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Mhm Yeah, yeah. Hi everyone. Welcome to Webinar Wednesday, it is October 31 Halloween. Happy Halloween to all This is the second webinar Wednesday of the fall of 2019 and this is an effort of

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education beyond the walls in Austin Seminary to bring some of the resources and expertise, Parsons and marriage of the rider world and wider community and my name is Dave Jensen. The subject of our our together is

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jesus through the centuries, interpreting christ for our time by listening to differing interpretations of jesus from other times . So what I, what I want to do is um I want to speak fairly briefly about four

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voices from the history of the church and how they interpreted jesus and why they still matter for us today . Uh after I do the first two we will have some time for conversation. Then we will,

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I will unfold the final two and then we'll have wider conversation about, you know what on earth might all this mean for us as we try to be disciples of jesus christ today, so that's kind of

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what we have, we have an hour, I also serve as the academic dean and what in the life of a dean uh there are many, many meetings and I have a meeting right after one,

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so I need to end right at one sharply uh even though I could probably go on talking about jesus for days and years and and even longer, but thank you for taking time to be with us this

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morning, I hope that what we share together provides some some help for your life as a disciple in your life and ministry. Um so the first person I want to talk about and how jesus got interpreted

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as a voice from the early church, his name is erroneous and he stressed in his interpretation of jesus , the body and flesh of christ and how jesus was good news, not just for humanity but for

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all of creation. Um and so one of the things that he does is he focuses on the man , jesus um and his human flesh and how he shared all of flesh with us. Um Iranians had

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a very interesting way of talking about how jesus christ saves humanity. Um and for him, it wasn't simply an atoning death that is significant in the saving work of jesus. Rather, it's the entirety of

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his life, his birth, his embodiment as a human being, his teaching, uh his death and his resurrection. So only that whole tapestry. Uh and when we pay attention to that, that that

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is what it means to say, Jesus saves, he doesn't isolate a single moment in jesus life as most important. Okay, many voices throughout the history of church has said, well, when push comes

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to shove, what matters about jesus is the cross and Irina says no, what matters is that he came into the world as a human being, uh and in that human body he shows the way of

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salvation. Um you might say he takes with other serious business, John one word becomes flesh and dwells among us and so he takes a lot of pains too stress the full humanity of jesus. He meditates

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on things like his blood, his organs, his physicality, his emotions, all of these things. And by the way, this is a voice from the second century of the christian church. Okay,

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this is just, you know, about 100 years after Paul wrote his letters, uh, less than that after the Gospels reform. So, this is a very, very early voice in the tradition.

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Um, and I have a piece of artwork that I think symbolizes his approach to jesus, that I want to share with you. All right, so , this is actually a 19th century portrait by a

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romantic artist, Fritz von Yoga. It's entitled Let the Children come to me. But in a way this 19th century portrait of Jesus captures much of this second century theologian, Jesus comes to us as one

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of us. You can see, he he attends to the smallest among list, um and people come to him uh and he welcomes all. Uh so this is a man who looks like anyone else in

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our midst. And uh and in doing so, he shows us the way of salvation. Okay, now, one interesting thing about your niece's interpretation of jesus, this might strike you as odd. He

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believed that Jesus lived into old age, um if you think so, that Jesus dies on the cross for urinates, but he dies on the cross as an old man, and this is very different from

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most interpretations of Jesus throughout the century. You have to remember that he's writing his reflections really, as the gospels are being formed and uh but in a way, this, this sense that Jesus lives into

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old age is consistent with all of his theology of Jesus, um and and and is consistent in this way, that it's the entire life of jesus that saves not one moment within it. So, he

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, so there's something about the life of jesus that embraces infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence, adulthood , old age, all of those moments of human life Jesus takes as his own. And so that's

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a little interesting tidbit about Uranus. Um the other thing that is very, very significant about Uranus is that Jesus is good news for all of creation. Okay, this might in some regards be the most

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important aspect of his theology. Jesus comes not to save us, you and me, human people, not to save human society even uh Jesus comes to save the whole world, no exceptions. Um and

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the coming of jesus in the flesh is good news for all. That is all right. In Jesus christ, you might say a new creation begins okay and God fulfills what God has been doing all along

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. And so Iranians will have these amazing reflections on how the coming of jesus in the flesh is good news for the fertility of the earth. It's good news for all creatures if you're a pet, if

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you're a fan of dogs like I am, this is about the, you know, this is some of the best news for dog lovers in the entire history of christian thought that jesus comes to save all

