Every Easter prompts explorations of the holy day's theme of salvation through Christ across different mediums—poetry, prose, Bible studies, and personal devotionals for study, contemplation, and reflection. This year, scholars, pastors, podcasters, and even an NFL quarterback-turned-sportscaster all contemplate Easter's powerful lessons in new books for Lent, on February 18, and Easter Sunday, on April 5.

Former pro athlete and author Tim Tebow—always public with his passion for evangelism and missions—is now expressing his Christian witness with his debut book of poetry. If the Tree Could Speak: The Story of the Cross that Saw It All (Thomas Nelson Gift, Feb.), written with Wyatt Kenyon Edwards and illustrated by Rommel Ruiz, imagines how a tree, butchered to become a cross, experiences Jesus's tortured death. "Through my wooden arms, the world can see the depth of God’s love for all humanity," Tebow writes, from the tree's perspective. "So why should you trust or consider what I say? Because I was the closest thing to Jesus that day."

Another Easter-season poetry title, Dappled Beauty: Through Lent with Gerard Manley Hopkins (Paulist, out now), features the visionary verses of the English priest and poet. Author Carys Walsh has created a devotional that pairs reflections each day with poems by Hopkins that, the publisher says, "echo the spiritual themes of Lent: human frailty, the mystery of suffering, the presence of God in nature, and the journey toward redemption."

Questions posed by Easter

Devotional authors are often deeply personal in prompting readers to open themselves to God in the soul-searching weeks before Easter. For example, Sacred and Still (Tyndale Momentum, out now) by Kristin Demery, Kendra Roehl, and Julie Fisk—creators of the One Story Well Collective and authors of books on kindness, friendship, and gratitude—day by day unpacks "what Christ’s sacrifice ultimately means for us."

For Abingdon, publishing house for the United Methodist Church, the Rev. Adam Hamilton has two such titles. Why Did Jesus Have to Die? The Meaning of the Crucifixion (out now) details the history and meaning of Christ’s "demonstration of, and call to, selfless love, a message so often lost in our world today," says senior editor Maria Mayo. "Hamilton helps readers see the crucifixion as a message from God about himself and what it means to be human." His second book, The Holy Spirit: God’s Presence and Power at Work in Us (Apr.), explores the biblical depictions of the Holy Spirit and the first Pentecost story in the Book of Acts.

Ways to understand Christ's sacrifice are addressed in Pastor Derek Vreeland's book, Crucifixion: 8 Lessons on How God Saves Us (Nav Press, Feb.). Part of the publisher's God in the Neighborhood Bible Studies Series, it "revisits the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus in robust ways with real-life implications and applications," according to the publisher.

Companion pieces

Broadleaf acquiring editors point to two books they see as strong companions for Lent and Easter.

Valerie Weaver-Zercher calls out The Way of the Desert Elders: How the Wisdom of Ancient Christians Sustains Us Today (out now) by Lisa Colón DeLay who writes on spiritual formation. The editor says, "By getting to know the desert elders of in ancient times, Christian readers can learn a type of 'desert spirituality'—a way of living with God that is sturdy enough to get us through times of personal difficulty and widespread peril."

Shari MacDonald Strong says readers can discover a fresh sense of faith in Dangerous Songs: The Psalms and a Gloriously Disrupted Life (Apr.) by another expert in spiritual formation, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan. She says his book shows "the Psalms, which are filled with prophetic glimpses of Christ’s life, crucifixion, and resurrection, also portray the full range of human experience, including periods of thriving, desolation, and uncertainty."

British novelist and screenwriter Rhidian Brook takes a novel approach with a work of fiction that takes readers into Christ's passion breath by breath with Notes on an Execution: Lenten Reflections on the Last Days of Jesus (SPCK, out now). According to the publisher, Brook sets aside "the filters of politics, doctrine and long familiarity" to raise the question, "What might change if we met Jesus anew—just as his first followers did. "