The Day After His Crucifixion

The Day After His Crucifixion
Merikay McLeod
Independently Published
9781662955518, $12.99 Paperback/$3.99 eBook

(https://midwestbookreview.com/calbw/mar_25.htm)

The Day After His Crucifixion personalizes the murder of Yeshua in a manner few fictional coverages can match, offering the first-person perspective of a follower who awakens to the unthinkable — his execution:

“That truth slashes like shattered glass shards. The man who saved my life. Our Promised One. Gone. And here I am, breathing. How can this be? It’s not right. On my knees, sobbing, I roll up my sleeping mat and its covers, and stash them in the corner. He gave us purpose. He taught us everything. He revealed God as our loving Father. And they’ve killed him. His healing hands pounded to pulp. His feet viciously impaled. Our strong and gentle master savagely murdered!”

There are questions about political impact and ramifications of Yeshua’s death and the permeation of hate and cruelty in Gentile Roman society.

The story’s atmosphere and emotionally charged “you are here” feel places readers in a thought-provoking milieu with a world-altering event that impacts humanity from that day onward. As this perspective and ensuing events unfold, Merikay McLeod creates a powerful female-centric focus that is as avid and faithful as Yeshua’s disciples.

This is a collection of women’s experiences, perceptions, and lives that serves not as a religious study, but as a reflection on women’s issues and faith.

Deliberate choices have been made in the tailoring of these experiences, from the choice of the native name Yeshua (versus the English name ‘Jesus’) to how various women perceived and aligned with the Son of God. Biblical passages influenced and sparked these stories, giving Christian readers a foundation of faith-based considerations that pepper each story and bring it to life.

The concluding Author’s Notes reference particular Biblical passages which influenced each story’s creation. This gives Bible study groups fine access to background and supporting material. Discussion groups will thus find it easy to make important connections between Biblical representation and creative writing.

Of equal strength, and lending to discussions, is the ‘Questions for Deeper Study’ section which encourages readers to consider how and why the different events are impacted by their being narrated from a woman’s viewpoint. Stories unified by Yeshua’s crucifixion thus serve as a powerful testimony to how women’s lives were impacted and their choices and perceptions altered by their convictions and the social, spiritual, and political atmosphere of their times.

The short stories comprising The Day After His Crucifixion are especially recommended for Christian libraries, reading groups, and women’s literature study programs. It provides an unparalleled view of the times as seen through the disparate eyes of narrators whose lives and mindsets are forever changed by these events.

It’s not all about despair and oppression. Perhaps this collection’s greatest strength lies in how faith emerges like a phoenix from disaster to rejuvenate and heal — a powerful message of hope for modern times and women, as well: Yes, His love fills me and His peace calms me. And I realize that our understanding of his mission was far too small. Far too limited. Far too weak. Yeshua has more than overcome Rome. He has overcome death, that powerful presence of evil’s reign. He has opened the door to this whole wide suffering world and ushered in the love-saturated, life-filled Kingdom of God. The magnitude of who He is and what He has done stuns me. I have never before felt so hopeful about the future.

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Additionally, this review will be archived on our Midwest Book Review website for the next five years at http://www.midwestbookreview.com

James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI, 53575, USA

March 2025