One Grand Story May 4, 2015
The Rainbow Bridge,which spans the Niagara River a short distancebelow the famous Falls, began its existence literally as the string of a kite.In 1847 the State of New York and the nationof Canadaagreed on a joint effort to erect a bridge downriver from the Falls. Theirfirst challenge was to establish a link from one bank to the other; but thewidth of the river, the height of the bluffs, and the speed of the water madeit impossible to do anything from inside the gorge. So those building thebridge devised a plan. They offered a $5 prize to the first person who couldfly a kite across the river and set it down on the other side of the gorge,linking the two sides with a string. Once that was accomplished, the bridge’s buildersused the kite string to pull thicker strings, then ropes, then cables, andeventually steel girders across the gorge. Over the years, one bridge replacedanother until the Rainbow Bridge of today wasopened in 1941.
The morethe bridge changed, the more it became what it was always meant to be.
The samething happens within the pages of the Bible. Although the Bible is nearly halfcomposed of narratives, it is a serious mistake to think of it as a book fullof unconnected moralistic stories, like an inspired version of Aesop’s Fables.Rather, the Bible tells one grand story—the story of redemption, where our holyand loving God rescues His fallen creation from His own wrath by the sacrificeof His Son. It’s a love story. It’s a heroic drama. It’s a mystery. It’s athriller. And it’s more.
The gospelstory as it appears in Genesis is, you might say, just the mere string of akite. As you read further in the Scriptures, the string gives way to cables,cables become girders, and more and more of the “gospel bridge” takes shapeuntil it reaches its full form in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The morethe story changes, the more we see what it was always meant to be.
So learnto look for Jesus in every text of the Bible. After all, the story is mostlyabout Him, not about you!