Have you heard the ‘bridge keeper’ illustration? It’s supposed to help us understand the death of Jesus. It goes like this:
There once was a bridge keeper whose job was to raise and lower the central span of a railway bridge. The span was raised to allow boats to pass, and lowered to allow trains to cross. One day after a train had passed, the span was raised, and, as no more trains were expected, the bridge keeper happily watched his young son play among the gears of the bridge’s mechanism.
However, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that some carriages had broken away from the train and were careening back towards his bridge. He had to lower the span immediately or the carriages would plunge into the river and the passengers would drown. But he didn’t have time to get his son from down among the gears. It was a case of save all the passengers and kill his son, or save his son and let the passengers die.
He lowered the span, saving the passengers, but in so doing, his son was crushed in the gears: the one life was lost to save the many.
Preachers then tell us that this is what God has done for us, and proceed to call for spiritual commitment.
But there are problems with this illustration. In the story, the child is innocently unaware of the danger. Without consulting him and without trying to warn him, the father decides the son must die. It’s a moral dilemma of terrible proportions, and when likened to the death of Christ, it plays into the hands of those who claim Christ’s death is a case of ‘cosmic child abuse’.
However in the biblical account, we find that Christ is a willing participant: he offers himself to die (Heb 7:27). Indeed, it could be said that God, far from sending an unsuspecting son to die, sends himself to die.
In the case of the bridge keeper, we have a father who, faced with a moral dilemma, sacrifices his son to save the many. Morally, it’s a lose/lose situation. But in the Bible, we read about a God who, faced with the need of helpless people, sacrifices himself to save the many. It’s a big win for us. Furthermore, there’s no moral dilemma, just grace freely given.
