The Bedrock Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge

When engineer Washington Roebling began constructing the Brooklyn Bridge in 1870, he knew everything depended on what no one would ever see — the foundation. Workers descended in massive pressurized caissons, digging through mud, sand, and gravel beneath the East River. The work was grueling and dangerous. Some men suffered from decompression sickness. Roebling himself was permanently disabled by the conditions. Yet he insisted the caissons must reach bedrock. Nothing less would hold.

On the Brooklyn side, workers hit solid rock at forty-four feet. On the Manhattan side, they dug to seventy-eight feet before Roebling finally accepted the compacted sand as sufficient. Every cable, every stone, every plank of that magnificent bridge rests on what those workers found — or failed to find — beneath the surface.

Paul told the Corinthians the same truth about their life together. "No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." Every ministry initiative, every act of service, every relationship within the church either rests on Christ or rests on sand. And Paul pressed further — "you yourselves are God's temple." The Holy Spirit doesn't merely visit the community of faith. He inhabits it.

Roebling understood that a bridge bearing thousands of lives demanded bedrock, not shortcuts. How much more should we, who are the dwelling place of the Living God, ensure that everything we build together rests on the only foundation that holds?