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of creation, no exceptions. And I have another portrait that I think captures some of this. So this is an icon of christ Ponta Qatar, christ , the creator and savior of all creation. This

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is a common kind of icon that you encounter in the Orthodox churches. This is from a church in , in in belgrade Serbia. Um, and so this captures, you have christ as the center of

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creation. He's surrounded by the heavenly host, but he is the one who brings good news for all creation. And so in christ, um, in christ, you have not simply a restoration of what

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was lost because of sin. Rather, you bring creation finally into the fullness that God intends for it all along. Um, so that's a little bit about your own ideas. Uh, second century theologian

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and why he matters for today. I next want to turn to the medieval period Julian of Norwich, Born in 1342. So we're talking about a 14th century theologian. We don't know much about her life

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other than a few captivating facts. Uh the first interesting fact is she wrote the first english language book to be authored by a woman. Okay, so it's the first text that we have in an english

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language, in the english language that we know was written by a woman and it contains her reflections of 16 visions that she had in the midst of a very grave illness. This was during the time of

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the black death in europe. Uh so there's a lot of uh tragedy, disease, uh enormous swaths of the population are killed because of this plague. Um she uh in the midst of that cataclysm has

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this series of visions that provide hope and their visions essentially of the saving work of jesus christ. The other thing about her life is that she lived um , as an anchor chris, so she was not

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a nun, but it was a kind of religious order, like a nun where she devoted herself to prayer for the world. Uh, and she lived in a small room in the cathedral in Norwich,

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England, uh, and in that form of life , she had a window to the outside world. People would come and visit her, but she lived the remainder of her life in this particular cell.

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And if you go to north, you can see the place where she lived. She's kind of a celebrated figure of that part of England. Well, what does she have to teach us about, jesus

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? What I think she shows us is the maternal face of christ, the savior, Jesus julien says , is our mother who nourishes cares, intends for us as her Children. She describes christ's care for

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the world as an act akin to childbirth. So here, I'm going to quote Julian here, Jesus is in labor until the time has come for him to suffer the sharpest pangs and the most appalling pain

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possible. It's an intentional use of the pain of childbirth. Um, and comparing that experience to how christ labors for us and for all of the world . Uh, and what is more Jesus also is

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the mother who nourishes us. Here's what she says , the human mother will suckle her child with her own milk, but our beloved mother, Jesus feeds us with himself and with the most tenderness, does

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it, by means of the blessed sacrament, the precious food of all true life. So, here what she's doing is she's comparing the Lord's supper to breast milk, the basic food that sustains us in

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infancy. I think this is an incredibly powerful way of looking at the Eucharist at the table, at the Lord's table, christ feeds us with himself like a nursing mother feeds her infant with breast milk.

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In both of these examples, you have the mother feeding the child with part of herself. Okay, it's incredibly evocative image of thinking of the Lord's supper . I don't think we do this much. I

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I have never heard words ever uttered a table that evoke anything like this. But Julian is writing this in the 14th century in a very, very powerful way and keep in mind that there is death all

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around as she's writing this and what the work of christ does is gives us new life by feeding us with herself with himself as our mother. Um what else Julian does is she shows us that all of

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this work of christ is for the sake of love . For her love is the beginning and the end of all of what christ does for us. Love is the reason why we're here. Love is the

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reason why christ has come. Love is the result of christ saving work. Um here's Julian again, the whole of life is grounded and rooted in love without love. We cannot live so christ comes to

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the world to show us what the shape of love looks like. A love that never lets us go like a mother will never let go her child. Um, and at the conclusion of her of this

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amazing series of revelation, Julian writes this. Who showed it to you love? What did he show you love? Why did he show it for love ? So it was that I learned that love was

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our Lord's meaning before ever he made us God loved us and his love has never slackened nor ever shall . Um The other thing that she concludes, uh , you know, at this series of visions is

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uh Julian has this phrase that you may have heard at some point before, all will be well, okay, christ comes, so that all will be well in God's world. So love will not let

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us go. Hope will not let us go and have a piece of religious art that I think captures some of this sensibility for our time. This is a A contemporary work of art, its 20th centuries

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compassion. Um, I think it captures quite remarkably the love of God revealed in the world akin to a mother's that is captured in the coming of christ in the flesh. Let's move forward a bit to

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uh we were we lingered a bit in the 14th century. Uh now we're gonna linger some in the 16th uh and I'm gonna mention someone who is probably familiar actually, and on this day it's quite significant

