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The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey
The Unvarnished Jesus is a forty-six day Lenten journey taking the reader from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday on a quest to encounter Jesus in a new and startling way. These forty-six daily meditations on the life and ministry of Jesus drawn from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are a spiritual solvent to help remove the layers of lacquer comprised of political and cultural assumptions that prevent us from seeing just how challenging and compelling Jesus of Nazareth really is. The Unvarnished Jesus is a forty-six day project to restore the incomparable image of Christ.
199 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 9, 2019
190 people are currently reading
373 people want to read
About the author
Brian Zahnd
52 books391 followersBrian Zahnd is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. As the lead pastor, he is the primary preacher during our weekend services, and he oversees the direction of the church. Pastor Brian is a passionate reader of theology and philosophy, an avid hiker and mountain climber, and authority on all things Bob Dylan.
He and his wife, Peri, have three adult sons and five grandchildren. He is the author of several books, including Unconditional?, Beauty Will Save the World, A Farewell To Mars, and Water To Wine.
He and his wife, Peri, have three adult sons and five grandchildren. He is the author of several books, including Unconditional?, Beauty Will Save the World, A Farewell To Mars, and Water To Wine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
April 10, 2023
Läs den här under nästa års fasta! Du kommer inte ångra dig.
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
"God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known what God is like—
But now we do."
Den hjälpte mig verkligen att reflektera kring passionshistorien och fördjupade min förståelse av vem Jesus är.
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
"God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known what God is like—
But now we do."
Den hjälpte mig verkligen att reflektera kring passionshistorien och fördjupade min förståelse av vem Jesus är.
April 7, 2021
Highly recommend this book as an annual read in the Lent season. I love it and find new things stand out each year. It is a daily read for the 46 days.
January 7, 2022
Pastor Zahnd always expands my thinking. This book really helped me look at the cross in a new way. It was thought provoking, so I ordered Zahnd’s book that goes further into the concept of atonement, “Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.” I am grateful for Zahnd’s writing and challenging of my theology.
April 11, 2020
If it were possible to give this book more than 5 stars, I would. I've done a variety of Lenten devotionals over the years but this is, by far, the best. Each day's commentary brings a new depth of understanding.
Tomorrow is Easter and Lent ends, but make a note in your calendar to buy this book for your devotional next year or order it now and put it away with your Easter decorations.
Tomorrow is Easter and Lent ends, but make a note in your calendar to buy this book for your devotional next year or order it now and put it away with your Easter decorations.
April 11, 2020
Excellent Lenten Devotional
Fans of Brian will find a lot to love here in daily, easy to read, but challenging chunks. The unvarnished Jesus is a Lenten journey with Jesus that I recommend taking.
Fans of Brian will find a lot to love here in daily, easy to read, but challenging chunks. The unvarnished Jesus is a Lenten journey with Jesus that I recommend taking.
April 11, 2020
Great Lenten devotional.
April 8, 2023
Highly recommend!
Probably one of the best Lenten devotionals I've ever gone through
Probably one of the best Lenten devotionals I've ever gone through
March 4, 2020
Absolutely awful. The author uses this Lenten Journey to preach hatred of American values and capitalism. FYI - To use a book to preach hatred and shame readers is not appropriate or Christ-like. He also uses unnecessarily harsh verbiage to create a supremely negative view of certain Old Testament Scripture. Zahnd points out “contradictions” in the Bible and essentially states that Jesus trumps scripture - Jesus gives permission to say certain Bible passages are wrong. This is blasphemous!
Zahnd’s teachings are centered around the concept that kind and generous acts and loving your neighbor are more important than believing, following, worshipping, and obeying Jesus. I can’t even...This book - 0 stars if I could.
Zahnd’s teachings are centered around the concept that kind and generous acts and loving your neighbor are more important than believing, following, worshipping, and obeying Jesus. I can’t even...This book - 0 stars if I could.
