The minister writes… from our August/September 2025 newsletter
Dear friends,
I came across an interesting reference in one of my Daily Bread readings a couple of months ago. It mentioned The Christ of the Abyss which I had never heard of before. This is a bronze statue of Jesus Christ that can be found in a secluded bay off Italy’s northwest coast. As divers descend towards the seabed 17 metres (56 ft) below they discover the figure with its arms raised towards them in blessing. Sculpted by Guido Galletti it was placed there on 22nd August 1954.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_of_the_Abyss_Key_Largo_(2027447382).jpg
Reading about this piqued my interest and sent me off on an internet search to find out more. Whilst this was the world’s first underwater statue, it is not the last. Two more almost identical statues have since been built, one off the coast in Grenada in 1961 and one in the sea near Key Largo in 1962.
The statues have been referenced in art (being used as cover art for both BT’s 1995 album Ima and for God Lives Underwater’s 1995 debut album Empty), the Italian statue has inspired a song: Christ is Lower Still by The Porter’s Gate in the album Sanctuary Songs and the one near Key Largo even appeared in the Netflix Original series Bloodline.
Each of the statues was built to remind people that there is nowhere that Christ cannot be found. The Daily Bread reflection referenced Psalm 69: 1-3 in which the psalmist cries out to God to save him from the waters that threaten to engulf him, as he sinks in the miry depths, but what it made me think of was another psalm, Psalm 139, which says:
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
I love the consolation and promise in those words, the thought that no matter where we are, no matter what might be happening in our lives, even when we are dealing with pain or loneliness, grief or loss, there is no place that is beyond the read of God, nowhere that his arms of love cannot comfort us.
If you are in the ‘miry depths’ at the moment or simply struggling with the challenges and changes of life, please remember and hold onto that promise.
I leave you with this blessing:
I look up to God above me, I look down to the everlasting arms.
I have hope for God is within me and without me, this day and forever more.
With every blessing
Sharon