Jen’s mum went to be with her Lord and Saviour a few weeks ago. It was a tough time. We made it through the funeral, and afterward we took a week to recuperate in Merimbula. Merimbula is a coastal town just north of the New South Wales–Victoria border. It’s a beautiful place, one we’ve returned to many times over the years of our marriage. However this trip was marked by several firsts: our first time post-COVID, our first trip without the kids (since 1999, at least), and our first attempt at a working holiday—with computers packed alongside our swimming gear. It was also our first visit during whale season.
From September to the end of November, tens of thousands of humpbacks migrate past the Sapphire Coast on their journey from Queensland to Antarctica. Jen and I spent hours watching them—mothers and calves splashing near the headlands, and massive bulls breaching and tail-slapping out in the deep. At one point we were close enough to hear them breathing as they surfaced near the rocks.
We Are Like Whales to the Angels
There’s something numinous about whales—their immense size, their songs and leaps, their mysterious lives out in the depths and among the ice. We never tired of watching them, wondering about their ways, and rejoicing in their abundance.
On those same days we were watching whales we were also reading through 1 Peter, where the apostle speaks of how the prophets struggled to understand the shadowy revelations God was giving them.:
Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
We are the whales. We are the mystery. God the Son became a human mammal and remains one.
And then a further thought struck me: we are like whales to angels. It’s easy to think it’s the other way around. Angels, like whales, seem mysterious to us—arcane inhabitants of strange realms; majestic travellers of hidden paths beyond our understanding. But according to Peter, and from what we read in other places in the New Testament (Heb 2 and 1Cor 6:3, for example), we are the whales. We are the mystery. We are the groaning monsters summoned from the deep. We are the ones called to a great migration, spared from the hunter, and given a second chance. We are the species—despite our animal nature, despite our grotesque sinfulness—that Jesus Christ, the Son of God became.
In recent months, I’ve been reflecting on what it means to be human as I prepare for a seminar on the Incarnation in December. I like the idea that angels might watch us with wonder, waiting for us to break the surface and reveal what God is making us into.
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
The original version of this article was published on Andrew Moody’s website.
