The Climax in the Middle

Today's Scripture

Luke 24:25-27 — "And he said to them, 'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."

John 5:39-40 — "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."

Hebrews 1:1-2 — "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world."

The Big Idea

In most stories, the climax comes near the end. The Bible does something stranger: its climax stands in the middle of history. Jesus is not an epilogue stapled onto Israel's story, and the Old Testament is not a long introduction you can skip. Every earlier scene leans toward him; every later scene flows from him. Lose that, and the Bible falls into pieces. See it, and the whole book catches fire.

Reflection

The puzzle piece that makes the picture

Think about the moment in a great mystery novel when the detective names the culprit. Suddenly forty scattered details — the locked window, the odd alibi, the missing glove — snap into one picture. You almost want to reread the book on the spot, because now every page means more than it did.

The Gospels say the Bible has a moment like that, and it happened on a road. Two heartbroken disciples are walking to Emmaus on Easter afternoon, and a stranger falls in step. Luke 24:25-27 — "'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."

Necessary. The cross was not the story going wrong; it was the story arriving. Sally Lloyd-Jones wrote a children's Bible around this single insight, and her sentence deserves its fame among adults:

"Every story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle — the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture." — Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible

A whisper, notice — not always a shout. Some pages name him almost out loud; others only lean his direction. But pull the Jesus piece out of the box, and the Bible becomes what it is for many readers: a thousand pieces of sky.

And consider where this climax sits. We expect climaxes at the end of stories; the Bible plants its climax in the middle of history — two thousand years ago, with two thousand years (and counting) flowing out of it. That placement is the whole architecture of Scripture. Everything before the Gospels is ascent: promise, pattern, prophecy, all leaning forward. Everything after is descent from the summit: apostles explaining what happened, churches living from it, Revelation showing where it lands. The Old Testament says he is coming. The Epistles say he has come, and it changes everything. The mountain peak stands in the middle, and both slopes belong to it.

You can know the Bible and miss its point

Here is the warning that keeps today honest. The people who knew the Scriptures best in the first century stood face to face with their fulfillment and refused him. John 5:39-40 — "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."

Let that land. These were not lazy readers. They memorized, debated, and obeyed — and missed the person the book was about. Bible knowledge, on its own, saves no one; the Bible is a signpost, and you can polish a signpost forever without ever traveling to the city it names. It is the difference between studying someone's text messages and actually answering the door when they knock. The Scriptures, Jesus says, "bear witness about me" — a witness points past itself, under oath, at a person. John Calvin, commenting on this exact verse, turned it into a rule for every reader since:

"We ought to read the Scriptures with the express design of finding Christ in them. Whoever shall turn aside from this object, though he may weary himself throughout his whole life in learning, will never attain the knowledge of the truth." — John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel of John

"Express design" — read on purpose to find him. This is not a trick that makes every verse secretly say "Jesus" if you squint. It is simpler: ask of any passage, what does this page contribute to the story that leads to him? The law shows the holiness he would fulfill and the debt he would pay. The temple rehearses the meeting of God and man that he embodies. The kings sit on a throne shaped like him, and their failures make the ache for him sharper.

Hebrews 1:1-3 stacks the claim as high as it will go: God spoke "at many times and in many ways" through prophets — fragments, glimpses, installments — "but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son... He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature." The prophets carried words from God. The Son is the Word — the radiance, the exact imprint. The Old Testament is God speaking in installments; Jesus is God speaking in person.

Myth became fact

C.S. Lewis came at this from an unusual angle: he was a professor of literature who loved the old pagan myths — dying and rising gods, corn kings, heroes who descend into death for their people. For years those stories kept him from Christianity; it looked like one more myth. Then he saw what was different:

"The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history." — C.S. Lewis, "Myth Became Fact"

All the stories humanity has ever told about a hero who dies so the world can live — at one point in time, in one province of the Roman Empire, the longing behind them came true. With a date. Under a Roman governor whose name we know. Paul insists on exactly this concreteness: 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 — "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." Twice: in accordance with the Scriptures. History's hinge event, and it matched a script written centuries in advance.

Tim Keller presses the consequence on every modern reader:

"If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead." — Tim Keller, The Reason for God

Keller's point cuts both ways, and it is strangely comforting. If the resurrection happened, then your faith does not finally rest on your mood, your discipline, or how this week is going. It rests on a tomb that was empty before you were born and will still be empty on your worst day. The climax of the story is not an idea to admire but an event to reckon with. And once you reckon with it, it becomes the light you read everything else by. Lewis again:

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." — C.S. Lewis, "Is Theology Poetry?"

By that sunrise you see the Bible whole — and your own life, too.

"It is finished" — and everything flows from it

At the cross, the climax announces itself in one word. John 19:30 — "When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, 'It is finished,' and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." In Greek it is a single word — tetelestai — a term used for completed work and settled debts: paid in full. Not "I am finished," but "it is finished": the rescue promised in the garden, aimed through Abraham and David, sung by the prophets — accomplished.

This is the gospel at the center of the Bible's center: the climax is something done for you, not something assigned to you. Every religion of self-rescue says "do." This story says "done" — and then invites you to live from it. Colossians 1:16-17 stretches the same Christ across the whole canvas: "all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." The one who holds the storyline together holds the galaxies together — and holds you.

"The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God." — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

That is the exchange at the climax: he takes the bruised heel, we take the family name. And then — back on Easter evening — the risen Jesus does for the gathered disciples what he did on the road: Luke 24:44-47 — "everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." Note the order: he opens the Scriptures, and he opens minds. Both are his gifts. Ask him for the second one every time you open the first.

Going Deeper

Try the Emmaus question on one familiar Old Testament story today — David and Goliath, the Passover, Joseph forgiving his brothers. Read it (or recall it), then ask: "How does this scene lean toward Jesus — the true champion, the true lamb, the true forgiving brother?" Write two or three sentences. If you get stuck, that is fine; carry the question to Day 5, where the Bible's echoes get a name.