ON THE DAY HE DIED

The great designer, architect and innovator Buckminster Fuller once marveled at the workings of a tiny piece at the edge of the runner of a great steamship, like the Queen Mary, called the trimtab. "Just moving the little trimtab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all," he said. "The little individual can be a trimtab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that its left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go." Etched in stone at his grave site, it says, "CALL ME TRIMTAB -- BUCKY." (Nancy Gibbs, Time, Nov 22, 2010)

Think of Jesus on the day of his death; try to take your mind back to the culture, history, and nature of society in that day. By normal political standards crucifixion was not unusual and Jesus was seemingly unimportant. Roman crucifixions were rather common. The practice of crucifixion pre-dates the Romans. For example, Alexander the Great conquered Tyre, a seacoast town not far from northern Galilee and crucified 2,000 of its people. Among the Romans crucifixion was generally not used for Roman citizens, but was widely used for slaves and enemies of the state. After the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, 6,000 slaves were crucified by Crassus.

Jesus grew up in Nazareth of Galilee, a nothing town if there ever was one. But, about 3 1/2 miles north of Nazareth was the large city of Sepphoris, a hot-bed of opposition to Roman rule. After Herod the Great died in 4 BC, a messianic-type leader named Judah ben Hezekiah led a revolt out of Sepphoris which was eventually put down by Varus, the governor of Syria. He destroyed Sepphoris, killed or sold into slavery 30,000 of its inhabitants and marched 2,000 more to Jerusalem where he crucified them in a single day. We can safely assume that the road from Nazareth to Sepphoris was lined with crosses. At the time, Jesus would have been a very small child. But later, Joseph and Jesus probably found employment as carpenters in Sepphoris which was rebuilt by Herod Antipas and made the capital of Galilee.

On the day that Jesus died, what was one more crucifixion? In the big picture of the Roman empire, Jerusalem was a little, obscure, back-water town and this Jesus was so insignificant as a revolutionary that Pilate saw no reason to kill him. He was just one of three that day, and one of thousands over the years. Who, on that day, would have thought his death would make any difference in the long run of things? And yet we know it did. Like the trimtab that turns a mighty ship, Jesus' death on Calvary changed the world.

Apparently, one person on that day had an inkling that something unusually significant had happened. Mark tells us: "When the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw how he breathed his last, he said, "Truly, this man was the Son of God" (Mk 15:39). And so he was, and for this reason we come to the table now to remember the one who died on our behalf and changed our world.