BAP, Baked Potato and the Death and Return of Superman

So after my first BAP was delayed, (a rather painful decision at the time but one that with hindsight I now know was the right decision) I was off to Shallowford for three days where I would hope to persuade three Bishop’s advisors that I was being called to ordained ministry in the Church of England. Following the storm my train was cancelled, annoying yes but it wouldn’t have been the same experience unless something catastrophic went wrong right at the beginning.

Shallowford house is set in the middle of the Staffordshire countryside, just outside a tiny village right next to the main train line. Situated within large grounds, complete with a croquette lawn and chickens, the house is an ideal place for a retreat centre.

I was fortunate enough to have a large ground floor, en suite room complete with desk and several comfy chairs. The house comes complete with several meeting rooms, a library, large kitchen and dinning area (the food was absolutely fantastic!) and large open chapel where worship was held 3 times a day throughout our stay.

After arriving and unpacking the few things I had brought I ventured out to meet my fellow candidates. Starting with the inevitable icebreaking activities I met the people in my group. We were a varied lot with young and old (two others in their early twenties included), male and female, high and low church, former parish assistants, readers and church wardens.  Everyone was friendly and open which helped us all relax into each others company, though one or two drinks in the bar afterwards also helped!

Day two started with the group presentations which involved everyone trying their hardest to be confrontational whilst still remaining painfully polite to one another. Going sixth out of eight allowed me plenty of time to get the hang of the group for my turn chairing the discussion which helped. After that I had two of my three interviews, interviews not really being the right word for them as they were all very relaxed and more like intimate chats with each of the advisors. Rather then being put on the spot I was asked a question and we discussed the answer together.

With my second day being jam packed with things my final day was a lot calmer and more relaxed giving me plenty of time to write my pastoral exercise and walk the grounds. My last interview was just before lunch and as I’d finished my pastoral exercise I was free until 4pm so could unwind after the intensity of the three days.

I was advised to act my self at the conference and thanks to the nature of the people and the relaxed nature of the interviews I felt perfectly able to. I wore clothes I was comfortable in including my high top trainers, the same ones I wore under my alb at my last service as sub-deacon (I did stop short of wearing my stripy red trousers though!). I was honest and open and felt relaxed enough to talk about how the punk band The Dead Kennedys

had helped me discover radical Christianity and that I find it easier to find God and the Christian message in The Death and Return of Superman, then I do in other contemporary and classical fiction as well as talking about the more serious  side of my vocational journey.

I think that was what helped me the most; making sure I was relaxed enough to be my self and to not be afraid to completely share myself with the advisors.

 We often try to think that they are looking for the perfect model ordinand and we try and act like this fabled non-existent person but as my mum pointed out, God has called you, not the perfect ordinand, and if the advisers meet this “ideal ordinand” they haven’t met the person that God has called.

The three day conference was probably the most stressful and intense three days I’ve ever experienced. However they were also some of the most enjoyable three days I’ve ever experienced. And thankfully I won’t have to go through it all again!

The Theology of Slayer

God Hates Us All:

2he theology of slayer

First of all I am writing this as a metal fan, a Christian and most importantly for a bit of fun. I’m not hear to once again berate Slayer for their anti-Christian views nor am I trying to twist Slayer’s lyrics or music to show how they’ve actually secretly been Christian all this time. I am merely trying to show how some of Slayer’s music is yet another unique voice that can teach us about the nature of God.

So Slayer. Glorious blasphemic Slayer. Probably one of the most important and influential metal bands ever, if not the most important as far as extreme metal goes.

But why look at them theologically? Well because alongside war and serial killers, religion, faith and God are the only things the band seem interested in, and like other metal giants, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, the members faith is far more complex then their lyrical themes would suggest. Lead singer Tom Araya, when talking about his faith, has said "I believe in a supreme being, yeah. But He's an all-loving God." And that Christ "...came and taught us about love, about doing unto others. That was his preach: Accept each other for who we are. Live peacefully, and love one another."[1] Both of which seem contrary to a lot of what Slayer has to say about the two subjects.

