Blue Planet II seems to have captured the public’s imagination. I caught up with episode two – ‘The Deep’.
Sixteen years after the Bafta – and Emmy – winning series first aired on the BBC, David Attenborough is back to plumb the depths of the earth’s seas in ways only recently made possible by developments in technology.
During the introduction to the first programme in this series, Attenborough declares his manifesto for deep sea exploration: ‘The oceans, sometimes limitless, invoke in us a sense of awe and wonder, and sometimes fear.’ The subsequent episode demonstrates the deep humility and respect for the treacherous unknown with which the research and filming was conducted.
Beyond our imagination
What results are mesmerising scenes displaying the magnificent variety and complexity of life in the seas (scenes which wouldn’t be out of place in a Terrence Malick film). The audience is warned through Attenborough’s exquisite narration that ‘beneath our feet are creatures beyond our imagination.’ Some of the creatures seen just two episodes in include those which resemble underwater constellations, the ‘lost city’ hydrothermal vent in the Atlantic, luminescing stingrays and the barreleye fish, which possesses the odd skill of being able to look upwards through its own transparent head.
And it isn’t just their existence which has the audience marvelling; it’s their eating habits and movements and that heartrending moment when the mama walrus catches her baby, saving him, as he sinks sleepily under the water’s surface. This show is not short on spectacle or story.
Stopping short of the truth
In light of this, Attenborough’s observation that the oceans invoke awe and wonder in us is true, but stops short of the fuller truth we can observe – that we’re capable of awe, wonder and fear all at once because we are created to stand before a holy God of unimaginable majesty and, trembling, worship him.
To wonder through our TV screens at the hidden depths of God’s creation points us towards this purpose for which we are made, a purpose which, when fulfilled, makes us freer and more fully human than we could otherwise know. And how is it that wondering at creation comes not just naturally, but instinctively, to us humans? ‘Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse’ (Romans 1.20). The endless generosity and creativity of God is on display in his creation, if only we’d pay attention for long enough to notice it.
When we taste and see something of the magnificence of God through his creation, we are rightly humbled, and sense our smallness in contrast to God’s unparalleled glory. As we look around at the news reports over the last couple of months which reveal the darkness of the human heart, we’re rightly horrified to consider humankind’s depravity in contrast to God’s holiness. It is bewildering that he would associate himself with such a creation.
What is mankind?
When we consider the wonders on show in Blue Planet II, we join with the psalmist in asking ‘what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?’ (Psalm 8.4). Both the darkness of the ocean and the darkness of the human heart cause us to wonder at the fact of life’s existence, dependent as it is on the grace of God, which stretches farther and deeper than heart or ocean.
Perhaps here too we are mystified along with Attenborough: ‘Incredibly, there is life here. We might have expected that deep beneath the surface of the polar seas, the waters would be truly barren. But in fact we find life here in unimaginable abundance’, he notes at the end of episode two, ‘The Deep’. Incredibly, even as we know and feel our weak creatureliness, there is life here: ‘for in him all things were created […] all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together’ (Colossians 1.16).
He who brought order and creativity and life to the waters and holds it all together has associated himself with the darkest depths of humanity and, incredibly, brought us life in unimaginable abundance.
