This is a modifed version of a review that I wrote on Amazon some time ago. As we are now entering Holy Week, I thought it was a fitting time for such a post. Let me just lay my cards on the table and say up front that Between Cross and Resurrection, remains one of the most moving and powerful works in theology that I have ever read. Alan Lewis was a masterful writer and theologian whose character, passion and humility is apparent on every page of this wonderful book.
As the title suggests, this book seeks to unpack the relevance of Holy Saturday (the day Christ lay dead in the grave “between cross and resurrection’) for Christian theology and life. The fact is, there are few areas of Christian doctrine and practice this book does not touch on in some significant way. This book is a brilliant exercise in narrative theology, which situates a trinitarian doctrine of God within the thoroughly narrative framework of the Church’s three-day story of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Christ. The first section of the book essentially involves telling the three-day story that stands at the center of our salvation and then begins to unpack its implications for our understanding of the nature and power of God and for theological ethics.
The central thesis that Lewis advances throughout the book is that Jesus’ statement that ‘those who lose their lives will find them’ is not only true of us, but is antecendently true of God. The Triune God is the one who knows how to die and thereby enter into the fullness of resurrection life. The key theme that Lewis plays up here is not the suffering of the cross overwhelming the victory of resurrection, but rather how the resurrection forces us to think about radical nature of the suffering and death of God in Christ. Since the resurrection confirms that Christ was in fact God, when we reflect back on Holy Saturday we are left with the shocking reality that God is found and identified among the suffering and the dead. The way that the Triune God overcomes the powers of sin and death is not by matching them with brute power, but by surrendering to them and then abounding all the more in overflowing life. The key verse the Lewis often returns to is Paul’s statement “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more so that, as sin reigned in death, grace might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord.” (Rom. 5:20-21). God’s way of dealing with sin and death is not to overthrow them through power, but to surrender to them and then abound still more with resurrection life that cannot be surpassed by sin and death. The second section involves more explicit theological unpacking of the three-day story.
In particular, Lewis focuses on the trinitarian context in which the theology of the cross, grave and resurrection must be understood. In one of the best chapters in the book, “From God’s Passion to God’s Death” Lewis brilliantly demolishes conventional conceptions of God’s omnipotence and other central elements of classical theism which derive from Greek and Modern thought rather than the narratives of the cross. Through an examination of Barth, Moltmann and Juengel, Lewis shows that God’s very nature and the very form of his power is seen through the suffering love and weakness of the cross and the grave through which the ever abundant life of resurrection breaks forth. I cannot begin to do justice to the ways that Lewis formulates all of this. The implications are staggering. If the very from of God’s power is seen in surrendering to the powers of sin and death through love and then faithfully awaiting a transcendent hope on the other side of negation and death, then our perspective on violence, oppression and injustice is radically transformed.
The final section of the book deals specifically with our practice of living in light of the three-day story. Lewis offers an amazing chapter on world history where he particularly discusses Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Chernobyl. He then moves on to articulate a theological politics that derives from the narrative of Holy Saturday. He follows this up with discussions of the the church’s mission to the wider culture as the cruciform and “grave-shaped” followers of Christ, setting out an excellent discussion of missional ethics and theology. Finally, he sets forth a vision for the church as the trinitarian community of mutual love, peace and self-donation.
Lewis was not only a brilliant theologian, but a brilliant writer whose theology of Holy Saturday was born out by his own Holy Saturday experience of terminal cancer. I have learned much from this amazing book, and I intend to return to it repeatedly in days to come. In particular I find myself coming back to it every Lent, as I prepare to teach on Holy Saturday as I do every year during Holy Week. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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