I’m only going to be able to look at two albums, “1988’s South Of Heaven and 2001’s God Hates us All)  in detail here due to the self-imposed word limit but there is a whole lot more to be said on this subject. Also all of this is my own interpretation and should in no way be taken or understood as the band’s own views or what the songs literally mean.

But before going into a more detailed look at some of their music I’d like to look at some of the broader religious themes found in Slayer’s music. First of all the band’s iconic imagery. When not picturing nazi-esc soldiers and weaponry the artwork the band favours is almost exclusively religious. Larry Carroll’s iconic album art work for their albums depicts scenes of Hell many of which would not look unfamiliar in an exhibition along side medieval artwork of the reformation. The covers feature all manor of religious imagery and symbolism such as gothic architecture, crosses both inverted and the right-way up, people suffering stigmata, the devil, angels, several popes in hell (Dante would be proud) and Christ himself, most infamously on the 2006 album Christ Illusion which was banned in India. So whilst the images focus upon the negative aspects of the Christian faith they do all owe a huge debt. To write the art off as immature satanic scribbles would be a huge disservice as the images display many of the themes found within the writings and art of medieval and reformation Christians, particularly those based on what happens to us after we die. So Slayer start to ask us all sorts of theological questions before we even hit play.

The other aspect of Slayer’s music I’d like to quickly look at broadly is their lyrical style. The rhetoric they use borrows heavily from Biblical sources and many of their verse could be borrowed straight from an evangelistic preacher’s sermon book. Songs about suffering and hell seem eerily similar to the Psalmist’s laments and scenes of destruction they describe might as well be borrowed from many of the Old Testament prophets. I have also verged at a funeral where a friend of the deceased stood up and warned us all that hell awaits in a vitriolic fashion that Tom Araya would be proud of. Despite critics often deriding Slayer’s style as self-parodying with their over the top I think some credit is due to Slayer’s use of religious imagery some of it is rather clever, for example “abolish the rules made of stone” clearly being a reference to the ten commandments.

And so onto a closer look at some of Slayer’s albums, first off it’s South Of Heaven. After releasing the genre defining Reign in Blood the band choose wisely to try and take a slightly different approach and so took their foot off the accelerator and slowed things down a bit. This however only strengthened their sound and allowed them to explore more complex themes. The name of the album eludes back to the medieval idea of Heaven and Hell being physical places that people went to and so being south of Heaven implies that you have failed to get in to Heaven above. The title track (listen here) is probably the perfect example of Slayer’s theology, it is a dark menacing song and lyrically provides us with what slayer seem to believe is life without God.

An unforseen future nestled somewhere in time.
Unsuspecting victims no warnings, no signs.
Judgment day the second coming arrives.
Before you see the light you must die.

Forgotten children, conform a new faith,
Avidity and lust controlled by hate.
(The) Never ending search for your shattered sanity,
Souls of Damnation in their own reality.

Chaos rampant,
An age of distrust.
Confrontations.
Impulsive habitat.

Only you’re south of Heaven

Bastard sons begat your cunting daughters,
Promiscuous mothers with your incestuous fathers.
Engreat souls condemned for all eternity,
Obtained by immoral observance a domineering deity.

The root of all evil is the heart of a black soul.
A force that has lived all eternity.
The never ending search for a truth never told.
The loss of all hope and your dignity.

The song starts off describing the coming judgment day, revealed to John in the final book of the Bible and unlike some famous American evangelists Slayer correctly explain that it is not for us to know when this judgment day will come. As Paul explains in his letter to the Thessalonians “

the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. as labour pains on a pregnant woman”[2]. The verse ends with quite a profound point, “Before you see the light you must die”. Christians are often far to concerned about the wonderful things in life, the joy of being saved through the light of Christ. But they often forget that in order to do that we must first die. People do not like to suffer. We prefer to live our lives in the sun, the happy places and comfortable places, in the light. But in order to get to those places we must first travel through the darkness, we have to have suffering in order to have pleasure, there would be no Easter Sunday without first having a Good Friday and here Slayer serve us with a timely reminder that in order to get to the light we must travel through the pain and suffering that life brings.

