The cross is regarded as Jesus Christ's great work of salvation. But is it also a work of creation? Excitingly plumbing Scripture and Christian tradition, Andrew McGowan shows that it is. ""Each of Jesus's seven words from the cross can be understood as a creative act, as a new divine work,"" he writes. From the cross, Jesus works forgiveness, bestows Paradise, enacts human relationship, identifies completely with humanity, fulfills Scripture, and reenacts Sabbath. From early days, Christians--for good reason--linked the original seven days of creation with creation and re-creation at the apex of salvation. Seven Last Words recovers this linkage in all its power and perennial freshness. But that is not all. In addition to surveying the seven last words Jesus spoke, McGowan insists that at the cross ""the eternal Word not only speaks, but listens."" And so he turns to the ""conversations"" spoken not only from but to the cross. Here he opens new vistas on the words of Judas, Dismas (the criminal crucified beside Jesus), Mary, God the Father, Longinus (the centurion), and Nicodemus, and ruminates fascinatingly on the accompanying silence of the angels. Profound and endlessly edifying, Seven Last Words will richly repay reading and rereading.
Industry Reviews
""In this inspiring book, Andrew McGowan not only offers reflections both powerful and poignant on the traditional seven last words of Jesus on the cross, but in a creative twist also considers the comments (or in one case, the silence) of seven other witnesses to this most dramatic of moments.""
-Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and author of Love Is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times
""In these reflections, Andrew McGowan draws on Scripture and tradition to explore the deep connections between the cross and creation. With characteristic creativity and insight, McGowan helps us to see that the seven last words of Christ find their most lucid expression in the promise of the new creation. We hear these words again-as though for the first time."
-William Lamb, vicar of University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, England
"The late, great community theologian Kenneth Leech once said, 'The cross is not a problem to be understood but a mystery into which we enter,' and this is exactly what Andrew did when he preached on Good Friday in 2016. His linking of the creation story with the salvific work of Jesus as he died on the cross was truly memorable; it allowed us to enter into those seven words in a new and remarkable way."
-Carl F. Turner, rector, Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, New York
"Helpless on the cross, Christ acts through his speech. Andrew McGowan takes the traditional structure of Good Friday meditations on Jesus' 'Seven Last Words,' and invests them with new and challenging insights. I first heard these words in the context of a pre-pandemic Good Friday liturgy; encountering them again as companions for a lockdown Holy Week has provided real nourishment in lean times."
-Judith Maltby, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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