April 16, 2022
expected more but still appreciated it
I think the title led me to expect a bit deeper exploration of Jesus himself, which some of the days definitely do.
Brian definitely writes within the context of political American Christianity and seeks to counter some of that ideology through some of the days, which doesn’t mean much to those outside of that context. But not to minimise what he writes.
There are definitely things I appreciated and was challenged by and I have enjoyed journeying over Lent through this devotional.
If you’re looking for something a little bit different for next lent, this may well be it.
I think the title led me to expect a bit deeper exploration of Jesus himself, which some of the days definitely do.
Brian definitely writes within the context of political American Christianity and seeks to counter some of that ideology through some of the days, which doesn’t mean much to those outside of that context. But not to minimise what he writes.
There are definitely things I appreciated and was challenged by and I have enjoyed journeying over Lent through this devotional.
If you’re looking for something a little bit different for next lent, this may well be it.
April 4, 2021
Great Devotional for Lent
This was a really good devotional for lent. I appreciated much of the author’s insights and it really helped me keep focus during this season. Nothing too new or surprising, which I was suspecting of something written by Zahnd, but I would still recommend it! His reading on why Jesus had to die was amazing!
This was a really good devotional for lent. I appreciated much of the author’s insights and it really helped me keep focus during this season. Nothing too new or surprising, which I was suspecting of something written by Zahnd, but I would still recommend it! His reading on why Jesus had to die was amazing!
April 2, 2024
You know it’s a good devotional when you’re wrestling with the short writings for the day all day.
That was quite true for a number of chapters. Zahnd’s theological framework is comprehensive and uniform, albeit the whole book being pretty specific (reactive? yet exegetical) to only modern Western culture.
That was quite true for a number of chapters. Zahnd’s theological framework is comprehensive and uniform, albeit the whole book being pretty specific (reactive? yet exegetical) to only modern Western culture.
June 27, 2024
Truly one of the best devotionals I’ve been able to engage with.
April 1, 2024
I really enjoyed using this book as my Lenten devotional these past several weeks. I definitely plan on using them again next year during the Lenten season. It’s both a combination of reading scripture and a passage about the scripture. Observations are excellent and really helped me to stay focused on the Easter season. Highly recommended.
Read
March 28, 2024Read this with our small group at church. I enjoyed it more than I was expecting to. I appreciated Zahnd’s peeling away the American Evangelical church’s view of Jesus, with its love of capitalism and glorification of nationalism, to expose a Jesus who abhors violence and loves the outcast. Made me look at some of the gospel readings through a new lens.
April 1, 2024
Enjoyed this Lenten book.
April 12, 2020
Brian Zahnd has been my close companion during this Lent season. I have been following his daily Instagram entries and have accompanied him on some of his Holy Land pilgrimage earlier in this Lent season. For the past year, Karen and I have been watching and listening to him on YouTube on Sunday mornings for our gathering of “two or three”.
So when he announced the release of this book in time for Lent this year, it seemed like a good choice.
Brian’s theology of the cross comes as such a breath of fresh air to me, welcome relief from an atonement theology that has in recent centuries turned God the Father into a wrathful torturer of his own son, a cross that only serves the one purpose of offering forgiveness of sin, but only for the few that follow the right formula.
It seems fitting to centre this review and conclude it with the words of Brian himself in his Good Friday entry as he conveys his theology of the cross:
“To interpret the meaning of the cross is more than a life’s work—in fact, it has and will remain the work of the church for millennia. The cross is the ever-unfolding revelation of who God is, and it cannot be summed up in a simple formula. This is the bane of tidy atonement theories that seek to reduce the cross to a single meaning.
The cross is many things:
It’s the pinnacle of God’s self-disclosure.
It’s divine solidarity with all human suffering.
It’s the shaming of the principalities and powers.
It’s the point from which the satan is driven out of the world.
It’s the death by which Christ conquers Death.
It’s the abolition of war and violence.
