days, funnily enough. Anytime you

32:32

want to have a podcast episode. But

32:36

one of the things that's always struck

32:38

me is how, you know, will

32:41

sometimes be asked if you're a Christian or

32:43

you might ask if you're not a Christian

32:45

in particular, you know,

32:47

do you take the Bible literally? Do

32:49

you take the Gospel account into Jesus' life literally?

32:53

And usually when people are asking that question, what

32:55

they're really meaning is like, do

32:57

you believe the crazy things that the Gospels

32:59

are telling us about Jesus? Like, do you really

33:02

believe that Jesus, you know, rose from the dead,

33:04

for instance? Yeah. But

33:07

we frame it as you take this literally. And

33:10

I think it's super important that we

33:12

kind of pause and unpack that a

33:14

bit. Because actually, a

33:16

lot of the time in the Gospels, Jesus

33:18

himself is very intentionally speaking

33:21

in non-literal forms of

33:24

communication. So,

33:26

you know, one example is Jesus saying, you know, I am

33:28

the good shepherd. The good shepherd

33:30

lays down his life for his sheep. Now,

33:33

if we read that literally,

33:35

then Jesus is saying

33:37

that he is literally somebody who kind

33:40

of walks around with furry mammals that

33:42

have four legs and go, you know,

33:45

and that he is planning to die for those furry

33:47

mammals. Now when we kind of

33:49

put in those terms, we realize it's absurd

33:51

to think that Jesus is speaking literally. Instead, what

33:53

he's doing is he is

33:56

gathering up this massive Old

33:58

Testament metaphor. of

34:00

God as a shepherd, you know, famously in Psalm 23,

34:03

the Lord is my shepherd, I shall

34:05

not be unwanted. And

34:07

this idea of God's

34:10

King as a shepherd, like he's sort of grabbing all

34:13

of those metaphors and

34:15

Old Testament metaphors about us

34:17

being like sheep who've gone astray and turned everyone

34:19

to his own way, as Isaiah puts it, and

34:21

how the Lord has laid on

34:24

their suffering servant all of our sin.

34:26

So he's sort of gathering up all

34:28

these Old Testament metaphors into

34:30

this picture and saying, I'm the good shepherd,

34:32

the good shepherd lays on his life for a sheep. But

34:34

we need to kind of understand like, how do

34:37

metaphors work for us

34:39

to really faithfully understand what Jesus is saying there?

34:41

Because if we read it literally, we're going to

34:43

misunderstand him. And that's true time

34:45

and time and time again in the gospels. Now, some

34:47

people say, well, okay, if you're going to say some

34:49

things in the gospels are metaphors,

34:52

then why can't we just use that

34:54

whenever something's inconvenient? So like the resurrection, can we

34:56

just not say that it's a like metaphorical

34:59

resurrection? Well, as you know,

35:01

because the gospels are really very clear that they are talking

35:03

about a physical bodily resurrection,

35:05

you know, having Jesus come and like he's

35:07

eating things and touching people and whatever, like after

35:09

his after his resurrection. And

35:12

yet, we need to kind of hold these two pieces together.