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that we're talking about it, but I'm going to talk about martin Luther okay. And you know, October 31, in addition to Halloween is remembered his Reformation Day, 501 years ago, Martin Luther inaugurated

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a series of events that led to the protestant reformation . What did he say about jesus? And and why does it matter today? Well, I think one thing that he did is he paid attention to

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tragedy, okay, and the tragic nature of human life and how jesus comes uh to redeem that and he does this by focusing on the cross. Okay , so the way that Luther reclaims the cross as

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a central christian symbol and a central way of interpreting jesus I think is very, very important today, and I'm mindful, you know, this last week has been an enormously horrific and painful week in the

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life of the nation. We have seen three unspeakable acts of hate in our time, I went to a vigil at the jewish community center here in Austin on sunday and I'm mindful of speaking these words and

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the enormous tragedy of human life and the violence of human life as in the wake of these unspeakable events of the last, the last week, Luther felt that many of his teachers, many of his predecessors

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ignored the tragic element of jesus christ, that they glorified their descriptions of him, you might say, I mean I'm going to paraphrase Luther, but you kind of had with some of the medieval thinkers of

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Luther's time, you have this headlong rush to the resurrection without lingering on good friday and in so many respects Luther focuses on the suffering of christ and what that means for us today, um and the way

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that jesus overturns the structures of society, uh so he describes his approach to jesus as a theology of the cross as opposed to a theology of glory. Okay, so if we want to talk about jesus

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power, um we talk about not, we talk about that not as the biggest and grandest vision of earthly power. So, you know, one of the ways in which the church had talked about jesus

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power was to compare it to that of a king . Okay, you know, the king being the person in medieval society, you had the most power and wielded that power over others, all others in

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his kingdom. Um the power of christ Luther says is not like that, we don't think of the power of jesus as being the biggest and baddest and grandest form of human power. Okay, It's not

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human power in the loudest voice possible. Okay. Rather what we have in jesus is the inversion of power. Um he is the one who is humiliated and scorned by the powers that be okay. Remember

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what sends jesus to the cross, is the power of Rome. Okay, The most uh all pervasive power in the mediterranean ancient world. Okay, and on the cross, Jesus shows us that those earthly

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powers in the end are empty. Okay. Um what the world celebrates as glorious is nothing, okay , and what the world despises as weakness is in fact, the life giving power of God let loose

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in the world. And so jesus comes to critique all earthly power, including the powers of the church . Okay, Luther's un forgiving on this, nobody escapes. You know, the, the scope of

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the way that jesus overturns the structures of the earth . Okay, He says that earthly power binds us or blinds us to the power of God. Um and what is hidden to the powers of the world

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is revealed to the eyes of faith. And so what we see in the world, or excuse, I'm going to show you a piece of artwork that captures some of this. Here is a portrait of

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christ on the cross. Um what Luther would say is if you look at this portrait through the eyes of earthly power, all you're going to see is the suffering of a man who in the end has

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no power. Okay, But in the eyes of faith, what you see in this portrait is one who, who shows solidarity with all of the suffering of the world. Um, Jesus is good news

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for humanity because he shares in all of our suffering , there is nothing that we can undergo where God is not already present in christ with us and for us. Um so that is, that is so

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, the cross for Luther uh is actually a joyful event. What looks like a harrowing event is actually a joyful event, because it exchanges our sinfulness for the righteousness of God. On the Cross, jesus

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experiences there, all of the rejection that we bring about on ourselves because of sin. And so for Luther, the Cross presents the ultimate clash between our sin and God's righteousness, our way of making our

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self righteous and God's saving grace. The Cross reveals the extent that God is for us. In jesus christ, how Jesus takes our lowly condition as his own and he will say thing, I mean,

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what I think it might be most significant in Luther's interpretation of jesus is how he takes with utter seriousness , jesus cry of abandonment on the cross. So both the gospel of Mark and Matthew record Jesus last

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words as this, my God, why have you forsaken? These are the last words that Jesus says , and what Luther does with that, he interprets those words of jesus as being. This christ takes

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our experience of God forsaken Nous because of sin as christ's own, and he takes our abandonment into the very life of God. Um so this is a very radical move, if you think about it,

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that, you know, if one of the temptations of christian theology is to make God immovable, impassible , not subject to um suffering or the like, what Luther does is says that in christ God takes

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our suffering, our abandonment, our sin as christ as God's very own and experiences all of that. So there is no nothing we can experience in life however violent or horrific, where God is not already