The song then goes on to talk about what happens to those who are left “south of Heaven” i.e. those who are now living in either a post judgment day Earth or Hell and therefore without God. The scene Slayer paints is one of chaos, violence and despair. A world without rules, where God is no longer present and so is governed by sin. Without the need to live within moral and ethical boundaries humanity descends back to a primitive state where “Bastard sons begat your cunting daughters”. The true nature of humanity is shown for what it is and here Slayer are claiming that without a higher purpose or truth humanity can not function.

By describing what life is like without God and looking at what has been taken away we can see what God brings by His presence and therefore gain an idea of what God’s nature is. Here slayer argue that without God in the world there is chaos, anger and violence, and so God, in Slayer’s eyes, must be order, love and peace.

Here Slayer are displaying a form of theology called Apophatic, or negative, theology which is when the nature of God is understood by stating what God is not. By describing what the world is like without God and so showing what God is not, Slayer can help us to better understand what God is.

Another theme that is brought up in the song is that of spiritual truth. The “forgotten children” left south of Heaven start to search for understanding in their new lives without God. They create a “new faith” presumably to replace the one they have lost now they are abandoned but they find this self made faith without God empty. Here it seems that Slayer are arguing that a faith/spirituality without some sort of God is destined to fail. The people who have confirmed this search do not find their fill, they are stuck in “a never ending search” in “their own reality” presumably because they have put themselves in the centre rather then something higher then themselves and so when they find that they have failed their belief system collapses.

The whole premise of the song is that without God life is full of hate, violence and lacking substance. Many would now argue that that is the world now even with God, but what I think is argued in this song is that without God there is no hope of ever attaining anything more. God is what brings an end to “chaos rampant in an age of mistrust” and with God we lose all hope of anything better.

This idea of hate filling the void left by God is also strongly echoed in the second Album I am looking at, God Hate’s us All. Released in 2001 this album is claimed to be Slayer’s most blasphemy filled outing to date. This statement is backed up with the album’s title, seemingly the opposite of what all major religions believe, and the controversial art work. The cover depicts a defaced bible whilst the linear notes contain passages from the book of Job with sections blacked out. Sadly the passages are blacked out at random and the defacing is a bit crude so it appears to be more the work of a child then being any form of intelligent Biblical commentary.

The album begins with an instrumental track named after another contradictory image, The darkness of Christ in which the band claim that rather then a source of light to the world Christ has brought suffering and pain.

Mankind in his insatiable search for divine
Knowledge has discarded all biblical teachings

Realizing that the strength of religion is the repression of
knowledge
All structures of religion have collapsed

Life prays for death
in the wake of the horror of these revelations

It was never imagined how graphic the reality that would be known as the end
of creation
Would manifest itself

We believe all this chaos and atrocity can be traced
Back to one single event

We hold these truths to be painfully self-evident
All men are not created equal
Only the strong will prosper
Only the strong will conquer
Only in the darkness of Christ have I realized
God Hates Us All

The album then goes straight into Disciple (listen here)which I believe to be the best Slayer have sounded since 1991’s Seasons. The track sees slayer tackling, and seemingly solving, the age old problem of evil or theodicy. Rather then try and come to a complex reasoning of the need to balance good and evil or pleasure or suffering Slayer makes the logical conclusion that if God exists he must hate the world and so allows evil things to happen.

Drones since the dawn of time
Compelled to live your sheltered lives
Not once has anyone ever seen
Such a rise of pure hypocrisy
I'll instigate I'll free your mind
I'll show you what I've known all this time

God Hates Us All, God Hates Us All
You know it's true God hates this place
You know it's true he hates this race

Homicide-Suicide
Hate heals, you should try it sometime
Strive for Peace with acts of war
The beauty of death we all adore
I have no faith distracting me
I know why your prayers will never be answered

God Hates Us All; God Hates Us All
He Fuckin' hates me

Pessimist, Terrorist targeting the next mark
Global chaos feeding on hysteria
Cut throat, slit your wrist, shoot you in the back fair game
Drug abuse, self abuse searching for the next high
Sounds a lot like hell is spreading all the time
I'm waiting for the day the whole world fucking dies
I never said I wanted to be God's disciple
I'll never be the one to blindly follow

Man made virus infecting the world
Self-destruct human time bomb
What if there is no God would you think the fuckin' same
Wasting your life in a leap of blind faith
Wake the fuck up can't ignore what I say
I got my own philosophy

