"Shark Week" and the Coming of Christ

I’ve been fascinated all week by the Discovery Channel’s 21st annual Shark Week, particularly by these amazing creatures and the mysteries of their actions. On one show I recall the amazing display of Great White Shark aerial attacks, as these giants of the deep launched themselves out of the water to feast upon seals swimming on the surface! I’ve been equally amazed at the divers, researchers, and scientists who swim with these incredibly dangerous and unpredictable monsters of the sea.

The most recent show I watched followed one man’s journey as he encountered and “adopted” a Tiger Shark (an animal known as the “man eater”).  In this show the man was amazed at how shy, gentle, and “friendly” the shark was to him. He was traveling in uncharted waters, so to speak, with this encounter.

The whole scenario, however, reminded me of the sad and tragic death of The Crocodile Hunter. Here was a man who had spent his life working with deadly animals only to find himself the victim of a rare and surprising death of the animal kingdom! It is a reminder to me that we do not yet live in the New Kingdom where man has dominion over the animal kingdom. Certainly this is the way God had set it up originally, but sin entered the picture and corrupted even the animals as well as their relationships to humans.

Shark Week stands out to me as a reminder that no matter how safe man may feel, no matter how “controlled” the experiment is, in this sinful world that we live in man is not yet in dominion over the earth, and animals are not yet in submission to him. The time will come, as sure as Christ’s return, when man will have power over even sharks… but the time is not yet!