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there, in christ suffering with us, it's an act of radical solidarity, God's radical solidarity with us . Um there is no place where christ is absent , the tragic is taken in christ into God's very

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life and that is a part of how I think Luther's interpretation of jesus remains relevant for our time in an age that where we witness acts of violence on an almost daily basis. Where is God in this

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, where is christ in this? And one of the ways in which Luther attends to that is by saying that christ is with us in solidarity, experiencing all that we experience, I want to move now

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to 1/20 century uh interpretation of jesus, uh that is James cone Born in 1947 And he just died this summer, died in May of 2018. And in a way, what cone does is he takes

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Luther's interpretation of jesus and he makes it a radical for our time by focusing on race and violence. So silicone is regarded by many as the father of black theology in the United States. Born in Arkansas

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, reared in the army african methodist Episcopal Church until his death this past spring, he taught theology at Union Theological Seminary in new york, cone develops an image of jesus like this. He says that jesus

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is the black christ and he offers an alternative two interpretations of Jesus that ignore race and racial violence. So I want to unpack two things that cone stresses about the work and person of christ first of all

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, cone makes this claim that jesus is black. Yeah, what does he mean by that? On the one hand, cone is saying uh that he's making a claim about jesus race and the ways in

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which white Christianity has distorted jesus race pone reminds us that Jesus of Nazareth was a person of Middle Eastern descent. Uh His, you know, we don't have any. I mean one of the interesting things

00:28:02.540 - 00:28:18.000

about the gospels is there are no physical descriptions of jesus, right? I mean, this is this is an interesting tidbit. You might say that there is no we don't have any uh indication from the

00:28:18.000 - 00:28:30.020

writers of the gospels about what he looked like. And many scholars are saying, well, part of this is because uh the gospel writers were not really in fact eyewitnesses, uh jesus, they were second

00:28:30.020 - 00:28:47.650

generation people reflecting on, on the ministry of jesus , but that being said, uh we can reasonably be assured that the poor, uh you know what jesus looked like is likely quite different from the portraits

00:28:47.660 - 00:29:07.790

of jesus that have adorned most of european and north american heart. Okay, Jesus probably did not look like Michelangelo portrayed him. Um His race, in other words, was other than white. Um So

00:29:07.790 - 00:29:21.270

on the one hand, cone is making a claim about the cultural, an ethnic ethnicity of jesus, but on the other hand, he's also making a claim about more than race, more than ethnicity.

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Blackness for cone is a symbol for who jesus is . Uh blackness, Cohn says, symbolizes jesus condition as a person on the underside of history. It demonstrates how jesus uh is in solidarity with all who

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are oppressed. So the black christ for cone is not just a racial category, it's a symbol for everything that humanity has made of race, class and culture. And so the blackness of jesus uh expresses

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for us how jesus comes from the underside of history um and uplifts those who are downtrodden, here's what he says, christ really enters into our world where the poor despised and black are disclosing that he is

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with them enduring their humiliation and pain in transforming oppressed slaves into liberated servants. And it's that phrase transforming oppressed slaves into liberated servants. That is how christ saves for code. Um cone connects the blackness of

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jesus to his jewishness. Okay, uh kone lifts up the fact that throughout history jews have been oppressed wherever they have been and so he makes this interesting comparison between the jewish experience in the jewish diaspora,

00:31:12.140 - 00:31:30.480

to the black experience in north America and in both of those cases you have this movement out of oppression into freedom. It's quite beautiful way of expressing the saving work of christ. The christ brings us out

00:31:30.480 - 00:31:52.420

of slavery into freedom. Mhm. Now, like Luther cone focuses specifically on the cross as a way of interpreting jesus for our time, but he does something that is quite uh powerful and quite convicting for

00:31:52.420 - 00:32:07.820

our time in the United States and he does this in the very last major work that he wrote, he completed at about three years ago. Um and it is a book called The Cross and the lynching

00:32:07.820 - 00:32:28.810

tree, and what he does in this book is he connects the cross, jesus cross to the specter of racial violence in the United States, most notably in the lynchings of african americans throughout american history.

