Behold: Dying we Live (Very Rev. Dr. John Behr)

Christ says that he has come that we might have life? Are we not then, already, alive? What is this life that Christ brings, how is it connected to his Passion—his death and resurrection—and what does this say about what it means to be human, in the image and likeness of God’? This talk will reflect on these fundamental themes by bringing to bear the unique witness, and words, of the early martyrs and those Fathers who reflected and wrote upon the testimony to the work of God that they demonstrated. In the light of what we find in the early centuries of Christianity, the lecture will conclude by asking difficult questions about how we are to bear witness and minister to the life brought about by Christ, through death, in a world where we no longer ‘see’ death, where the traditional liturgy of death in all its dimensions is all but erased.