It’s the supreme demonstration of the love of God.
It’s the re-founding of the world around an axis of love.
It’s the enduring model of co-suffering love we are to follow.
It’s the eternal moment in which the sin of the world is forgiven.
The cross is not the appeasement of an angry and retributive god.
The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as savior.
The cross is not what God inflicts upon Jesus in order to forgive, but what God in Christ endures as he forgives.
The cross is where the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity so that it might be forgiven en masse.
The cross is where the world violently sinned its sins in the body of the Son of God, and where he absorbed it all, praying, “Father, forgive them.”
The cross is both ugly and beautiful. It’s as ugly as human sin and as beautiful as divine love—but in the end love and beauty win”.
So when he announced the release of this book in time for Lent this year, it seemed like a good choice.
Brian’s theology of the cross comes as such a breath of fresh air to me, welcome relief from an atonement theology that has in recent centuries turned God the Father into a wrathful torturer of his own son, a cross that only serves the one purpose of offering forgiveness of sin, but only for the few that follow the right formula.
It seems fitting to centre this review and conclude it with the words of Brian himself in his Good Friday entry as he conveys his theology of the cross:
“To interpret the meaning of the cross is more than a life’s work—in fact, it has and will remain the work of the church for millennia. The cross is the ever-unfolding revelation of who God is, and it cannot be summed up in a simple formula. This is the bane of tidy atonement theories that seek to reduce the cross to a single meaning.
The cross is many things:
It’s the pinnacle of God’s self-disclosure.
It’s divine solidarity with all human suffering.
It’s the shaming of the principalities and powers.
It’s the point from which the satan is driven out of the world.
It’s the death by which Christ conquers Death.
It’s the abolition of war and violence.
It’s the supreme demonstration of the love of God.
It’s the re-founding of the world around an axis of love.
It’s the enduring model of co-suffering love we are to follow.
It’s the eternal moment in which the sin of the world is forgiven.
The cross is not the appeasement of an angry and retributive god.
The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as savior.
The cross is not what God inflicts upon Jesus in order to forgive, but what God in Christ endures as he forgives.
The cross is where the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity so that it might be forgiven en masse.
The cross is where the world violently sinned its sins in the body of the Son of God, and where he absorbed it all, praying, “Father, forgive them.”
The cross is both ugly and beautiful. It’s as ugly as human sin and as beautiful as divine love—but in the end love and beauty win”.
April 20, 2020
This was a fantastic, non-evangelical Lenten devotional. I particularly enjoyed Zahnd's explanation of how this book and its contents comes out of a personal experience, namely of beginning to see Jesus in a new way that isn't "colored" or hidden by the Christian culture of the West.
I appreciated particularly the organization of walking through the different scriptures chronologically, but hitting different gospel accounts for each. This was most stark in the stations of the cross.
I also appreciated Zahnd's way of sticking to the teaching of Jesus in the moment. He certainly adds his own perspective, but pointing out themes like the empire, violence, the poor, etc. I felt gave this journey through the gospels an interesting and refreshing approach for me.
There are places where I think he takes liberties with interpretation and I don't follow him there. But I think they're still interesting perspectives to consider. And I will continue to use this as a devotional in years to come, most likely.
I appreciated particularly the organization of walking through the different scriptures chronologically, but hitting different gospel accounts for each. This was most stark in the stations of the cross.
I also appreciated Zahnd's way of sticking to the teaching of Jesus in the moment. He certainly adds his own perspective, but pointing out themes like the empire, violence, the poor, etc. I felt gave this journey through the gospels an interesting and refreshing approach for me.
There are places where I think he takes liberties with interpretation and I don't follow him there. But I think they're still interesting perspectives to consider. And I will continue to use this as a devotional in years to come, most likely.
April 13, 2020
Great for every person!
Easy to read and understand. Straight gospel and truth. Shane makes the Gospels challenging and fresh so that our hearts can align with Gods. Gods love wins.