I hate everyone equally
You can't tear that out of me
No segregation -separation
Just me in my world of enemies

I never said I wanted to be God's disciple
I'll never be the one to blindly follow
I'll never be the one to bear the cross-disciple

I reject this fuckin' race
I despise this fuckin' place

The song is a personal testimony of someone who has gone through a conversion experience. Said person has come to the realisation that God hates the world and so he/she has chosen to stop believing in God and in turn has transformed their lives. It is similar rhetoric to that given by aggressive Christian missionaries or those who give their testimonies of faith only mirrored in an anti-deistic light. Rather then the Christian notion of Love being the powerful force in someone’s life this person feels freed by hate. They hate everyone equally and no long feel enslaved by their positive emotions. It is the Christian conversion experience seen in mirror image.

It’s also the same theme explored in South of Heaven. Life, the world, human existence is filled with hate and violence when God or positive[3] faith is removed. Whilst the song claims God hates us all it is also seemingly arguing that without God there is hate. So when seen through the lens of negative theology it can be claimed that God therefore must be love.

Granted the song is predominantly talking about all the negative things faith has brought into the world but I believe that is more a criticism of human made religion rather then God.

One more strong theme found within this song is the idea of being a disciple by “choice”. The chorus continuously repeats “I never said I wanted to be God’s disciple”. I don’t want to fall into the trap of predestination here but I’m not sure that Christians actually do choose to have faith. Granted we chose to follow Christ’s teachings but again that is more to do with being compelled to do so by our faith which is not a choice. It is a strongly held belief that Christian faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit given to us and so we technically do not chose whether to have faith or not it's already there. I also can’t think of a time when I personally chose to believe, I just sort of did. So I would probably agree with the lyrics here, I never said I wanted to be God’s disciple it just sort of happened. I also want to just point out that I am not saying that God implants belief so that we lack free will, or that God chooses some and not others as predestination suggests, I am just thinking out loud, in type, so to speak.

The rest of the album features other references to faith and God as well as the usual Slayer themes of war and serial killers. New Faith is a strong diatribe against the dangers of blind faith and includes some excellent biblical criticism that is then unfortunately ruined in similar fashion to the childish cover with the line "I keep the Bible in a pool of blood so that none of it’s lies can affect me” Fantastic metal lyric it may be but intelligent, constructive theological discourse it is not. Nor does it try to be.  

And that is where I think Slayer are. Whilst I have tried to show that they do include some well thought out theological arguments about the nature, or rather what the nature of God is not, they are after all a metal band and aren’t really trying to do theology.

That said I believe they do manage to ask us questions of what faith looks like without God or how we as Christians would conduct our lives if we did not have God in our lives most notably with the idea of being freed to hate with out divine love.

---

[1] http://knac.com/article.asp?ArticleID=4576

[2] 1 Thess 5.1-3

[3]  as opposed to people who’s faith leads them to acts of hatred

Bernard Mizeki's hidden messages

Bernard Mizeki, born in Mozambique and martyred at the age of 35 has become one of the most popular African saints in recent times. Remembered for his devoted teaching, linguistic talent and his help with translating the liturgies of the church into local dialects he is rightly celebrated in the Anglican churches calendar. He is also, probably less famously known, as a relative of two of our long standing St Chrysostom congregation members. 

Legend has it that Bernard would go around carving crosses into trees, as can be seen on his icon. This act seemed only to anger local tribe leaders and made no apparent difference to the success of his teaching. However I think this somewhat insignificant act of graffiti is actually an incredibly powerful way of spreading the gospel message. 

It reminds me of something I encounter everyday on my way to church. “£97 billion on new nuclear weapons, what idiot is going to pay for that?” 

A sticker on a lamppost just outside church at the crossing which like Bernard’s crosses probably gets missed by most people. But what about those who do see these tiny symbols or messages.

What appear at first, to be very little symbols, a simple two line carving or a small message actually hold incredibly powerful messages behind them.

The cross of Jesus symbolises his death, resurrection and life, the greatest message anyone can receive. So by carving his crosses Bernard was actually spreading the gospel in the simplest and easiest way imaginable.

