The newly elected Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts and former rector of New York's St. James Church has transformed some sermons preached between 1969 and 1975 into a book of mini-chapters loosely clustered about the theme of Christ's mysterious presence in us. Seabury's picked it as its Lenten Book of 1976, and its selection may be doubly apt: clearly the life-death-and-resurrection theme fits the season, but so may the penitential suffering of having to read such tiresome preaching, relieved only by an Easter uplift of interesting material at the end. Part I, ""In life,"" takes aspects of common human experience or a notable book, movie, etc. and wrests from each a predictably platitudinous moral. Part II, ""In death,"" presents a contrived interior drama in seven acts about the encounter of a modern businessman with the crucified Christ. The relief comes in Part III, ""In resurrection,"" which suggestively probes the ways in which the spirit can meaningfully be said to survive death; here alone Coburn seems to be expressing fresh personal discoveries. But the bulk is uninspired moralizing by a clerical Robert Young.