Book Review: The Carpenter's Journey by Sigmund Brouwer

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Vignettes help you see a familiar story in a fresh way

Cons: Twice out of print

The Bottom Line:

Novelist vignettes

Look at Easter with fresh eyes

Passion week reading

A Novelist Looks at Easter

Sigmund Brouwer has written many spellbinding novels. With The Carpenter's Journey, he turns his novelist's eye to Jesus' final week on earth. And the results are wonderful.

Instead of a novel, this book is a series of vignettes, each designed to focus on one moment of the Easter story. The first few set the stage by discussion Lazarus' resurrection and Mary anointing Jesus with perfume. With those two events set, we dive into the heart of the book with Palm Sunday. Over the rest of the 130 or so pages, we will watch Jesus confront the hypocracy and money changers in the temple, share one final meal with his closest friends, be betrayed, suffer multiple trials, be crucified, and ultimately rise again.

This is not designed to be a factual representation. In the introduction, Sigmund Brouwer admit he isn't a historian. He did do research, however. Honestly, I have not found anything that departs from the established Biblical text. Yes, there are some suppositions, but nothing heretical.

What is amazing is the fresh view this book can give you on the familiar story. True, there is little shocking here. But Sigmund is able to take the familiar elements and take some fresh applications from them.

Each vignette has a Bible verse over to the side of the first page. With the index breaking the book up by day, I find this book a wonderful devotional to use during Passion Week, and I have done that several times.

Sigmund's wife is Christian recording artist Cindy Morgan. While Sigmund was working on this book, she was working on The Loving Kind, a CD devoted to the same week. The lyrics to many of the songs from that CD are interspersed here. While I'm not a fan of that CD, reading the lyrics adds power to the book.

The book has been published under two names, The Carpenter's Cloth and The Carpenter's Journey. No matter which title you read, the heart of the book remains the same. The only difference is superficial. Cloth, the original version, was published with pictures taken from Renaissance looking art. And, by looking in the credits in the back, it's easy to see that many of these paintings really are from that time period. Journey, on the other hand, uses modern artists and paintings for the illustrations. Since that is the only change, there is little need to get both versions. Unfortunately, both versions are now out of print, so you'll have to track down which ever one you want.

Finally, many of Sigmund's loyal fans may find much of this book familiar. He managed to incorporate many of these vignettes into his novel The Weeping Chamber. While I highly recommend that book, I don't recommend reading them back to back since there is so much over lap.

If the Easter story has become familiar to you, find a copy of The Carpenter's Journey. It will touch your heart and help you see things with new eyes.