WHAT MIGHT YOU SAY IF YOU WITNESSED THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST?
God sent redemption to us in the form of a man—His son, Jesus. Historical accounts speak of Him, and God’s signs and wonders testify that all things were created through Him. Also, Scripture itself, inspired by the very breath of God, foretells and unfolds His story.
In Witnesses to the Crucifixion, Ricky Carstensen retells the death and resurrection of the Messiah through six stand-alone stories. The sermons were written as if the physical items closest to Jesus during His trial, death, burial, and resurrection could speak: the crown of thorns, the purple robe, the three nails, the spear, the burial shroud, and the stone that covered the entrance to Jesus’ tomb. If you could give each of these objects a heart and a voice, what might their testimonies say? Included in this story is a touching epilogue written by James Doucette that creatively imagines the origin of Christ’s cross.
This book is for an audience of all ages, but its depth is personal and far-reaching. As you read through these pages, sense the power of transformation through the blood of Christ.
That’s apparently the germinal idea that Ricky Carstensen uses in writing the book, Witnesses to the Crucifixion. Instead of using humans, the author tells the story of Christ’s death and resurrection from the points of view of inanimate objects. Carstensen makes the thorns, robe, nail, shroud, spear, and the stone speak out their thoughts during the last few hours of Jesus’ life. I don’t want to go into the details of these “characters” so as to not spoil the story.
However, these things I can say of the Witnesses to the Crucifixion. First, the author is a good story-teller. The reader might empathize with the characters. Second, his writing style is simple and easy to understand even for young readers. And third, this makes a good children's book.
Technically, I didn’t see any typographical errors in the book. But, I have to give this book a less than perfect score of 4 out of 5 stars. The book’s Kindle copy has a problem with formatting. Nevertheless, I still recommend it to readers of all age groups.
A walk through the crucifixion story through the eyes of the inanimate objects that played a role in Jesus’s death and resurrection. Very metaphorical and there’s a great number of insights and revelations to take away from each perspective. The messages were simple, yet meaningful and made it easy to understand the redeeming power of God’s love through Jesus’s sacrifice. I would have given it a four, but there were some formatting issues for the kindle edition. They didn’t ruin the readability of the story but the pictures were hard to see and the scriptures were separated by some random blank-page art. There were also a few headers that appeared in the middle of a page.
Should be turned into a children's animated movie!
This was such a wonderful read! It was also timely because I read it around Easter. I loved all the stories!
This is the story of the witnesses to the crucifixion, but they're no ordinary witnesses. These were the crown, robe, nail, shroud and dogwood tree. I don't want to get into more details as to not give any spoilers. But seriously, this is a must read!
However, I'm deducting one star because it was obviously not ready for publishing. The Kindle edition had a some sentences in red (from the editor or publisher, perhaps), one of them telling the author to add an acknowledgement to the editor... yikes!!!
We may have all read various crucifixion stories, but Mr Carstensen takes a very unique arc to tell the story. The book is based on the testimony of some of the implements used during the crucifixion event. You get a personal view from the spear that was thrust into Christ's side. Even the shroud He was covered with tells their tale, along with a long list of other objects that come to life to tell their story. I found his book both well-written, fast-paced, and thoroughly entertaining.
This book provides a unique perspective of the crucifixion. I enjoyed reading it immensely because of the imagination required. There is one small error in the acknowledgments as if an edit was missed so I knocked off 1 star. Otherwise this is a fantastic book and enjoyable read.
Much like the story of how the Robbin received it's red breast. A lovely tale told me as a child. Jesus suffered greatly for love of man. It will be read and read.