35:15

And we need to recognize that often Jesus

35:17

is telling stories, parables,

35:19

as we sometimes call them in

35:22

the gospels. And we need to think, how

35:24

do we faithfully read a story

35:27

which is not necessarily telling us about

35:30

historical realities? So for example, the

35:33

famous parable of the Good Samaritan,

35:36

when Jesus reports this, you know, crime happening

35:39

between Jerusalem and, you

35:41

know, Jericho, and you're thinking, well,

35:44

the point of this story is actually not Jesus reporting

35:46

on a crime scene. And you know, somebody dial 911 and

35:49

get the police there because you know, this guy's been beaten

35:52

He's actually communicating profound truths

35:55

about us and about God through this

35:58

story. And so, I

36:00

wrote this Bible study to help us

36:02

kind of navigate these different

36:04

kinds of communication, whether it's magic wars

36:06

or stories or this funny thing called

36:08

hyperbole, which is like extreme exaggeration to make a

36:11

very serious point. Like how do we navigate these

36:13

things? So good, you guys. You

36:15

can get this. It's out now already

36:17

wherever you get stuff, navigating gospel treats. You

36:19

know, Rebecca, I want to say one of the

36:21

things that has been really profound for me in the

36:23

last probably, I don't know, 10 years of my life

36:27

is knowing

36:29

why I believe what I believe. And

36:31

I mentioned to you probably every time I interview you of just

36:34

like taking these

36:36

concepts that I have had so much faith in

36:38

for all my life and really figuring out why

36:40

do I believe these things? Why do I believe

36:43

these things? And

36:45

I remember about probably 15 years

36:47

ago now, I was having a conversation with one of my

36:49

kids and they, I mean, he's 19 now. And

36:52

so, you know, he would have been a little bitty, little

36:54

bitty kid. And they asked me

36:56

a question that was really profound about faith. And I didn't

36:58

know the answer. And

37:00

I said to him, I said, well, you know

37:02

what? How about when your dad gets home? We

37:04

can ask him because your dad's a pastor. Let's

37:07

just throw all these his way. And

37:09

I remember God did something really like I'm grateful for

37:12

it really profound in my heart where I thought to myself, why

37:15

do I not care about knowing how

37:17

to answer my four, five, six, seven

37:19

as he grew up child? Why

37:21

do I think that that should just be something Aaron

37:23

does because he's a pastor? And so God started me

37:25

on this journey of really wanting to

37:27

be a learner, like really wanting to just

37:29

take what I believe in faith and learn

37:32

about it. And I'm saying all this to

37:34

say that I remember I had a conversation with a mutual friend

37:36

of ours. I call her my friend. I've

37:38

really only interviewed her, but I'm going to claim her with Rachel Gilson. And

37:41

I remember thinking to myself, we had

37:43

a conversation about her book, Born Again

37:45

This Way and great book, by the

37:47

way, great episode, all the things, everybody

37:49

go, all the things. And

37:51

I remember I said to her, one of the things that I think is

37:53

so important for believers is that we understand why

37:55

we believe that we believe because

37:58

there will come a day when it will be. coming

38:00

question. And parenting for

38:02

19 years, being a

38:04

faithful follower of Jesus for all these years, that

38:07

moment in time where I was like, God, I need to

38:09

know why I believe what I believe, it has proven to

38:11

be true that I do need to know what I believe,

38:14

why I believe. Faith

38:16

is amazing, but we live in a culture that wants

38:18

to know why we believe what we believe. And so

38:21

all of that to say, I'm just, these

38:24

conversations about Easter and about Christmas and

38:26

even about dissecting what did Jesus mean when He said,

38:28

well, good shepherd, I didn't know He was a shepherd.

38:32

I'm trying to encourage a listener that

38:34

these matter to us as followers of

38:36

Jesus. They matter because we know Him more

38:38

through it and they matter because it helps increase our witness

38:40

to the world. And so I want to say thank you

38:42

for writing all these things. Well, and

38:44

let it be known that I am continually asked questions,

38:46

especially by my 10 and 4 year

38:49

old kids, where I don't know

38:51

the answer. So it's not something

38:53

that goes away, but I agree

38:55

that the more we're asked questions and we

38:57

think, you know what, I've never really thought about

38:59

that. And if I'm honest, I've sort of just

39:01

like let that be a thing in my head

39:03

without really grappling with, I think sometimes

39:05

as Christians, we can be nervous. Like

39:07

if I really looked into the resurrection, maybe

39:10

I become less convinced. I

39:12

actually found completely the opposite. When

39:14

I really look into something, I become

39:16

more convinced about Jesus and not less. And

39:19

you know, that's good news for people who are

39:21

in my boat with parenting, like older kids who,

39:24

Aaron and I want our kids to get their

39:26

own faith. It's impossible.

39:28

You cannot hang on the coattails of somebody

39:30

else's faith. And so when you think those

39:32

questions are hard when they're four, wait

39:34

till they're like in their late teen years

39:37

and they're questioning everything you've ever talked about

39:39

and not always in a bad way, but

39:41

just like, wait, what? I

39:44

agree with you that it is in those questions

39:46

that we actually, when we dig through and

39:48

we dive in and we figure out what

39:50

is the same that our faith becomes stronger,

39:52

which is beautiful. Rebecca,

39:55

thank you so much for coming on the happy hour. I

39:57

wasn't even prepared to ask you what you're reading, but I

39:59

bet you. are reading something right now. What are you

40:01

reading these days? Well,

40:03

I just finished. Well, I was

40:06

going to tell you about the book. I just finished, but

40:08

I'll tell you about the book. I'm actually reading. I'm finally

40:10

reading a book called A Secular Age by a

40:14

Canadian Catholic philosopher called

40:16

Charles Taylor, which people

40:18

have been talking about this book. I've been reading books

40:20

that are derivative of this book for a long

40:22

time. And I was like, you know what? I really need to sit down. In

40:25

fact, I said to Rachel Gosselin, I was like, do I need to read this

40:27

book? She was like, yeah, you do. It

40:30

is a long and heavy read. I think

40:33

I'm like 550 pages in and there are

40:35

another couple of hundred pages to go. Okay.

40:37

Yeah. But it has been

40:39

really interesting. He's trying to give an

40:41

account of how the context

40:43

in which people think about faith

40:46

has changed in the last 500 years

40:48

in the West. And what are the features of that?

40:52

One of the big surprises of

40:54

the last few decades is actually that rather

40:56

than the world becoming much

40:58

more secular as it's

41:01

become more modern and more scientific and

41:03

more educated kind of globally, rather than

41:05

that happening, but actually we continue to

41:07

see very, very

41:10

vigorous faith commitment. First,

41:12

you know, Christians are the largest faith group,

41:14

Muslims the second. And actually,

41:17

if you look at kind of global trends and it's those

41:20

who identify as non-religious, that group is actually

41:23

declining rather than those who identify as Christians,

41:25

sort of surprisingly. But

41:27

one of the things we have found in the modern world

41:29

is that fear and fear people

41:31

are Christians because they've never encountered

41:34

any other option. You know, we're not, fear and

41:36

fear of us are living in a world where

41:38

you never even question where the

41:41

resurrection happened because like literally everybody you've ever met

41:43

thinks that it did, you know, we're actually all

41:45

living in a world where one way or another

41:47

we'll have neighbors who will believe very different things

41:49

to us. And that just kind of changes how

41:52

we think about faith in ways that can

41:54

be positive and can be negative. And we sort of

41:56

need to sift through that. So yeah, it's

41:59

been very. interesting and educational. Very

42:01

interesting. I should have read it

42:03

probably five years ago. What

42:06

did you just finish reading? I just finished

42:08

reading a book called Biblical Critical Theory by an

42:11

old friend of mine from Cambridge days actually called

42:13

Chris Watkin. It's a delightful book. Also

42:16

rather substantial, certainly a much

42:19

easier read than Charles Taylor's. I

42:22

love it. Well Rebecca, thank you so much

42:24

for the work you're doing. Thank you for coming back

42:26

on the happy hour. And

42:29

grateful for all you're doing. You

42:31

too Jamie. The

42:45

happy hour is produced in our set

42:47

by restolts Jamie Ivey. With assistance from

42:49

Nicky Ogden and Ashley Caldwell. And

42:51

the show is edited by Jason Hadley. Time

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