Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday

I started to pick up Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday again after a couple of months and decided to skip a few chapters =P

Before introducing the book, let me start by explaining why on earth I started reading such a book, on theology (!) =P

Last year, I read a book written by Rev. Yeung Mook Kuk. If I remembered correctly, it was the book in which he talked about his daughter's SLE (the name of a disease). He said Dr. Stephen Lee recommended an article written by Alan Lewis's widow. (Alan Lewis is the author of this book. And two of my fav Bible teachers talked about this person, how can I resist finding more about him? haha!) I couldn't find the article, it was in some Scottish theology journal. Anyway, I found this book written by him, and it sounded very intriguing. The concept of someone exploring the meaning of the Holy Saturday. We usually talked about Good Friday and then (!) Easter Sunday, and forgot the day in between when disciples lost all hope, since they (unlike us, who had the benefit of hindsight) had no idea Jesus would rise from the dead.

Here's an introduction of the book from Amazon.com

For much of Christian history the church has given no place to Holy Saturday in its liturgy or worship. Yet the space dividing Calvary and the Garden may be the best from which to reflect on the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection. This superb work by the late Alan Lewis develops on a grand scale and in great detail a theology of Holy Saturday.

The first comprehensive theology of Holy Saturday ever written, this book shows that at the center of the biblical story and the church's creed is a three-day narrative. Lewis explores the meaning of Holy Saturday—the restless day of burial and waiting—from the perspective of narrative, doctrine, and ethics. Along the way he visits as many spiritual themes as possible in order to demonstrate the range of topics that take on fresh meaning when viewed from the vantage point of Holy Saturday.

While writing this book Lewis experienced his own Holy Saturday in suffering from and finally succumbing to cancer. As a result his theology is uniquely moving and deeply rooted in Christian experience.

The reason I stopped reading the book is that Lewis spent pages & chapters explaining ideas that could be dealt with in a paragraph... (If you have read my blog/know me personally, you know I am a very impatient person.) That is why despite the good ideas, I eventually stopped reading the book after 70 pages.

I started to pick up the book again after the lecture last weekend. Dr. Stephen Lee talked about how we should dwell on sufferings like Biblical poetry. I began to read the book again from where I left off, but finally could not stand the repetition of similar ideas in various different ways (his vocabulary was excellent, I had no idea there are so many different ways and words to explain these ideas...) and skipped the initial theory chapters, and it's good. I'll share more about this book later. I'll try to get back to the first part of the book later...