I don’t know if you have ever read about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. I am a construction nerd so have spent many hours reading about this unbelievable structure. The most amazing thing is that this bridge was designed in the mid-eighteen-hundreds and completed in 1883 long before the time of commuter cars yet it stands strong 135 years later. Did you know that over 125,000 cars a day cross this venerable structure? How could something built so long ago still be able to endure? Well before I answer that I must give you a little history.
The idea of a suspension bridge spanning New York’s East River was the brain child of a man by the name of John Augustus Roebling around the year 1852. Roebling had already built lesser bridges of this design in various locations including Cincinnati and across the Niagara River Gorge. But none of them would match the challenges of the bridge proposed for New York. This one would be longer and with a greater span between the towers. It took years to convince both the communities of New York and Brooklyn that it was even feasible.
But by 1867 the funds were in place and soon the surveying for a sound location began. It was during the final stages of this that tragedy struck. John Roebling along with his son Washington were laying out the last markers when John’s foot slipped and was crushed between a sea wall and a ferry boat. Tetanus was the result and he died in 1869. This left the project to be headed by Washington. And though the backers were skeptical construction began in the same year.
There are hundreds of feats of engineering I could regale you with but for this short blog I am going to focus on the foundations of the towers. Remember that we are in the year 1869, there are no safe methods known to dig a foundation below a river deep into its river bed except a concept rarely used called a caisson. What this was in that early time was a huge wooden structure like a room without a floor. All along the edge of each wall was an iron cutting boot. A shaft was attached to the roof so men could enter in and out and another to allow a steam tugger to bring out the dirt which would be dug out by hand.
Literally hundreds of men would spend month upon month digging into the riverbed with pick and shovel as the weight of the tower that was being built at the same time forced the caisson to sink slowly into the soggy earth. They encountered so many problems. Huge boulders that needed to be blasted away inside the caisson. Air locks that didn’t function as built. But the most mysterious and deadly was an illness called the “caisson disease”. Many men were crippled for life including Washington Roebling and others died from what we know now as the ‘bends’. What they didn’t understand then was that men coming out from the pressurized caisson too quickly had gas bubbles that formed in the blood leading to a myriad of problems.
Yet through all or in spite of it eventually both tower caissons came to rest on bed rock. These men had done the impossible but because of their work and the amazing engineering of both John and Washington Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge will stand for as long as man cares to use it. The thing was both men knew what we all should, “Start with a solid foundation and you are guaranteed success.”
Jesus spoke of this very same idea at the end of the sermon on the mount, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like the wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the wind blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them to practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the wind blew and beat on his house and it fell and great was the crash.” (Matthew 7: 24-27) If we build our lives on Jesus, then He is our rock, He is our foundation. We will stand strong and nothing can bring us down.
I love the analogy of Jesus as our rock. I spent most of my working life as a concrete reinforcing Ironworker and worked on many foundations, some so massive they were 20’ thick! But one thing is for sure large structure or small, all were supported on bedrock one way or the other. That is what was missing in my life before I accepted Jesus. Today I know His words and base all I am on them.
Maybe now when you need to find an image of Jesus you can hang on to, the solidness of the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge will come to mind. And if I have peaked your interest in the saga of its construction try reading “The Great Bridge” by David McCullough, it is a fascinating read. Or at least it is to a construction nerd like me.
Blessings John
5/21/18
