I could write in detail about the panel discussion of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” but what struck me more was a folktale that kept running through my head as I thought about the movie and the impact it is having upon society. One speaker did say something that I think can’t be emphasized enough. He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that if one act of anti-Semitism—if one synagogue is burned because of this movie, then it should never have been made. The story of gospels is not one of murder and vengeance, but of love and compassion and caring for those who can not care for themselves. If that message is missed, then the point of the whole story has been ignored.

But to the story that kept running through my mind….

When Jesus was condemned, the Roman guards went through Jerusalem looking for four nails that would be used to nail Jesus to the cross. They went from blacksmith to blacksmith, but none would sell them the spikes that would nail Jesus to the cross and put an innocent man to death.

Finally the guards came upon a traveling blacksmith and commissioned the spikes from him. He had made three of the four nails before some of the other blacksmiths found him, and told him why they had refused to make the nails for the Roman soldiers.

“I’m not from around here,” the blacksmith replied. “Your politics are not my politics. Why should I care?”
“You should care,” the others told him, “because he is an innocent man who has been condemned to death.”
“I was paid good money to make these nails,” the blacksmith said, “so I am going to make them.” And with that the other blacksmiths left him to his work.

But something strange happened with the fourth nail. It shaped correctly, but when he dropped it in the bucket of brine, it would not cool, and remained red hot. The nail was still hot when the soliders came to pick up the nails. The blacksmith showed them the fourth nail that would not cool, and the soldiers agreed that he had tried his best, and left with the three nails, and so that is why Jesus was crucified with only three nails.

But it doesn’t end there. The next day the nail was still red hot, and it seemed to glare at him as he tried to do his work, so later that night he took the nail out and threw it into the sea. Thinking that was the end of it, the blacksmith returned to his wagon and went to sleep. Yet the next morning the nail was back, still glowing as red as when it had been pulled from the forge.

A farmer came by, and asked for a nail his wagon wheel, and the blacksmith used the red hot nail for the repair. As the blacksmith stood and watched the wagon roll away, he could still see the nail glowing red. He thought that was the end of it, until several days later he woke only to find the nail had returned.

Later that day a Roman solder came, requesting a repair to his chariot. The black smith used the glowing nail, and then as soon as the chariot was out of sight, the blacksmith packed up everything he owned and left.

That blacksmith was the founder of the gypsies, and fear of the damnéd nail keeps them moving from place to place, and is why no gypsy will ever settle down.

Whether this tale was used as grounds for persecution of the guysies I can not say, but the gypsies have been persecuted throughout history, and a tale like this could easily have been used to justify such persecution.

And that’s why I think that it was wrong to create the story that was created, and to present that story as factual history.

Stories have power.