In life, timing is everything. In this case my timing is completely out because Carla Lindsey’s delightful reflection on Easter demands to be read in the weekend leading up to Easter, not two months later. Still, there’s now plenty of time to grab a copy before next Easter!

It’s a short book that is a journey, one that takes some intriguing twists and turns, asks some provocative questions, and puts us firmly in the centre of Jesus’ long weekend. For us it is a holiday, but for Jesus it was the end of his life’s work culminating in his ultimate act of love.

Lindsey puts us in the shoes of some of the peripheral characters in the story, such as Simon of Cyrene and Joseph of Arimathea, and allows us to see events from their perspective. In the process she prods and pushes us along the road to Calvary and allows us to reflect on our own perspectives. Inevitably, there are a lot of questions we need to confront along the way.

It must have been a loud, chaotic and confusing journey along that road, following in the wake of the man with the cross.

It’s a mood captured by a written text that lurches from italics, to bold italics, to SENTENCES IN CAPITALS, to REALLY BIG TYPE and a meandering text that probably ought to be annoying, but strangely isn’t. Somehow it just adds to the experience.

By Carla Lindsey
Maruki Books
ISBN 978-0-9864598-7-0 
www.thelongweekend.co.nz

• Duncan Pardon