Here’s a meditation from my book A Man Like No Other (3), found also in A Most Amazing Man (Year B). It reminds us that though Scripture is important, what counts most is the one who it points to: in this case, Jesus Christ.
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You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. John 5:39, 40
The meditation of John the Evangelist
He was right, you know,
about them searching the Scriptures,
no one doing that more diligently than the scribes.
It was their life’s work,
what set them apart,
almost every waking hour, it seemed, spent reading,
studying, dissecting, debating,
so that they knew the last jot and tittle of the Law,
the exact words of the prophets,
every detail of God’s holy word, inside out and back to front.
They, if anyone, should have recognised Jesus for who he was,
for so much in Scripture pointed to him:
‘A child has been born to us, a son given.’
‘From you, Bethlehem, one of the little towns of Judah,
will emerge a ruler of Israel,
whose roots go back to earliest times.’
‘Nations will be drawn to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.’
‘The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him,
of wisdom and understanding,
counsel and might,
knowledge and fear of the Lord’ –
all this, and so much more, fulfilled in him,
the bringer of life,
Word made flesh,
but they could not see for looking.
He was the one they sought,
yet could not find;
the one they longed for,
yet turned away,
not only rejecting him,
but nailing him to a cross.
And even there the truth was plain,
the Scriptures again fulfilled:
‘He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet his mouth remained closed.’
‘He was wounded for our iniquities,
broken for our sins;
his was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.’
They searched,
yet sought in vain,
for, important though it is,
it’s not finally in Scripture that the answer lies,
but in the man.
I wonder, can they see it now?