The Waters Genesis 1:1-5, 9-11 Revelation 21:1-6

As a child I went with my family each summer to what was then called Ocean Drive, SC
The way things have grown together down there in the last forty years
now it’s just called North Myrtle Beach.
We rented a little cottage there from old Mr. McMillan
who had wife, Mrs. McMillan, and a little dachshund named Buttons.
I loved playing in the surf and I resented my mother’s need to keep a watchful eye.
I imagined the waves to be my own personal roller coaster ride
and saw no reason to have to stay in close or not drift too far away.
You know what happened.
At some point I caught the crest of a wave that was larger than usual
and instead of lifting me high it grabbed me and slammed me hard against the sand
then sat on me, holding me under until my lungs nearly burst.
I had no frame of reference for what was happening to me
and all I could think of was how mad my mother was going to be if I drowned.
Just when I thought I couldn’t hold my breath any longer the pressure lifted.
I pushed up to the surface and was surprised to find myself
in only about a foot of water.
I looked up and found my mother, still calmly reading in her lounge chair.
She raised her head to see me looking at her. She waved. I waved back.
I don’t THINK my mother ever knew how close I’d come
to being one more victim claimed by the mighty force of the sea.
I certainly never told her!
But I knew. In that secret place, I knew.
and after all these years I’ve not forgotten.

Throughout recorded history, human beings have been drawn to the sea.
The Jews of early Palestine knew the power of the sea and, like most cultures,
created a rich lore of sea monsters and dark forces
to express what they perceived to be the mystery and power of the sea.
To the Jews, the sea represented chaos,
all the dark, swirling forces over which they had no control.
So it’s hardly a surprise that the in one of the first acts of creation in the book of Genesis
they have God push back the sea and put it in it’s place
so that dry land appears and human beings can walk instead of swim.

The sea is not much less of a mystery to us than it was to the author of Genesis.
Oceanography as a science is over 100 years old,
but, according to Bill Bryson in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything,
we have better maps of the planet Mars than of our own sea floor.
Jacques Cousteau popularized sea exploration in the sixties
inventing ever more sophisticated diving equipment
and sailing the ocean in his boat, Calypso
making documentaries and introducing the world to porpoises, whales and sharks.
But even Jacques Cousteau only scratched the surface.
Some estimate that there could be as many as 30 million species of animals
living in the sea, most as yet undiscovered.
And if we needed any more reason to respect the power of the sea
we’ve had ample evidence in recent years with the Tsunami of 2004
that sent the Indian Ocean barreling over a large part the coast of Southeast Asia
and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that brought the Gulf of Mexico
pouring into the living rooms of New Orleans.

Even without earthquakes or hurricanes to stoke its engine
the sea is relentless in it’s efforts to reclaim lost territory.
The Cape Hatteras lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina
was 1600 feet from the shoreline when it was completed in 1870
In less than fifty years the water had crept to within 300 feet.
Herculean efforts were engaged to hold back the sea
but in 1996 the water was lapping only 130 feet away.
In 1999 the tower was finally relocated 2,900 feet back from the ocean
just before Hurricane Dennis stalled over the area.
Many believe that a Dennis-fueled ocean
would have undermined and toppled the lighthouse had it not been moved.

The paradox of water is that life cannot exist without it,
but water can also extinguish our life in an instant.
The biblical writers are fascinated by the metaphor of water,
as in our text this morning likening it to the source of God’s gift of life.
But they also use it to symbolize the destructive forces in our world
that can overwhelm our life.
The author of Psalm 42 compares himself and his spiritual longings
to a deer thirsting for streams of water,
but in a few short verses he then admits to feeling dreadfully overwhelmed
by the very thing for which he thirsts,
saying to God, “All your waves and your billows have gone over me.”
In the story of Jonah, a violent sea threatens to drown the reluctant prophet
until he is saved at God’s direction by a creature of the deep.
The gospel writers tell of the disciples who fear being capsized by a storm on the lake
until Jesus stands and asserts his divine power over the chaos of the storm.

The book of Genesis only records the beginning of God’s creation.
In Revelation John tries to describe what it will be like
when God finishes what God started.
The vision of the book of Revelation came to John, the seer,
who tried within the confines of human language
to describe the majesty and the beauty and the power of God’s final accomplishment.
Again John turns to the metaphor of water.

John writes, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and the sea was no more.”
In the beginning God is described as only having pushed back the forces of chaos,
penning them up within proscribed limits.
But chaos, like the sea, constantly pushes those limits,
breaking free every now and then to wreak havoc.
Chaos, like the sea, laps relentlessly at the edges of our consciousness
threatening to overwhelm us,
pounding like the surf at the fringes of our comfort zone.
No matter how many protective trenches we dig or sandbags we stack,
chaos has a way of seeping through;
seeping through as an unexpected medical diagnosis,
or a surprise betrayal,
or a sudden cataclysmic financial reversal.
It pummels into submission our tower of strength.
It undermines our foundation of untested faith.
It chips away at our optimism leaving us vulnerable to doubt and cynicism
and a bubbling, diffuse sort of anger at the world and at God.

God is more powerful than the chaos,
but for reasons known only to God did not eliminate chaos from the very beginning.
John’s vision is that in God’s own time chaos, represented by the sea,
will finally be no more.
God will finish the job.
At that time, as the vision goes,
God’s presence will not just be assumed, but it will be palpable;
a CONSTANT presence erasing all doubt.
At that time, as the vision goes,
there will be no more death or the grief that goes with it;
no more pain to wrack body and soul.
no more enslavement to illness or addiction or despair.
In fact, in John’s vision,
when God puts the finishing touches on God’s creation
there will be no more tears at all.

The whole purpose of John’s vision becomes clear to us
when we remember who his first audience was.
John’s first audience, the ones with whom he first shared his vision,
were Christians undergoing persecution by Rome.
Theirs was a cruel and chaotic time.
John wanted to remind them that God’s kingdom had already begun
and that even though it may seem terribly slow in coming
God’s reign would one day be fully evident.
In other words, chaos never has had and never will have the final word.

That’s important for us to remember as we live out our Easter faith.
Contrary to all appearances, chaos does not have the last word.
This means that no matter bad it gets we are not to despair.
No matter how painful the present, the future is not in doubt.

So when a gunman randomly kills thirty-two beautiful people he doesn’t even know
and a democratically elected government seems incapable of finding a path to peace
and over sixteen percent of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty
fighting for daily survival
while the Burj Al-Arab hotel in Dubai sports an indoor ski slope
we do not collapse from the absurdity of it all.
And when a friend dies of cancer
or a pension plan evaporates overnight
or a partner leaves us for someone else
we do not succumb to the chaos.
Instead, we join God and each other, doing all we can to keep the chaos at bay,
knowing that, though the time will come for no more tears, that time is not yet.

When I got crushed to the sand by a mighty wave at Myrtle Beach,
it caught me off guard. For a minute it made me want to run out of the water.
But then I looked up and I saw that there was someone watching over me.
so I turned and went back in, ready to ride the next wave.


i. Bryson, Bill, A Short History of Nearly Everything, New York: Broadway Books,
2003. p. 278.
ii. Ibid., p. 282.
iii. http://www.rickslighthouses.com/cape_hatteras.htm
iv. Sachs, Jeffrey D., The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time.
New York: Penguin Books, 2005.