Breathing Above the Deep

John 17:14–16; Genesis 1:21 (KJV)

You’re standing at the rail of a ship before sunrise. The sea is slate-grey, breathing in long slow swells. Then it happens—a column of mist erupts, a smooth back arcs, and a fluke lifts like a banner and slides beneath the surface. A whale has surfaced. It is perfectly at home in the ocean. It feeds there, travels there, sings there. But it cannot live there on the ocean’s terms. It must break the water’s skin and breathe the air that is not its own environment. If it stays below too long, it dies.

That, Jesus says, is what His people are like in the world:

“I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:14–16)

We live here—work here, raise children here, buy groceries here—but our life does not come from here. We are like whales in the ocean: surrounded by a world that cannot sustain our breath. We must surface—prayer, Scripture, worship—to draw in the life of God. And then, strengthened by that breath, we dive back into the depths on purpose.

That is the sermon in a sentence. But let’s let Scripture and even Hebrew’s ancient shapes deepen the picture.

The First Giants of Life - and a Clue in Hebrew

The King James Bible tells us:

“And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind…” (Genesis 1:21)

The Hebrew word translated “great whales” is תַּנִּינִם (tanninim), plural of תַּנִּין (tannīn). It’s a broad word: sea monsters, mighty sea-creatures, sometimes even “dragon” or “serpent.” Think: the largest living beings of the deep—not a biology label, but a Bible picture of bigness and mystery under God.

Now tuck that word in your pocket. We’ll come back to it. But note the timing: on Day Five, before humans ever step onto dry land, God crowns the waters with something massive and alive. The first majesty you’d meet at sea is not a ship; it’s a living thing, moving by the Maker’s breath.

And that leads to the image that carries us today: a creature that thrives in the deep only because it keeps taking in a life from above.

Surrounded but Not Sustained

A whale can dive for an hour or more. Some can descend a mile into the dark zone. Yet every descent is lived on borrowed air. Its body screams one truth: “You are surrounded by water, but you are not sustained by water.”

Christian, that’s you.

You are immersed in deadlines, devices, news cycles, bills, teammates, neighbors, expectations.
You are awash in values, slogans, hustles, and fears that sweep through our age like currents.
But you cannot breathe this. You can’t inhale the world’s loves and live. Your lungs—your soul—were fitted for something else.

Genesis 2:7 says, “The LORD God…breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Your life is from God’s breath and for God’s breath. Without surfacing to Him, you will slowly drown with a smile on your face.

Colossians 3:1–2 puts it plainly: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

A simple test of our week: Did I surface? Did I lift my heart to prayer, let Scripture oxygenate my thinking, and worship until my lungs were full again?

Not Escapists—Envoys

When Jesus prayed “keep them from the evil,” He did not ask the Father to helicopter us out. “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world…” (John 17:15). Whales aren’t meant to live in aquariums; they are meant to roam open oceans. And Christians aren’t called to monastic escape from all contact; we are sent into the world with a different breath and a different song.

“Ye are the light of the world,” Jesus says (Matt. 5:14). Daniel calls us to “shine as the brightness of the firmament” (Dan. 12:3). Paul urges us to be “blameless…in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15). The point is not to out-swim the darkness. The point is to out-breathe it—carry heaven’s air wherever God sends you.

Whales do something marvelous for the oceans: their movements lift nutrients, their very presence helps populate abundance at depth. Likewise, a Spirit-breathing Christian makes dead places livable: a kinder meeting, a braver decision, a truer word, a quiet integrity that lets others breathe.

When We Forget to Surface

So what happens if a whale “forgets” to surface? It doesn’t matter how sleek, strong, or swift it is. It dies.

What happens when a Christian neglects prayer, dismisses Scripture as optional, lets worship become background noise? We keep moving for a while—busy, productive, even applauded. But down in the quiet, we start gasping. The symptoms show: a bitter edge, a frantic hurry, an envy that keeps score, a secret habit we excuse, a spiritual dizziness that makes compromise look like wisdom.

Jeremiah 2:13 is God’s diagnosis: “They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Broken cisterns are impressive—carved, engineered, admired—but they cannot hold what your soul needs. Only the living God can.

The call isn’t “try harder underwater.” It’s “surface.” Lift your eyes. Open your Bible. Say His name. Ask for His Spirit. Stay till you can breathe again.

A Devotional Window in the Word Tannīn (תנין)

Now, take that Hebrew word back out of your pocket: תַּנִּין (tannīn). The ancient, pictographic script of Paleo-Hebrew—used shapes that carried everyday meanings. The pictures can offer a window into deeper meaning in Scripture.

