EPISODE #66 – DIEHARD, HANS GRUBER AND CHRISTMAS REFLECTIONS
In this Christmas edition of the Bootcamp the boys answer the age old question of Die Hard being Christmas movie or not, then they get down to serious business of considering the implications of Jesus being born into the world.
Merry Christmas to you from the Boot Camp boys!
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JimBo Stewart: [00:00:00] Merry Christmas, Bob,
Bob Bickford: [00:00:02] Merry Christmas Jimbo. We’re like just moments away from Christmas happening. Aren’t we.
JimBo Stewart: [00:00:07] just a couple of days. If we are it’s Christmas, Adam, right? It’s the day before Christmas Eve, I was wondering, does that make the day after Christmas, Christmas Cain?
Bob Bickford: [00:00:20] No, that’s the Christmas cast out of the garden. That’s like, we just we’re done right.
JimBo Stewart: [00:00:29] Well, speaking of Christmas Cain and, and murder at Christmas, I saw, I saw on Facebook that you, you were contemplating, the significance of a certain movie that is of great controversy every year, bringing up if it’s actually a Christmas movie or not the illustrious diehard.
Bob Bickford: [00:00:54] Yeah. So, you know, we, at the Bickford household, we’ve been watching a few of those hallmark shows, you know, the Christmas hallmark movies where, you know, everybody they’re all the same, Somebody leaving the big city, they’re going to the small town, they’re rethinking their priorities, et cetera.
And it was interesting, you know, cause I’ve kind of liked to watch those occasionally just because they’re so predictable and I make fun of them and they’re cheesy, but they always, th the story always ends out. Perfect. so we were rolling around some channels the other day and Barb’s like, I don’t want to watch one of those.
I want to watch something else. And I’m like, well, you know, everybody’s talking about diehard. Why don’t we watch die diehard because people are debating whether it’s a Christmas movie or not. And so it actually came out when we were, um, when did it come out? Like an 85 or 88? I think 88 is when it came out. were you even born then? Jimbo. Are you alone?
JimBo Stewart: [00:01:43] I was, yes. I was born in 82
Bob Bickford: [00:01:47] Okay. So you were just, you were about a five-year old or so like a six year old. So you probably did your parents allow you to watch diehard? I don’t know if you saw it back then?
JimBo Stewart: [00:01:57] when it came out. When it came out on HBO, I did watch it as a kid.
Bob Bickford: [00:02:01] Okay. Okay. So we dialed up diehard in, uh, everybody talks about. The fact that it’s a Christmas movie and there are a few Christmas elements in there. And so we watched it and we laughed about how cheesy it was. Uh, but you know, all in all, it was kind of a fun, kind of a fun action show.
JimBo Stewart: [00:02:22] So, what is, what is your, what is your take? Did you embark decide where you stand on the great controversy?
Bob Bickford: [00:02:28] I think it’s Christmas ish. I don’t know if I would say it’s completely a Christmas movie, but it’s, it’s a movie that is set. During a office Christmas party. And so occasionally you get some Christmas elements. And I think one of the first scenes that, you know, kind of tries to seem it diehard as a Christmas movie is when he sends the guy down the elevator, the guy that he’s, the first kill, the first terrorist that’s been killed.
And I’m sorry if I’m revealing plots you, you just gotta get what the time you should have watched the movie like decades ago. Right?
JimBo Stewart: [00:03:03] Yeah, I think once a movie is this old spoiler alerts no longer apply.
Bob Bickford: [00:03:07] Okay, so just erase all the last seconds there. So he ops the guy and then what does he write on the sweatshirt? Like, uh, I ha I have a machine gun too now. Ho-ho or Merry Christmas or something like that sends the guy with the Christmas hat on down the elevator rolls out. People scream. That’s the first aside from they’re having a Christmas party at the end of the Workday, that’s kinda.
The next element of Christmas that’s brought in. Not that you would kill somebody and then write that on a sweatshirt for Christmas, but.
JimBo Stewart: [00:03:40] Well, but there’s also the, uh, the bad guy does a, uh, altered retelling of the night before Christmas, over the, over the walkie talkie. So here here’s, here’s my tape. That it’s as much a Christmas movie as any hallmark Christmas movie you’ve ever seen. And for the exact same reasons, if you think about the formula of a hallmark Christmas movie, right?
There’s, there’s some lady who’s with the wrong guy. And by the end of the movie, she ends up with the right guy. There are crazy hi-jinks that happen at a Christmas party? There’s something to do with. Some business and some guy who’s all about greed and my argument is if you really take an honest look at it, Bob diehard is essentially the very first hallmark Christmas movie.