It is hard to think of a simpler image that hides behind it such a powerful message.

But how can we spread this huge message in simple ways in our own lives? 

Through simple actions that make big differences to those that receive them. A hand shake or smile with a stranger, wearing a badge or slogan on your clothing, boycotting certain shops offering help to those in need.

Little actions that will often go unnoticed but convey powerful messages. Messages of hope, peace, love, reconciliation and acceptance. 

The kind of message that Bernard Mizeki was spreading through his tiny crosses, the same message that the still small voice of God is speaking through people every day. The most powerful message in the world.

Thoughts in prayer at 2:46am

So had my first 24hr Prayer vigil this week was a nice experience and would do it again, though probably not for a while. 

Some thoughts came to me over the course of the day and I thought I'd jot them down to preserve them for the annals of time.

First of all this passage, which is one of my favourites, stuck in my head and sort of set the theme for night.

Isaiah 6

A Vision of God in the Temple

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ 

And I said,

 ‘Here I am Lord; send me!’ 

2:46am - My faith is anger and passion. Anger at the way Christianity is used to justify hate, violence and oppression. Anger at the reluctance of the church to make a change, to stay silent and put down.
Passion to make a change - to proclaim sight to the blind, to set the captives free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. 
Two others join me, brothers in Christ, silently pray with me. One is new to faith, one is close to me. We are all different, have different relationships to God but are united here. 
I start to ask God does he still want me as a priest as it's no longer clear to me the thoughts turn round to me desperately wanting to be a priest and i end up no longer asking but screaming like Isaiah "Here I am lord; send me!"

5:00am - The birds start to sing and the sunrises, I start to repent.
I pray alongside 3 of my sisters. This is a different kind of relationship to that with my brothers, tea is made love is shared and support is acknowledged as opposed to the stern, unspoken love between brothers. I pray for equality between people, Gender, sex, race and class. "There they are Lord; send them!"

7:00am - More people come to pray. We make each other cups of tea and one brings in vegan sausage sandwiches for breakfast. There is laughter, love and fellowship. We experience Joy in our shared faith. The silence and stillness brings us together. "Here we are Lord; send us"

8:50am - I am joined by an old colleague, some one I cared incredibly deeply for. She has received some bad news, and her life feels like it is being held back. I share in her pain. "here she is lord; send her!"

2:46pm - Funny how spending so much time in silence can bring you closer to each other as well as God. We each have expereinced the call from God to do something about the world, no matter how big or small a change we wish to see we all want to do it.

"here I am lord; send me!"

The baptism of Christ and the baptism of others

“You are my son, The Beloved; with You I am well pleased.”

God’s message to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading, though seemingly miraculous, particularly in its delivery in the form of a dove, is actually the same message that will be received by Rudolf and Samuel today as they are baptised.

Though it probably won’t be delivered by the Holy Spirit, or with a booming voice from the clouds, at least it wasn’t when I was baptised, the message is still given and that is because we are all baptised into the same faith by the same spirit as Christ.

As with Jesus, at our baptism we are first of all named by our parents. “You are my son” “you are Samuel” “This is Rudolf”. It is also through our baptism that we are called and named by God as His children and disciples. As we heard God say in our first reading “I have called you, you are mine” and this is exactly what God is wanting us to know and understand as we are baptised. We are his and he knows us and wants to be with us. Our Baptism is when we take hold of the already out stretched hand of God and walk with him through our lives through the rivers and fires that threaten to overwhelm us.

The naming at baptism is so significant because it is with our name that we are made an individual. We are not just another person, an unknown entity or empty shell we are who we are. And who we are is special because we are an individual. We all have things that make us unique, particular gifts that we can share with each other to make the world a better place and whilst they are not given to us at our baptism our gifts cannot be put to their full potential unless we have been made a strong individual with a strong identity.

It is not just a calling and name that we share with Jesus through our baptism, we are also the beloved. Baptism is almost exclusively a family affair. The family gathers round the person to be baptised to show support. Why support? Because that person is loved by their family and they wish to share in the joy of those to be baptised and their parents, the joy that comes from being accepted into the most loving community of all, the community of God.

