From the Abyss

Living in Michigan we get used to being surrounded by big water.  I grew up near Lake St Claire and never understood why it wasn't one of them, until I looked at a map.  For as big as it is, it is no where near the size of the five.  The biggest of the bigs is Lake Superior.  All by itself it is about the size of South Carolina and at one point it is 1200 feet deep.  The cold deep waters are home to whitefish and shipwrecks.  And while Lake Superior is deep, it is no where close to the record.

The deepest lake in the world is Lake Baikal in Russia.  It is over 5,000 feet deep and it is the largest lake by volume in the world.  But even Baikal is a mere puddle compared to the oceans.  When we talk about the depth of the ocean we like to focus on the Mariana Trench and its 36,000 feet of depth, but I like to think of the ocean floor.  The ocean floor is made of vast, sediment covered planes that are 2-3 miles down.  They call this feature the abyssal plane.  

The abyssal plane covers 50% of the Earth's surface and is home to all manner of strange creatures.  These creatures exist without light, under near freezing temperatures and pressures 200 times greater than on the surface.

So this is our abyss.  Deep.  Cold.  Devoid of Light.  

Jesus told His disciples that they were to become fishers of men.  They would be pulling people out of the deep.  They would retrieving the lost and bringing them to the surface.  Now I know that when the Bible refers to the abyss, the writers are referring to Hell and not the ocean.  But pulling a drowning person from the cold dark of the ocean may be as good of an analogy as we can muster in our limited experiences.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

Jesus brought a message of hope.  He told the disciples that they would be pulling people out of the depths and back from the brink.  As Christians we can let this same hope shine through us to provide light to those in deep.