The Cross He Bore (Meditations on the Sufferings of the Redeemer)
By Frederick S. Leahy
Banner of Truth Trust. 82 pages. £3.50
ISBN 0 85151 693 9
Professor Leahy is a very experienced expositor of Scripture. He is also well read in classic evangelical literature. His latest book brings these together in fine balance. Thirteen short chapters are exegetical and devotional. The mind is engaged and the heart is moved. Each chapter is based on a text from the four Gospels. Each text, therefore, is located in narrative. Such texts can easily be neglected as the narrative is read without pausing.
Professor Leahy's method is to follow the narrative and then pause over some momentous words. It is a good model for preachers who may be neglecting narrative. Everything in the book leads to Christ and his suffering. We are reminded of Charles Wesley entitling the Holy Spirit: 'True Recorder of His Passion'. These chapters are deeply sensitive to the Spirit's teaching, as the reader is taken into Gethsemane, then step by step to Calvary. Anyone wishing to follow the Christian year will find a good Easter book here. Anyone wanting meditations suitable to the Lord's Supper will acknowledge a debt to Professor Leahy. The crown of thorns, the Saviour's eloquent silence, the disfigurement of his face, and many other details are more vividly fixed in the mind after reading these chapters.