Easy to read and understand. Straight gospel and truth. Shane makes the Gospels challenging and fresh so that our hearts can align with Gods. Gods love wins.
April 6, 2024
Sometimes you find the right book for the right time. This was absolutely the Lenten devotional I needed.
April 11, 2020
This book contains some beautiful ideas, indeed some I had never thought of before (the speared side of Jesus bringing forth the bride of Christ, much like Eve being formed from Adam’s side, for example). However, the author is too focused on worldly political systems. Jesus taught of a kingdom not of this world, so when Zahnd tries to draw conclusions repeatedly about political leaders and governments, I think he is missing the mark. For example, Barabbas is not so much about us choosing leaders who opt for violence as it’s about our hearts being drawn to our own motivations of control, vengeance, and a rejection of Jesus’ ways. Our political leaders are not - and never will be - our Messiah. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, Jesus said. Political structures and systems play a role in our world, but the salvation of men’s souls is not it. Some great thoughts in this devotional, but the overt political tone was a spoiler for me.
April 11, 2020
Brian Zahnd's 46-day devotional through the season of Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Saturday, is helpful, insightful, and overall enjoyable. I have not successfully read through an entire devotional book before, as I am not usually that interested in, but I appreciated this one. The season of Lent is important, and it's the most difficult season we encounter in the Church calendar. This book is a helpful companion during the Lenten journey. It can be rather simplistic at times, and Zahnd does not shy away from discounting and discrediting opposing viewpoints and hermeneutical approaches to the passages he reflects upon. Ultimately, this should not be surprising, given the title of the devotional, "The Unvarnished Jesus"; Zahnd's goal is to strip away the build-up and the lacquer that has covered up the portrait of Jesus he finds in Scripture, and this will ultimately lead him to make claims some might find different or surprising.
April 20, 2025
This Lent devotional by Brian Zahnd is exactly what it says on the cover: a 46-day Lenten journey with the unvarnished Jesus, beginning on Ash Wednesday and concluding on Holy Saturday. The first half of the book consists of well-chosen stories (about or by Jesus) from the gospels. We are then led through ‘fourteen scriptural stations of the cross’ (i.e. stations taken from the actual gospel stories of the crucifixion, as distinct from the traditional stations that include some non-biblical events). Finally, we journey with Jesus through his last week, concluding with his brief residence in the garden tomb on Holy Saturday.
Reading this book was an excellent aid to my Lenten journey (in much the same way as Brian Zahnd’s devotional ‘The Anticipated Christ’ was a very helpful companion through Advent). I highly recommend it. Five stars out of five.
Reading this book was an excellent aid to my Lenten journey (in much the same way as Brian Zahnd’s devotional ‘The Anticipated Christ’ was a very helpful companion through Advent). I highly recommend it. Five stars out of five.
April 11, 2023
This was a good, doable Lenten devotional. It featured one scripture reading for each day and a three-page reflection on it, ending with a short prayer. Zahnd expounds on themes of Jesus is humble servanthood, the upside-down kingdom of God, and active pacifism. He has a bit of an ax to grind when it comes to atonement theory, and while I appreciated his perspective, for me at times it ventured more into theological work, rather than devotional in nature. I also wish the devotional ended with Easter rather than just before, but this is an issue I have found with other Lenten devotionals. All in all, it was a worthwhile read, and I was glad for how it enriched my Lenten journey.
April 21, 2025
This was an excellent Lenten devotional book. My daughter recommended it to me after reading it herself last year through Lent. It was great in its length each day and the Scripture that walked you through some of Christ's life and ministry and then the events of Holy Week itself. It was poignant and thought-provoking. In today's climate, it was a good grounding in Scripture with Christ being preeminent and full of grace and love for all people. He was and continues to be the Humble Servant and set the example for us of loving others and doing so through sacrifice rather than power and might.