Though we are an individual we are called into the community with others, because it is with others that we become whole. Though we have our own gifts that are unique to us we cannot go through life alone, no one has all the answers or skills. So God calls us into communion with Himself and with others who have also come to Him so that we do not have to be alone. The smaller, weaker parts make up the stronger whole. And so by joining in communion with others we each become stronger individuals.

Finally we come to the third part of God’s baptismal message, “with whom I am well pleased”. It is easy to hear this and think “how can God ever be as pleased with me as he was with Jesus who did such amazing things.” But if we look at when His baptism appears in the Gospel, Jesus hadn’t started his ministry yet and so all the amazing things that we think God is pleased with him for haven’t happened yet. So God must be pleased with Jesus because he had the potential to do such amazing things. Jesus did not have to do anything for God to be pleased with him, just as we don’t, God is pleased with us because we CAN do amazing things. God is pleased with Rudolf and Samuel because they have the potential to go out after their baptism and be as kind and loving as Christ.

And with the gifts they have as special individuals and the love and support of their family, friends and community why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t we all go out and be as Christ was, we all have the potential to and God is well pleased with us, we are named, called and loved by God at our baptism because of all the love and gifts that we have that we can use to make everyone else feel loved. But it is not enough to keep our gifts here in church, with God’s help we must take our new found status as His beloved from the font and into the world.

Death

The famous saying goes that there are only two things certain in life and those things are death and taxes. Whilst the later may only be true to those of us who do not belong to the super rich elite or multi-national corporations the former is most certainly true for all of us.

Death, the final frontier, the greatest of all adventures, awaits us all at the end of our days. It is inescapable, inevitable, finite and most, if not all people, spend a lot of time at least thinking about, if not fearing their inevitable deaths.

In this country, this fear of death has lead to a culture where we so rarely talk about it. We refer to people who have “fallen asleep” or “who’s sun has set” as if saying that they were dead was an insult, or taboo. In the medical profession the death of a patient is seen as a failure, and there is constant debate over the right to die for patients which asks the questions about life over death and the rights of the patient which do not include at the moment the right to die. The two most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the first conflicts since the Second World War where this country suffered significant casualties and each service man or woman who died was publicly mourned and we were shocked and surprised at each flag draped coffin that was brought back as if we thought that death could not possibly occur so frequently here.

All of these things show our uncomfortable relationship with death here in the west. It is alien, unknowable and unstoppable and in our current scientific age where humanity is desperately trying to understand and control everything death remains the ever present reminder that we are nothing but dust and to dust we shall return.

As Christians however we should not have to suffer under the constant threat of death. The Bible recounts the whole story of humanity’s salvation from death through the acts of God. In the Old Testament we hear how God saved His chosen people from the act of dying, he saved them from the venomous snakes and the Egyptian army. And then in the New Testament God saves us from what comes after death through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ Jesus. 

And yet, there is still something that holds us back. In our modern age of scientific and rational understanding we find anything that can not be proved or witnessed difficult to take on. People have attested to the life and miracles of Jesus, his death and indeed his resurrection through the eye witness accounts. Unfortunately eye witnesses of the great beyond are few and far between and so we are reluctant to even try and explain what happens when we die let alone believe in it.  

People more readily believe in what they can see working, and so it is no surprise that the brazen serpent from today’s reading is eventually worshiped and glorified by those whom it apparently saved. People could see and touch the, albeit temporary, salvation of the bronze snake and so fully believed in its power. It is not so easy for us to put trust in the saving power of the Cross and the promise of life after death if we can not see or touch it.

Yet we do not need to know what happens after death to believe that it is not the end. As Christians we know that because Christ died upon the cross for our sins we are saved from death and so there must be something yet to come, a world unknown, a life ever after.

Like all humans Jesus had to die but it was through his inevitable death that the rest of us gained eternal life. This great paradox is the crux of our Christian faith, our life in return for his death.

The life we have been given through the cross is not the same as the life granted to those who gazed upon the serpent, which was only temporary. It is a life free from pain, suffering and an ending. It is eternal life. And though we do not know exactly what it is, we can all be prepared, rather then lonely or scared at the end of our days knowing that there is something yet to come.

However we must first all die, like Christ, before we can receive our share in his life.