 So, something I've never done before is interview someone I have, but not in my role as the Bishop of North Texas Conference. So, it's a joy to be with Susan Robb. Reverend Robb, of course, is one of the associate pastors at Highland Park. Yeah, I'm at this church and she has written a very good book on the seven last words. And the subtitle is, Listening to Christ from the Cross. And so, I'm going to visit with Susan about the book and I want to encourage you to purchase the book because I think this is a good way to be, to frame your own devotional life during the season of lands. So Susan, it's good to have you with us today. It's good to be with you, Susan. Susan, I really enjoyed writing this book and I'm grateful that you asked me to write an endorsement for it and so I read the book quickly and then I've read it again since writing that. And I'm just struck by several things. First of all, this is, I can't think of a better way in which to move through the lit and season than to focus on the seven last words. Tell me why you did that. Well, I did it for a couple of reasons. One, and I was real honored by the fact that after my last book called came out, I think Abingdon thought it did very well and they liked it. They liked the way I wrote. And so they asked if I would write a book on the seven last words of Christ. They felt like they needed one. They hadn't published one in a long time. And so they asked if I would take on that project. So I was very humbled and honored to do so. And I also, getting into the project, I got excited about it because as we know, as a minister, you know, and I know that when we're with people in their last days of life, they often will say the words that mean most to them before they die and the words they want you to most to hear and in return, those who love them want to lean in and listen because we're hoping that we hear words that are just for us and we know and hope that those are the most powerful words that we'll get from this person that's leaving our lives. Which is perhaps the reason and for the subtitle of the book. Listening to Christ from the cross. Some often thought that people like you said they die like they live. And so if they lived graciously or full of life, passionately, lovingly, that's the way they die. Exactly. And the same is true, of course, for Jesus. Jesus, in his last words on the cross, the words that he thinks are most important for us to hear. All of those words reflect the way he lived his life. The way he wanted everyone to come into his kingdom. The way he loved and forgave and gave of himself fully. So the words that he ends his life with reflect, of course, the way in which he lived his life. But they are even more powerful at the end. So that being the case, is one of the words most important to you? That's interesting because, you know, as I worked and studied with all of these passages and of course, we know these aren't seven words or seven passages. I think the one that struck out stuck the most in my mind. One was, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because my whole life, I wonder, was Jesus forsaken by God? And I know people ask that question. Why did he feel forsaken? Well, if he's the Son of God, why would he feel forsaken by God? And yet in that moment, he, of course, feels like we did. He's fully human. And so he has been beaten, he's been scourged, he's been spat on and ridiculed and stripped naked and he's hanging from across, he's in agony. And he feels abandoned by God. And yet, if we take where this verse comes from, he's actually saying a prayer from Psalm 22. And Jesus, it opens up, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But if we take that song, that song to its biblical conclusion, we know that that song ends not in defeat but in victory. And so I love researching that and realizing that God wants us, Jesus wanted us to hear these words, not a defeat and hear this song of hope for the future and a victory in him. It's a reminder of that particular phrase, Jesus reaches deep into his own faith roots and instills living through them or out of them. And I think that's the most important piece about that particular word, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? But you've not been in ministry enough and been pastoring for a long time or I have. And that it's like, there are those occasions in which we've had to have conversations with people about why did God let this happen? And so this becomes a perfect way to speak to that. Yeah, when, you know, in Luke, Jesus from the cross cries, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they're doing. And people are in Luke's gospel especially. Everyone is around the cross taunting him. If you're the Son of God, why don't you just come off the cross? If you're the Messiah, why don't you just save yourself? And what I learned again as I was studying on this, this really harkens back to the temptation in the wilderness where Satan comes and says, if you're the Son of God, why don't you turn this bread, the stunts into bread? And if you're the Son of God, why don't you throw yourself off of the spire of the temple and just save yourself? Then people will really come to know you. They'll really believe in you. And what happens in the temptation of Christ is at the end, it says then the devil departed and told more opportune time. The cross is the opportune time. Or we hear the same language, only this time it's Satan isn't the one who is tempting Christ. It's all of those around him, the religious leaders and the crowds. If you're the Messiah, if you're the Son of God, why don't you save yourself? And Jesus doesn't save himself so that he can save us. I think that one of the things that in reading at this time I was reconnected again, and I mean, you know, these kinds of things mentally, but just so fully in a way about that Jesus is fully human and we tend to forget that. And that's the danger of skipping. Oh, the whole Lenten experience and then moving to Easter Resurrection Sunday. It's like you forget that this Christ was actually fully human. Yeah, and that's what makes, I think that that's why it's so important for us to go through the Lenten experience. You and I have talked before this, I grew up in a family of believers, but we did not go to church often. And so when we did, it would be for the Christmas season, or it would be for Palm Sunday or Easter, all those high holy days, and they were always so exciting. And so I really enjoyed going from joy to joy to joy. But what I discovered is that going from joy to joy to joy is like eating, it's like eating dessert for every meal. You know, it leaves