THE THINGS HE CARRIED
A Journey to the Cross: meditations for Lent and Holy Week
By Stephen Cottrell. SPCK. 96 pages. £6.99
ISBN 978-0-28106-080-1
The Bishop of Reading has produced a helpful book of meditations on the cross which can be used with profit by individual Christians or groups.
Each of eight short chapters concludes with an exercise for reflection. This book is excellent on the physical suffering involved in crucifixion, though I fear it is lacking on the spiritual suffering. Though we are taught that Jesus bore the sin of the world, there is here no bearing of the wrath of God in our place, no consideration of God the Son being forsaken by his Father. Scripture does not teach that he died of a broken heart. It tells us that no man could take his life away. He yielded up his spirit, surrendered his life, after the cry of triumph, his work of atonement finished. So when a book on the cross does not teach penal substitution, I fear the crux of the story has been missed.