00:32:28.820 - 00:32:44.100

I just want to show you the the cover of cones book because I think it's incredibly evocative. This is the cover of cones most recent book and I highly recommended so what you have here portrayed as a

00:32:44.100 - 00:33:00.730

tree and then in the tree, you have this shadow of the cross on the ground in front of it. And so it's this haunting depiction of the tree and of course, often in the history of

00:33:00.730 - 00:33:20.180

the christian church, the language of cross and tree are interchanged, jesus is the one who hangs on the tree, for that's a way of talking about the cross and what Cohn says is uh that we

00:33:20.180 - 00:33:39.020

have to in the american context recall um the countless lynchings of black americans on trees in the United States . Um, and so the cross exists in the shadow of the tree. The tree exists in the

00:33:39.020 - 00:33:55.570

shadow of the cross for cone. Um get back to my all right, okay, so I want to read you one to understand what the cross meant in jesus context. We have to understand what the

00:33:55.570 - 00:34:19.410

lynching tree means in the context of american history, and Cohen claims that the white Christianity has basically ignored the cross in our midst and in missing this connection . Uh we miss we risk misinterpreting jesus, here's

00:34:19.410 - 00:34:36.940

what Cohen writes. These are very powerful words. Every time a white mob lynched a black person, they lynched jesus. The lynching tree is the cross in America. When american christians realize that they can

00:34:36.940 - 00:34:57.590

meet jesus only in the crucified bodies in our midst , they will encounter the real scandal of the Cross . These are incredible words, at least in my opinion, it's the way you know, So what

00:34:57.590 - 00:35:13.520

cone does is he does not juxtapose the cross and the tree in a kind of a simple way, so that the cross erases the tragedy or the terror of lynching rather, what he does is he poses

00:35:13.520 - 00:35:32.920

the lynching tree as a challenge to our christian life to our theology. How it forces us to acknowledge the ongoing terror that's posed to the oppressed in our midst today. The terror that supposed particularly to black

00:35:32.920 - 00:35:47.250

bodies in the United States. Uh, if you're thinking about mass incarceration, if you're thinking about racial violence in our midst, um, we have to attend to these things. If we claim to be

00:35:47.250 - 00:36:07.550

a people the Cross, and if we don't attend to the way that the Cross relates to the lynching tree, we risk making the cross an empty symbol , Cohen says. But when we are confronted with

00:36:07.550 - 00:36:25.540

the terror of our collective past and presence, we come face to face with a reminder that there is hope upon hope because Jesus himself hung on a tree for us, jesus, Death on the Cross,

00:36:25.930 - 00:36:47.850

Cohen says, empowers us to say no to re enacting all of the horrors of violence again. What the Cross of Jesus should lead us toward is to empower us to work against violence wherever we are today

00:36:50.030 - 00:37:05.780

, Jesus, in other words, endured the cross so that no one might endure it again. Yeah , and so at the end of the day, Jesus, for cone is the Liberator who was raised

00:37:05.780 - 00:37:22.220

from the dead, who sets all who are oppressed free. Um, and I have one final work of art that I think captures this Another 20th century portraits. This is a portrait by a latino artist

00:37:22.220 - 00:37:39.750

of the Americas and it kind of captures, in my opinion how cone sees the resurrection of christ. So the cross has fallen. Christ comes as one who comes in power to set the oppressed free.

00:37:40.540 - 00:37:57.530

And this is not a, this is not a freedom. That is kind of, it's not warm , fuzzy, um, comforting all the time. It is, it is a power uh, that

00:37:57.540 - 00:38:14.480

you look at the wreckage in the background. It's the wreckage of the violence of human civilization that christ comes to overturn um, 44 code. Um, so what we see in cone is the one who

00:38:14.480 - 00:38:30.720

comes to set us free. I hope that part of what I've done for you is, you know , every generation in the christian church has to answer for itself. The question who is christ for us

00:38:30.720 - 00:38:47.240

today? Okay. Uh, how is he? Good news for the world. And I hope that what I've suggested here is that as we are answering that question for our time, there are things that

00:38:47.240 - 00:39:00.360

we can learn from those who have gone before us . I mean, I am convinced that part of what it means to be in the christian churches to , we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses

00:39:00.370 - 00:39:15.100

and many of them are no longer living. Um , you know, uh, every generation stands on the shoulders of those have gone before us and we , we owe it to ourselves to, to spend

00:39:15.100 - 00:39:27.190

some time listening to our parents and our grandparents as well as laughing at them. If you, if you're a parent or a child, I mean all of us are Children of somebody. Um, if

00:39:27.190 - 00:39:39.000

you like me and the family, my family of origin. I mean there's plenty to laugh about in our collective history. I mean plenty to want to do differently than mom and dad or grandma and grandpa

00:39:39.000 - 00:39:54.250

did, but there's also plenty to learn from them . And that's, that's why I'm continued to two do what I do. I want to conclude with , uh, I think I have four very pithy

