May 2026
Newspaper - Thoughts for Sunday
04/05/26 15:14
Free but Nevertheless Ensnared
The country has followed the suffering of the humpback whale Timmy through TV, radio, newspaper and Social Media. The whale was first stuck near the Timmendorf Beach in the Baltic Sea and then got free again. But instead of swimming towards the open ocean, to live and to swim in freedom, he swam to the Island of Poel and was stuck again. A humpback does not belong in the Baltic Sea nor off of the Island of Poel - nothing against Poel. The island is beautiful and worth a trip but is not for Timmy.
Timmy is a symbol for our society and all humans in general. God made us and gave us boundaries so that we flourish, that we thrive and prosper and that we are in safety. But we want to be “free” - and so we violate these boundaries and land, stuck on a sandbank, miserable, hopeless and unable to save ourselves. Somehow, we mange to get free of the sandbank but instead of returning to the life God wants to give us, we swim to the next sandbank and then to the next one.
God offers us a life with and through Jesus, a fulfilling life, a whole ocean of full life and freedom but we do not want to accept the boundaries. We think freedom means breaching all restraints - but then we end up running a ground and ensnared. God is ready to help us back to His ocean but we are proud and want to do it alone because we do not want to give up our “freedom”. Really? Washed up and stranded is “freedom”? The Apostel Peter said, “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved (2 Peter 2:19 - ESV). Only in God and within his boundaries can we experience freedom.
Randall Smelser
Preacher of the Christ Community Peine-Stederdorf
For an explanation of the news of Timmy look up:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/world/europe/timmy-whale-germany-released.html?emc=edit_nn_20260503&nl=the-morning&segment_id=219232
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