O Sacred Head Now Wounded

Books for Christmas and New Year

/ J.K. / Leave a comment

There are less than 10 days to Christmas, but if you have two day shipping and still need some gift ideas you can get these in time. Or, if you are wanting to ‘start the New Year right’, I have some devotional recommendations for you. Click on the links below to read my review of each book and get more information.

First, here are three short daily devotionals for you to start off the New Year:

Psalms in 30 Days, probably not better way to start a New Year or new devotion time than the Psalms.

Daily Liturgy, this is a great 40 day devotional that is not tied to any season

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, This a a Lent devotional, so you’ll have more time to order or read something first.

Or, if reading isn’t really your thing (thanks for visiting was is not basically a book review site) or you don’t have the time right now, or need something to fill a commute; try the Tune My Heart podcast. This is a 30 day liturgy and prayer podcast, all of them are less than 10 minutes and are a great way to start your morning.

If you are looking for something related by not a devotional, try Disciplines of a Godly Man, which is a very popular book and now my most popular post of all time.

If you are looking for some good non-fiction, Why Nations Fail, has been in the news recently as the authors have won this years Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Finally, four more books that I haven’t reviewed yet, but are worth mentioning:

Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves; this is probably my favorite book I’ve read this year. The subtitle is basically accurate, if any of it interest you, get this book. The final chapter is a little long and meandering, but the rest of the book is great.

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution; I’ve been meaning to write a review of this for years, but it is so impactful, I think it’ll be a multi-part review or maybe something different all together. I think very few books explain parts of our current cultural moment like this. Just a head up, it isn’t too long, maybe 400 or so, but it is on the more difficult side for reading. He interacts often with past philosophers and theologians. Don’t let that be a deterrent, just know if you don’t have a lot of familiarity, it can seem like a slog at parts.

Dune; this is one of my all time favorite works of fiction. The second movie is out, both movies are based on the one namesake book. If you liked the movies, you should check out the book. Or you haven’t done either, it’s worth grabbing to see what the hype is about.

A Christmas Carol; also one of my all time favorites, and I had to throw in some sort of Christmas book. I read this just about every year and watch two or three versions of the movie, the Muppets probably being my current favorite. Some of the scenes/dialogue are taking exactly from the book, which is something like 60 pages. So, you can rip through this in an afternoon if you were so inclined.

Hope this helps with last minute Christmas ideas, or books to start in January. I don’t think I’ve made a post quite like this, so let me know if it was useful or not.

Book Review: O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

/ J.K. / 1 Comment

Rating: Must Have

Level: Easy (though helpful to have familiarity with liturgy); Long (400+), but each day is less than 10 pages

Summary

This is the third book by Gibson and Crossway of a liturgy for daily worship. The first, being a general 31 day guide called Be Thou My Vision, the second one, like this one is focused on a part of the church calendar, O Come, O Come, Emanuel (see my review here), which went roughly from Advent to Epiphany. I have to admit, I was confused by the dates of this book. The subtitle is A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Pascha to Pentecost. I thought this would be a good Monday to post, as Pascha is (I thought) another name for Easter and Pentecost is the 50th day after Easter. However, this is actually a Lent (timeframe) devotional, though Gibson writes “this [book] is not intended to be associated with the traditions of Lent..” I find this an odd and confusing choice.

This book is neither a 40 (or 46, as Sundays don’t count towards Lent) day Lenten Devotional, not is it a 50 day Easter (Pascha) to Pentecost devotional. Instead, it is a 48 day devotional that starts on Ash Wednesday, proceeds 42 days, and then has special service days – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Resurrection Sunday (Easter/Pascha), Ascension Sunday (the Sunday after Ascension Day, which is 40 days after Easter),and Pentecost Sunday.

After a preface and acknowledgements, the books starts with an intro (titled Remembering Jesus), where Gibson makes something of a defense of ‘holy’ days, or having special days of remembrance. It is a really interesting chapter, and if you are in the reformed community, you know that there is a pretty sizeable split with strong feelings on both sides of ‘holy days’. 

The following chapter is a very useful (especially if you aren’t used to Liturgy) ‘how-to’ on using the format, which includes: meditation, call to worship, adoration, reading the Law, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, creed, praise, catechism, prayer for illumination, scripture reading, praise, prayer of intercession (and then further petition/prayer), Lord’s Prayer, benediction, and finally a postlude (doxology).  

There are also appendixes for tunes to various parts of the worship, Bible reading plan, and Author, Hymn, & Liturgy index.

My Thoughts

I still find the subtitle odd and do not understand why they would give it such a name. As noted above, Gibson doesn’t want this to be a traditional Lenten style devotional, but it would seem to me that explaining the difference in the book while giving a clearer title would be more helpful. Another confusing aspect is at one point he refers to this season as the ‘Pascal Season’, which coincides with Lent. This is again odd, as most English speaker use Easter not Pascha, and Easter Season (or Eastertide) is the time from Easter to Ascension Day. It is truly a perplexing decision. That being said, it is another wonderful book. I couldn’t come up with much new to say about how it works, so see below for what I wrote about O Come, O Come, Emanual: 

Honestly, if you attempt any personal or family worship this is a must have. I am a big fan of the structured (liturgical) worship, especially for family devotion. It really doesn’t make it easy to lead or do with your family or community. Really my only (minor) quibble with this is that with 16 parts, it might be just a little too long. However, if you are doing this with a family with young children or you find yourself short on time, there are always parts you can cut. That being said, some sections are only a line or a paragraph long; this shouldn’t take an hour or any extended time. 

If you are unfamiliar with liturgy or structured daily worship this is an outstanding way to get into it. Unless you are from a pretty free-flowing Baptist/non-denom/mega-church background you will probably recognize parts (if not all) of these sections. If you are Anglican, you can see the clear influence of the BCP (which is probably the best book that exist for personal and family worship). 

I know some people don’t like the repetitive nature of some parts of guides like these, saying and can be rote or unfeeling, but really that is up to you. If you don’t take it seriously, or just mindlessly repeat things, then yes, the downside is that it can be meaningless. However, the upsides are a daily reminder of how to worship God, what He has done for us, what so much of the church today and most have always believed and recited, and of course – scripture reading. This is more important than every in church life, especially if you do this as a family/community and use it to help shape and guide children in their beliefs. This is true of any structured worship, but I think is even more important for this time of year, when we are pulled away in so many directions, with so many competing interesting. As I said above, if you are looking for personal/family devotion/worship, this is a must have. 

*I received a free copy of this book from Crossway, in exchange for an honest review.