A Second Shot of Coffee With JesusA Second Shot of Coffee With Jesus has the same spiritual caffeine-jolt as its predecessor, and the 'shots' are just as pointed and well-directed as ever.

A Second Shot of Coffee With Jesus
David Wilkie
128 pages, soft cover
IVP Books
ISBN-10: 0830836934
ISBN-13: 978-0830836932

coffeestrip 1 510What David Wilkie does in A Second Shot of Coffee With Jesus is nothing short of amazing. Using a bare minimum of repeated clip art-like images and combining them with dialog, he creates comic strips that are insightful, sometimes caustic, revelatory, theological, and – oh, yeah – laugh out loud funny. And, if you're reading it correctly, you're usually laughing at yourself.

Of course, as the title implies, this is the follow-up to his first volume, the equally amazing Coffee With Jesus. The question in my mind was, 'can he do it again?' I mean, the well has to run dry when you're using such a limited palette, right? Wrong. A Second Shot of Coffee With Jesus has the same spiritual caffeine-jolt as its predecessor, and the 'shots' are just as pointed and well-directed as ever.

coffeestrip 5 510Once again, our cast of characters covers the gamut of 'regular folks' that we all know (and that we all are, from time to time). Carl, Lisa, Ann, Kevin and Joe are all back (Kevin has gone agnostic/atheist this go-round, but that doesn't stop him from selling his services to churches that need promotional help to bolster up their bottom line), accurately reflecting the hopes, fears, arrogance, presumptuousness, self-righteousness, pride, arrogance and all of the more subtle frailties that we find in ourselves. Of course, Satan is also a recurring character, coffee mug in hand, challenging the "boy king," as he likes to call Jesus, doing his job as the accuser of the brethren and the challenger of the real winner of the game of thrones.

coffeestrip 4 510The preceding sounds like heavy stuff, but it's delivered in concise four-panel doses that bring you from the opening salvo to the finishing one-two punch in an economical and fulfilling read. Wilkie somehow manages to reveal a Jesus that's more than willing to sit down and have a chat – a savior that has so identified with humanity that His table-mates are able to let down their guard and just tell Him what's really on their minds ....and isn't that the point? Wilkie's depiction of Jesus manages to retain a respectful stance for the Divinity of our Lord while revealing His desire for intimacy and relationship with us, his fallen children (He's not our 'home-boy' but we're His kids).

coffeestrip 3 510You can read a few pages a day and let them sink in, but I'll bet you'll be compelled to get in as much of A Second Shot of Coffee With Jesus as you can at each sitting. You'll laugh, you'll think, hey – you might even repent! And I think you might even want Jesus to be your friend.

I can't think of a better bottom-line than the one I wrote in my review of the first volume:
This is just plain cool stuff and I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Bert Saraco