00:39:54.620 - 00:40:07.900

sayings. Okay, what does all this mean for us today? Okay. How might we learn from the past? How might we express the meaning of christ for us today? First, I think culture

00:40:07.910 - 00:40:25.330

matters, we see this in some of the interpretations of jesus that I've offered today, Jesus was nourished in the faith of Israel, he came to a particular culture um but he also comes to all cultures

00:40:25.330 - 00:40:43.970

and so this is, I think part of our dynamic today, I think any good interpretation of jesus remind ourselves that jesus, the person of jesus somehow connected to the faith of Israel, that was the

00:40:43.970 - 00:41:01.900

faith in which he was nourished and at the same time jesus is not limited to any culture, okay , um he speaks to all cultures and can be interpreted through all cultures, so Jesus will always have

00:41:01.900 - 00:41:20.620

many cultural faces, okay, and to interpret jesus faithfully, I think the church today needs to turn to cultures other than its own. So if we're talking about a north american context, let's also attend

00:41:20.620 - 00:41:34.320

to how crisis being interpreted in other cultures. I think that's, that's from the beginning, christ comes as good news for the whole world and each culture , like in some ways, you know, I

00:41:34.320 - 00:41:50.020

said there are four gospels, there's more than one cultural interpretation of jesus, The Culture Matters, 2ndly , Bodies Matter Flesh Matters. There's something about jesus and the good news that he brings, uh that

00:41:50.510 - 00:42:07.680

stresses that jesus comes to heal all flesh, he comes to heal bodies that are broken by sin, disease, and hunger. And so, salvation in christ isn't just for the soul, it involves the

00:42:07.680 - 00:42:22.510

whole person, the person who is renewed in God's image. And you know, just think of how much of jesus ministry is occupied by healing and feeding months. Okay. If I've not done a statistical

00:42:22.510 - 00:42:35.060

study of the gospels, but I would I would bet that, you know, if you added up all the things that Jesus does, he spends an inordinate amount, maybe 50% of his time healing and

00:42:35.060 - 00:42:58.010

feeding others. Okay, that's significant. So bodies matter in how we interpret jesus. Thirdly, violence matters throughout the ages. The cross has been one of the most prominent symbols for interpreting jesus, uh

00:42:58.020 - 00:43:13.980

, and there's no way to get around it. Okay. The symbol reminds us that Jesus experienced something quite horrific at the end of his life. And so the question I think is not how not whether

00:43:13.980 - 00:43:30.470

or not we accept or reject the cross. I think the question is how do we interpret it? How do we keep it in front of christian imagination without distorting it? And I think we interpret jesus

00:43:30.470 - 00:43:49.620

best when we consider the violence of the Cross not to be some kind of penalty or a demand that God imposes upon him or imposes upon us. Some theologians throughout the history of the church have interpreted the

00:43:49.620 - 00:44:00.920

cross in this way, it was, it was the penalty that jesus had to pay uh because of God's will or something like that. But I think we interpret the cross best when we see it like

00:44:00.920 - 00:44:17.790

Luther, did we see it as God's radical act of solidarity with the violence of a sin, sick world. Okay, and so as we stand in the shadow of the Cross, we are empowered to

00:44:17.790 - 00:44:35.430

resist violence. And finally, I want to close with this, life matters. Okay, The Cross , as important as it is, does not have the final word after good friday is easter and that

00:44:35.430 - 00:44:50.290

somehow, in some way, what we see in jesus, the bringing of new life out of loss and out of tragedy, Jesus comes for the sake of our abundant life and I think we see this

00:44:50.300 - 00:45:06.150

in some of the very earliest interpretations of jesus interpretations like that, of your own ideas, interpretations like Julian, jesus comes to renew the life of the earth. And so one test I think of a

00:45:06.150 - 00:45:24.640

faithful interpretation of jesus is how does our interpretation of jesus lead to renewed life wherever we find ourselves on this very vulnerable planet, in this very vulnerable position we are in society right now. Um does our

00:45:24.650 - 00:45:38.760

portrayal of Jesus point to the renewed life of the world? Yeah. Is it life affirming? Yeah . And so those, that's where I want to close on this Halloween day, I thank all of

00:45:38.760 - 00:45:52.420

you for tuning in and don't be a stranger come to Austin Seminary, take part in our education Beyond the Walls events. And I hope to see some of you. I I know many of you,

00:45:52.430 - 00:46:00.990

uh, and it's nice meeting some of you for the first time online. Thank you. Yeah,