Bob Bickford: [00:04:35] That is a hot sports opinion. I kind of like it though. there’s not as much killing and bloodshed in the hallmark movies though.
JimBo Stewart: [00:04:44] They, they came much softer, but this is like an action version. This is a dude version of a hallmark Christmas movie plot. So you’ve got a lady who’s in business. She’s kind of with some guy, but he’s the wrong guy. And the right guy shows up kind of in a stands out from the crowd, different from everybody else. there is evil corporation. Greed involved, which usually hallmark Christmas movies kind of call that out a little bit somehow, which is a little bit ironic that hallmarks calling out corporate companies. but at the end she ends up with the, with the right person And, there’s certainly some hi-jinks at a Christmas party, during the whole thing.
my take is that if you consider hallmark movies to be Christmas movies, then this is just as much a Christmas movie as any hallmark movie you’ve ever seen.
Bob Bickford: [00:05:40] Well, there you go. And I think maybe, hallmark owes a little, credit then to the writers of diehard. I just remember thinking through, although the first scenes of diehard is this guy going to go through the whole movie, not wearing shoes and pretty much he does. Right?
JimBo Stewart: [00:05:55] Yeah.
Bob Bickford: [00:05:56] Pretty much he does.
JimBo Stewart: [00:05:58] Yeah. You know, for me, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas until I see Hans Gruber thrown off the Nakatomi Plaza.
Bob Bickford: [00:06:05] Yes. I’ve seen a lot of people put that on Facebook. Merry Christmas is Hans Gruber is, is a falling off of the tower there. And Hey, that guy has been a bad guy in like every movie he’s ever been in. I don’t know what that guy’s name is, but bar goes, Oh, it’s that guy? He’s gotta be the bad guy.
JimBo Stewart: [00:06:22] Sometimes we’ll just get typecast.
Bob Bickford: [00:06:24] Yeah.
JimBo Stewart: [00:06:26] All right. We got to actually move on to something much more significant as we get ready for Christmas day. and we come out of the, the absolute insanity and. Chaos and darkness, and complicatedness of 2020, we come to an end focused where we should be focused on the Lord and on his birth, on his coming, his incarnation, the nativity, the Christmas story, the advent, what is it that we can see in that story?
That great moment in history that can give us hope and peace as we head into 2021.
Bob Bickford: [00:07:08] That’s a good point. Jimbo. I think most of the Christmas series services that I’ve listened to and the one we’d been preaching at our church. Deals with the fact that this Christmas, this is different from every other Christmas in the city. It’s that we’re experiencing a global pandemic are normal patterns of relationship have been up ended.
And there’s just a great, and uneasiness. Right. And so if you think about the nativity story, what, what does it start off with an unplanned, unexpected pregnancy? I see. All right. And Mary. Here’s the announcement. She’s going to have a child and she’s ways all of that. And at the end says, we’ll let it be to me as you’ve you have said.
And so she accepts the, her role in the redemptive story. And then, then when we find out, about Joseph’s becoming aware of this story, word gets back to Joseph that Mary’s pregnant and he hears that. And. You know, he’s trying to devise a plan. What do I do with this? Right. So immediately when the story starts about Jesus’ entrance into the world, it begins with this just sense of uneasiness and crisis. among Mary and Joseph they’re betrothed, they’re engaged. They’ve not been, they’ve not yet been together. And so all of this happens and their whole worlds just explode and, and. They’re trying to figure it out, which reminds me of exactly what people are experiencing now in season that we find ourselves in
JimBo Stewart: [00:08:43] Yeah. This past Sunday, our family attended, refuge church here in Jacksonville and, um, Pastor pastor Josh Glymph did a really great job talking about exactly that. And so his kind of main idea, sentence talking about that was, It often seems the darkest, the most chaotic in the most complicated right before Jesus shows up.
And he talked about all of that, that you were just talking about, what it must have been like to have a teenage pregnancy to explain to your fiance. this is actually from the Lord, explain to your parents, all the, all the gossip, all the things that we know would, would come with all of that. The difficulty of.
Census travel with a very pregnant fiance and all the things that are involved in that. And then as he was going through his sermon, pastor Josh did a great job with that idea of it often seems the darkest, the most chaotic, the most complicated right before Jesus shows up. And he pointed out that when Jesus shows up, he brings light to the darkness.