Read right-to-left, tannīn is four letters:

Tav (ת) — a mark or sign; sometimes associated with a covenant sign, completion.

Nun (נ) — a seed or fish; life, continuance.

Yod (י) — a hand or arm; work, agency, power, possession.

Nun (ן) — again, life/continuance.

Tav–Nun–Yod–Nun hints at “the marked (covenant) life by the Hand that gives life—and keeps it going.” Or said another way: “Life sustained and continued by the covenant Hand.”

Isn’t that a beautiful picture? The “great whales” of Genesis 1:21—the mighty lives of the deep—exist, move, and continue by the Hand of the covenant-making God. They are not self-originating. They are held.

So even the letters, in their ancient dress, invite us to confess: Our life in the deep is covenant-sustained. We are marked people (Tav), held by a hand (Yod), granted life that continues (Nun…Nun). We do not live by the chemistry of our surroundings but by the faithfulness of our God.

A reverent way to underscore what Scripture already say: “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

"Not of This World” Does Not Mean “Against the World"

The phrase has grown bumper stickers, and those can miss the music. Jesus’ prayer doesn’t turn us into scowling contrarians. “Not of the world” does not mean “always angry at the world.” It means different breath—different loves, loyalties, and source of strength.

Because we breathe grace, we can move toward sinners without fear of contamination—exactly as Jesus did.
Because we breathe truth, we can tell it without cruelty, and hold it without panic.
Because we breathe hope, we can act with patience, even when the waters are cold and the night is long.

This is why the church’s first business is to breathe: Word read and preached, prayers offered, psalms and hymns sung, the Table received—these are not cultural niceties; they are oxygen. We surface together, week after week, and God sends us back into the depths to be human again in a dark age.

Practicing the Surface: A Simple Rhythm

How do you surface? Not by adding grand spiritual projects to a crowded life, but by threading breath into what you already do:

First breath: Before your phone, say the Lord’s Prayer slowly. Linger on “Our Father.” Let that be your first oxygen.
A Scripture breath: Keep one short passage in your pocket for the week (e.g., Psalm 23, Romans 8:1–4, John 17:15–17). Read it morning and night. Memorize a phrase.
A work breath: At transitions (parking lot before work, before a meeting, after a difficult call), whisper, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” or, “Teach me to do Thy will.”
An evening breath: Name mercies out loud. Ask forgiveness where you failed. Commit your loved ones into His hand. Sleep as one kept.

These surface-moments will not make headlines, but they will make you alive.

When the Depths Are Dark

Some depths are not just busy; they are brutal: grief, betrayal, illness, depression, catastrophe. You surface and it feels like the air is thin. Hear this: Christ is your surface. The gospel is not that God shouts directions from a distant shore, but that His Son entered the waters, bore our sin, drowned our death, and rose to breathe for us and with us forever.

Isaiah 40:31 promises, “They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.” The Hebrew there is vivid: “exchange their strength”—your empty lungs for His fullness, your failing strokes for His lift. He is not a lifeguard with a whistle; He is the One who gives you His breath.

A Final Look from the Rail

Come back to the rail with me. Another spout. Another arc. Another dive. There is a holy rhythm here: breathe and be sent; surface and serve; inhale and go. The whale is not afraid of the sea because it is made to swim and made to surface. As you should not be either.

So, Church:

Surface—today. Open John 17 and read it aloud. Let Jesus’ prayer wash you: “They are not of the world…keep them from the evil.”

Breathe—deeply. Pray till your shoulders drop and your heart unclenches.

Dive—on mission. Step into your work, your errands, your conversations as one who is oxygenated by heaven.

And when you find yourself short of breath—when sin has stolen your wind or sorrow has knocked it out of you—remember the Name that steadies the waters: Jesus. Call on Him. He will bring you to the surface again.

A Small Prayer on the Word Tannīn

Let the letters become a prayer:

Tav—Lord, mark me anew with Your covenant in Christ.

Nun—Give me life that truly lives.

Yod—Hold me by Your hand; work in me what I cannot do.

Nun—Carry that life forward—today, tomorrow, and until I see Your face.

“Life sustained and continued by the covenant Hand.” That is what even the whales proclaim (Ps. 148:7). That is what the church sings. That is why we can swim unafraid.

Because we are in the world.

But we are not of it.

And, by grace, we breathe and are sustained from above.

Amen.