you with a sugar high, but a little malnourished. And if we go through this Lenten season and we go to the cross and we listen to what Jesus has to say to us and we see his humanity, we connect with his humanity and realize that he's been through everything that we have been through and that he relates to us, of course, as we all know, he relates to us on every level and he's overcome the worst that humanity can offer to him, the worst that we can do. He's overcome all of that so that we can overcome all of that too. So it's in his humanity, I think, where we feel the closest connection with him. And so it's important for us to be there. So there's another piece that's really important that is, we tend to think we can control everything. I mean, that we can't. I mean, we know that we get through those moments we can't. And so one of those words is, Father, in the hands I command my spirit, which is towards the end, it is finished as the end. It's like, it reflects a deep abiding trust that people have even during difficult times. Yeah. You know, in Jesus's last breath, where he says, into your hands, I commend my spirit. We talked about how Jesus knew the Psalms. He sang them by the time he was a child. This into your hands, I commend my spirit was a bedtime prayer for Jewish children that Mary would have taught him when he was a child. And it too came from a Psalm and it was an extended song. So he learned this from an early age to always be willing to, like we might say at night, to teach our children. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep Jesus great every night into your hands. I commend my spirit. And he does the same thing on the cross. It's just ingrained from him as a child to trust in his father, trusting the one who created us all. So what is your hope for the book? So what's the intent? I mean, you wrote the book, you were asked to write the book. And so what are you thinking about as the end of the book, the end product? And what do you hope people do with the book? What I hope people gain from the book is, one, I hope they make this connection between these are the most important words that Jesus leaves for you, just for you and me and the world. And so it's important for us to lean in and listen to those words. And as we do, I hope people walk away with feeling this intimacy, this all, this hope, this joy, and this sense of victory that we really do gain from these words. And also our mission, Jesus reinforces our mission to, one of the last words he says is, it is finished. And in Greek, that's Teleste. And what that means, it's not just, it is finished. It is, it's as if Jesus is just saying finished, completed with an exclamation point. And it's not just that his life is completed, that his work on this earth is completed. That word in Greek means it is finished, but it has ongoing implications. I've heard Will Willamon speak of this last word, this finished or completed, as if something that Michelangelo might say when he painted the Sistine Chapel and he put the last brushstroke on that he would say it's finished, this masterpiece and it's done. I think Jesus says in these last words, it's not that just his life is ended and that his work on earth has ended, but that it has ongoing implications in us, his masterpiece, to take that work into the world. So we get his, we were given his mission in that. So there's another piece in the book that really was telling to me simply because I so admire Sister Helen Brajane and her activity, activism on the part of the death penalty. And of course the book, Dead Men Walking. And you reflect on a very important scene about that. And it reminds me is that this is really, we tend to forget that Jesus came, you know, to embrace and to tell everyone they were loved by God. And so that story in which she's meeting with Matthew and she just tells him, you're God's beloved child and it sort of is an aha moment for him. She's been working and working, trying to convince him of his worth and nothing has gotten through until this moment. She says you're a beloved child of God and he said, no one's ever told me that. No one's ever told me that. No one's ever told me that. Can we imagine how different the world would be if everyone knew that they were a beloved child of God? I hear that, I used to be on the advisory board of new friends, new lifetimes, women get out of the sex trade industry. And so many times I've seen women who are the same story, but will be with them and someone will say, you are a beloved child of God. And they'll say the same thing, no one ever told me that before. I never knew that. And it completely turns their life around. All of a sudden they have worth and they can see that they have worth in God's eyes and worth in our eyes. Well, I commend the book to anybody. I hope a lot of people read it. And I hope people will do some studies during Lent and pick up the book. I have my copy too. I have my copy. Seven words. And we'll have a way in which people can locate the book and we'll put that out as well. And so are you going to lead any studies with your group at church or anything? I'm going to do two studies. I'm going to start one the day before Ash Wednesday. I guess it's Tuesday night, the 16th. And I'm going to start another study on Thursday morning from 9.30 to 11th. And both of those are on our website at the church. I'll do a study of that. But I encourage other churches to have small group ministry. I've had some ministers call me. They're going to use this as a basis for sermon series. Good for them. I started this as a sermon series in Cox Chapel last year. And then we expanded those stories and sermons into this book. And so I hope that people will do that. And that they will lean in and listen to these last words of Christ. Because I think that they are the most powerful words and some of the most important words that they'll ever hear. Well, thank you. And he wrote an excellent book. And I enjoyed reading it very much. And actually, if somebody has a study, begins a study, I may participate if you'll let me know about that. So if you'll email me and if the time works, then I'll participate in the study. I don't want to lead one. I just want to be in one. And so I think it'd be interesting, fascinating. And as I told you earlier, I've done four sermon series on this and 30 years of ministry. So I had four times during that. So it was great. So I want to thank you for your contribution to this work. And thank you for the work you've done on this. And Bishop, thank you. Thanks for having me. Tom, I'm glad to have you. It's so good to meet with you. Good to see you. Thank you. You're welcome.