May 3, 2025
I hope one day I can thank Brian Zahnd for restoring me. His books give me permission to mourn evangelical slop, and imagine a way of flourishing for all. This lent book is the same.
It resists those myths that unmake us, allowing us to sit in the ash of death. There is no rush to resurrection and death is reckoned with by naming pain. Jesus died the death of the lowly on earth, who are kicked, beaten, spit on, organs revealed, who are whipped revealing tendons, and then lynched. God does not do this, we do when we forget who we are. Christ's death reveals our violence, and God's solidarity with those who are thrown away.
It resists those myths that unmake us, allowing us to sit in the ash of death. There is no rush to resurrection and death is reckoned with by naming pain. Jesus died the death of the lowly on earth, who are kicked, beaten, spit on, organs revealed, who are whipped revealing tendons, and then lynched. God does not do this, we do when we forget who we are. Christ's death reveals our violence, and God's solidarity with those who are thrown away.
April 11, 2020
It Gave My Lent New Meaning
I appreciated this book for the new meaning and depth that it brought to my Lenten experience this year (2020). It seemed to grow with me and anticipate my needs. It was especially meaningful to me as I began it before the quarantine and finished it at Easter.
I would recommend it to anyone seeking fresh perspective during Lent. It is a bit uneven at times, but aren’t we all? The nit picker in me wants to mention the many typos and grammar mistakes. I hate to bring them up, but they could be easily corrected.
I appreciated this book for the new meaning and depth that it brought to my Lenten experience this year (2020). It seemed to grow with me and anticipate my needs. It was especially meaningful to me as I began it before the quarantine and finished it at Easter.
I would recommend it to anyone seeking fresh perspective during Lent. It is a bit uneven at times, but aren’t we all? The nit picker in me wants to mention the many typos and grammar mistakes. I hate to bring them up, but they could be easily corrected.
April 16, 2022
A beautiful Lenten study. Zhand brought out many historical insights that framed the story of Jesus in a new light. I learned some things! And the study refocused my heart on the real meaning of Easter. I appreciated the focus on the love of God instead of wrath.
“The cross is not where God inflicts violence on Jesus in order to vent his wrath; the cross is where God in Christ endures human inflicted violence and forgives it all.
The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as savior.”
“The cross is not where God inflicts violence on Jesus in order to vent his wrath; the cross is where God in Christ endures human inflicted violence and forgives it all.
The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as savior.”
March 31, 2024
I have just finished reading this Lenten series for this year. Nonetheless I recommend its reading outside of the church calendar. I have been a follower of Jesus Christ my entire life, yet this slim volume offers fresh ways to see Christ. Brian Zahnd puts forth ideas and perspectives in the Gospel that I have not considered before. In a way, it affirms the words that Jesus spoke: “Let him who has ears let him hear”. Each generation can experience and see Christ in their own way or not, and Brain Zahnd's writing allows the reader to make that choice.
April 17, 2020
Perspective-shifting
Zahnd’s Lenten devotions are a unique read. His perspectives and expositions on each day’s scripture reference shifted me to a place I wouldn’t have gone on my own. Each day’s devotion is short enough to be palatable for one morning/evening, while also packing a punch (one to be meditated on and potentially carried forward). I enjoyed this “Lenten journey” very much.
Zahnd’s Lenten devotions are a unique read. His perspectives and expositions on each day’s scripture reference shifted me to a place I wouldn’t have gone on my own. Each day’s devotion is short enough to be palatable for one morning/evening, while also packing a punch (one to be meditated on and potentially carried forward). I enjoyed this “Lenten journey” very much.
April 3, 2021
I loved this meditation devotional. I've been a part of many that often failed or just slips from my memories. Those focused often on some self-fulfillment fluff with some bible verses. Zhand's kept me fully focused on the gospel story, and particularly the final days of Jesus leading up to his crucifixion. Jesus, with the varnished removed from years of christianese human stains, now alive and ablazed in my heart.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews