Imagine that The Lord of the Rings ended with Frodo Baggins standing in the magma-lit cavern in Mount Doom and saying, “I have come, but I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!” and then putting the ring on his finger. No final struggle with Gollum, no destruction of the Ring, no defeat of Sauron, no Fourth Age of Middle Earth. Frodo succumbs to his greatest temptation and fails in his quest. The End. Or imagine The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (the first book published in The Chronicles of Narnia) ending abruptly with Aslan dead on the stone table. No “deeper magic from before the dawn of time” bringing him back to life, no “further up and further in” after The Last Battle is won. No happy endings.

The Good Friday liturgy at my church is like no other worship service during the year. There was no celebration last night, no sermon, no benediction. We heard from the Scriptures the story of Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, death, and interment; and sang somber hymns about death, such as “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” Jesus, the King of Glory, was abandoned by his friends, unjustly condemned to death, beaten, mocked, nailed naked to a cross, and then he died. No twelve legions of angels coming to the rescue, no Jesus jumping off the cross with a sword and destroying his enemies, Roman and religious. This dark day ended with Jesus’ limp body being wrapped in cloths and hastily placed in a tomb. Our Good Friday commemoration ended with the snuffing of the final of seven candles and a thud—the sound of the stone rolling over the tomb entrance. Then silence.

Quietly walking to the parking lot afterword, I thought of Aslan dead on the stone table, and of Frodo saying “Mine.” How different these stories would be if we turned the page and read the words, “THE END.” There are novels and movies, of course, that end in darkness, perhaps to illustrate the meaninglessness or futility of life. Gregor is still a diseased, cockroach-like insect at the end of The Metamorphosis. Things don’t suddenly get better at the end of dystopian works like 1984 or Brave New World. “Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity,” wrote the author of Ecclesiastes three millennia ago. In some views of life, reality does not have happy endings.

For the followers of Jesus almost two thousand Good Fridays ago, it looked like the tomb of Jesus was the end of the story. Jesus was lying cold in a dark tomb. In their thinking, the story was over. The next line in the story of Jesus could only say, “THE END.” We hear confusion and dejection in their words. “Jesus of Nazareth,” they said, was “a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. Our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” They were without Jesus, and without hope in the world.

If Good Friday were the end of the story—and for Jesus’ disciples, it seemed to be—there wouldn’t be much of a Christian message. The words of a dead Jesus might still move some people, but it is more likely that we would have no memory of this man named Jesus of Nazareth. But the story didn’t end with a body rotting in a tomb. On the third day, the tomb that had contained a lifeless corpse—the story of all humanity—was supernaturally opened. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” the angels asked a group of women. “He is not here, but has risen.” Jesus soon appeared to this group of women (in itself evidence of the veracity of the resurrection story), then to his closest followers, then to larger groups of people. Their lives were utterly transformed by this event, they soon went from hiding in fear to boldly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus in public. If Jesus rose from the dead—and I am convinced that he did—the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the central event of human history. This was not the end of the story of Jesus, but a new beginning.

What about your story? The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are not only the central events in human history, they are also the central facts facing you right now. The overarching message of the Bible has been summarized as a four-part story: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glory. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are the key to the “Redemption” part of biblical history, the means by which sinful, rebellious, broken humans can be restored to a relationship with God. The crucifixion was not the end of Jesus’ story, and your death some day need not be the end of your story. Read “God’s Global Plan of Salvation” to learn about how you can share in the resurrection of Jesus.

Grace and Peace,

Kevin Nelstead, GeoChristian.com