Whispering the Lyrics

Based on texts from the Revised Common and Catholic lectionaries, Thomas Long provides inspirational messages to motivate and help preachers through their most difficult preaching time of the year, the seasons of Lent and Easter.

The road to Easter takes us through the most sacred stretch of the Gospel story, and the narratives simply overwhelm us ... Congregations who blithely assume that their pastor eagerly relishes the chance to preach the passion and resurrection of Jesus are, for the most part, mistaken. To be sure the pews are more crowded as Easter approaches, the choirs are well-rehearsed and in full voice, and an electric charge courses through the sanctuary, but the preacher stands there with the obligation to proclaim the truths of Jesus' death and resurrection, and it seems, at one and the same time, to be a set of claims too little to go on in a secular and cynical age and a range of mysteries too profound to speak. (from author's foreword)

Thomas Long is Francis Landey Patton Professor of Preaching and Worship at Princeton Theological Seminary and is one of the most well-known teachers of preachers in America. This is his second book published by CSS.