Order to the chaos and understanding to the complicated. I really appreciated how he. broke that down and an idea and applied that so well to, as, as we’re experiencing 2020 and all the things, and we experienced the darkness and the chaos and the complications that in that same way , Jesus showing up in our life brings light to that darkness and brings order to all the chaos and understanding to the complicated as we look at this story of how, how Jesus entered a politically tumultuous.
Crazy chaotic complicated season of history and in a unique way, and not in the way that any of us would have planned or thought it should happen. and it became one of the greatest moments in all of history. And we don’t know what the Lord’s doing exactly right now, but we do know that we can trust him.
And we do know that he does bring light to the darkness in order to the chaos and understanding to the complicated.
Bob Bickford: [00:10:56] I think the challenge for us. And this is something that, for a long time, I, I disconnected with the story, uh, about Jesus’ birth into the world, that the circumstances is Mary and Joseph. Would have had some understanding and expectation regarding the Messiah and his birth, right. Jewish culture. Joseph is from the line of Jesse’s.
He’s a relative of Jesse, of the family of David. And so. Had they been paying attention in a synagogue class. Right. They would have known, Isaiah says that the Messiah will be born of a Virgin. Right. And he will also be of the line of David. Right. And so this event happens to them, right. And they apparently miss it for a season or are surprised by it, particularly Joseph is kind of surprised by it.
Um, Mary, obviously before she, is before Jesus is, is, conceived in her by the power of the Holy spirit, it’s explained to her. So she’s like, okay, right, this is going to happen. But Joseph hears about it and he misses it. Right. And the angel has to come in and share with him in a dream that this is God’s doing, and that he is to take Mary and they are named Jesus.
Cazina saves people from Sensa. So the prophetic has already occurred and they already have grown up in that. I’m sure they talked about it was their family as they grew up as they, they were discipled into their faith, but they missed it in the midst of their chaos. And I think for, for me, what it shows. Me about myself. And I would say also about our folks in our church and probably folks worldwide, nationwide. So when the chaos hits, we forget the promises of God, right? And one of the reasons we forget the promises of God is we’ve constructed a world that for us in our minds is supposed to be hassle and problem-free and suffering free.
And that’s not what we’re promised. Right. And so when we step into a difficult situation or a time of suffering, a time of struggle, and I think I don’t want to diminish any of the pain of this global pandemic because some of our folks have lost loved ones. Right. And it’s been very challenging for them.
Others of us, a good number of us, probably the majority of us have just experienced. An upending of our normal routines in our lives. So it’s suffering, but it’s not suffering on the category of some of our, our brothers and sisters throughout history have experienced suffering. Certainly not the Christians in Nigeria or, or certain places where folks are losing their lives, right.
Because of their. They’re following Jesus in China, et cetera. So in our culture, we have pushed back on this idea of suffering and this struggle. But I, I do think that our frustration and our distress as a people, and should I say, as Christian people in this culture is the perfect time for us to really understand.
Who Jesus is in a more significant way as all those kinds of those idols and all those things are being stripped away from us and churches, as they’re not able to do what they had done in the past with Christmas Eve services, et cetera. It’s a time for us to really focus on on the fact that Christ came into our world to bring light to the darkness and peace to those who needed it, but ultimately salvation to those who are lost.
JimBo Stewart: [00:14:38] Absolutely. And I think as we go in from Christmas Adam to Christmas Eve to Christmas day, don’t, don’t lose sight of the fact that the Lord is in control. And that there will always always be something or someone trying to steal your piece that belongs to you as a child of God, that we can have peace that surpasses all understanding, regardless of what’s going on around us, because our peace is not found on our circumstances, but on our savior.
And the fact that our God is not some absent-minded landlord. Some genius, watchmaker that just designed the world and left it to be, but that he tabernacled among us, that he came to be with us, that walked with this earth. That the good news of the gospel is that even though we are sinners, that while we are still sinners, God demonstrates his love to us by dying for us, redeeming us and providing a way for us to get in closer relationship.
To the creator of the universe that he provides that way. And that one of the biggest steps in that whole story is that he came to this earth and that, that was a great act of grace and mercy that he did that. And the way that he did, because God’s presence is only good news for the redeemed God’s presence.
For those who are not under his mercy and grace. It means wrath, but the, he provides a way for us to experience that grace and mercy. And part of that story is the advent of his son. And so focused on that next week, we’ll be back with six things to focus on as you go into 2021. don’t forget to enter in for.
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ADVENT, christmas, Die Hard, Hans Gruber, Hope, Light, Peace
