The Depths of the Sea
Micah 7:19 · Isaiah 43:25 (NIV)
Researchers at Stanford University watched something they did not expect.
Corals get much of their color and food from tiny algae that live inside them. When the water gets too hot, corals can lose those algae and turn white. That is called bleaching.
In a lab at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in California, the team placed bleached corals against healthy corals that were genetically identical to them. The tissues of the paired coral fragments fused. The healthy coral passed its algae across to the bleached one. About a week of contact, and in some cases five days, was enough to set recovery in motion even after the fragments were separated. Color began to return within days, and full recovery took about seven weeks. KQED, the public broadcaster in San Francisco, reported it as the fastest documented recovery so far.
Danny Collins, a Ph.D. student at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and the study's lead author, called the result "shocking, stunning." He said the team watched "the healthy coral restore the color of the bleached corals essentially right before our eyes." Collins noted that corals in the wild have recovered from bleaching before, but it can take years, and many never fully recover. Steve Palumbi, a Stanford marine sciences professor, worked on the study with him.
The work was done with aquarium corals, and it has not yet been shown in the ocean. Growing a matching clone for every wild coral is not practical, so the team plans to take the helpful algae, grow them in the lab, and apply them to bleached corals. They hope to test that in Hawaii and Palau "in the coming months to years."
In that lab, the fastest help for the bleached coral came from outside it. It came through contact with something healthy.
King David, the shepherd who became king of Israel and wrote many of the psalms, knew that kind of help. Psalm 65 is a song of praise, and early in the psalm he writes: "When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions" (Psalm 65:3). The next verse says who draws people close. "Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!" (Psalm 65:4). A few lines later, David calls GOD "the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas," the One "who stilled the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the turmoil of the nations" (Psalm 65:5, 7).
David was overwhelmed, and GOD forgave. The forgiving was GOD's work from start to finish.
The prophet Micah spoke for GOD in Judah about seven hundred years before JESUS. Near the end of his book comes a question and an answer. "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy" (Micah 7:18). Then comes the picture. "You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea" (Micah 7:19).
GOD delights to show mercy. Micah pictures HIM hurling our sins into the depths of the sea, beyond our reach.
The book of Isaiah carries the same promise in GOD's own voice: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25). GOD forgives for HIS own sake. The reason starts with HIM.
JESUS told a short story about this. "Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" (Luke 7:41-42). Simon, a Pharisee who had invited JESUS to dinner, answered, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven." JESUS said, "You have judged correctly" (Luke 7:43).
A bishop named Irenaeus led the church in Lyon, in what is now France, around AD 180. In Against Heresies III.20, he wrote about that same story: "he to whom more is forgiven, loves more" (Against Heresies III.20.2). In the same passage he described GOD as "immortal and powerful to such a degree as to confer immortality upon what is mortal, and eternity upon what is temporal." A few lines later he put it plainly. "Here we see, that not by ourselves, but by the help of God, we must be saved" (Against Heresies III.20.3).
Neither debtor in that story could pay, and the moneylender forgave them both. GOD forgives the same way. HE cancels debts no one could pay, and HE delights to show mercy.
It does leave me thinking about the times color came back into my life because someone stayed close when I could not fix myself.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.
🙏 To the one who feels drained of all color, GOD has not given up on you.
🙏 To the one overwhelmed by what you have done, HE delights to show mercy.
🙏 To the one who cannot fix yourself, salvation comes by the help of GOD.
🙏 To the one carrying an old regret, GOD has hurled it into the depths of the sea.
Grace and Peace.