One of the things I've observed is that it seems like we've been dealt a one-two punch through all of this that has rocked the ways that we have tended to avoid the subject of death.

What I mean by that is, on the one hand, you've got every day, every newspaper is posting death counts that are rising steadily.

So you've got death in the public eye in a way that it often isn't.

At the same time that that's happening, we've also been deprived of some of the things we most typically use

to distract ourselves from the fact that we've always been dying.

We've just typically had a lot of toys to play with to keep ourselves from having to think about it.

And some of those have been taken away.

Welcome to the Crossway podcast, a show where we sit down with authors each week for thoughtful interviews about the Bible, theology, church history, and the Christian life.

I'm Matt Tully, and today I'm talking with

Matt McCullough. Matt serves as pastor of Trinity Church in Nashville, Tennessee, which he helped

to plant in 2010. He's written articles for Nine Marks and the Gospel Coalition, and is the author

of Remember Death, The Surprising Path to living hope from Crossway.

Today, Matt and I discuss how thinking and being really honest about the reality of death

can paradoxically free us to find hope and joy in God like never before.

He reflects on our culture's strategies to avoid death at all costs,

highlights how COVID-19 has brought our mortality

to the forefront of our collective consciousness in a unique way right now, and discusses why

the practice of intentionally remembering death finds support in both scripture and church

history. Let's get started. Well, Matt, thank you so much for joining me on the CrossFit podcast today.

It's my pleasure, Matt. Appreciate you inviting me.

So I think this COVID-19 pandemic that we're still ammeshed in, and it's probably going to be a long time before we, you know, actually feel like

we're through it and things are back to normal for all of us. It has felt like a whirlwind and I think

...