El Monstruo de Cojimar
Earlier this month, some of my dearest friends on earth, who lead an amazing church and global missions ministry out of the Atlanta area and have been supporters of Orchard since the very beginning, invited me to join them on a trip to Cuba for a special children’s and youth Christmas event. It was so special to reconnect with my friends. I also loved being in such a unique place. Cuba is not like anywhere else on earth. And in the past few years it’s changing and is far more accessible. There is a cluster of churches that Encounter works with and their base is in Cojimar, less than ten miles northeast of downtown Havana.
This is a unique part of Cuba for many reasons. For one, it was a favorite fishing and writing haunt of Ernest Hemingway. We actually got to stop at the Ernest Hemmingway Memorial statue as well as La Terraza de Cojinar, a restaurant where Hemingway’s favorite table, overlooking Cojinar Bay, is still roped off with another bronze statue of the prolific and influential author. Cojimar is also at its core, a small fishing village. In fact, the gentleman who hosted us in his home during our stay there, was a spearfisherman for years, spending endless hours in the water, searching for his favorite prey on and around the pristine reefs of Northern Cuba, the Caribbean reef octopus. On a few clear mornings during our trip, I watched as spear fishermen surfaced and dove over and over again in search of the catch of the day, their long fins, breaching and then disappearing again like flimsy little dolphins.
There were a few small dilapidated fishing boats in the calm waters as well, and always several rod and reel casters from Via Blanca, the road overlooking the Sea,
as well as from the jetty below.
Taking all this in, I remembered a story I read in my research and preparation for this trip. In the spring of 1944, something out of the ordinary happened. Cuban fisherman out in the Caribbean Sea hooked a massive great white shark! They dragged this “monster“ to shore in Cojimar, and when they weighed and measured it, a French journalist that happened to be present that day took pictures and reported that it was the largest great white shark that had ever been captured and recorded, weighing in at nearly 7000 pounds and stretching a truly monstrous 21 feet long! My spear fisherman friend, Eduardo told me he had seen some small sharks in his day, but never anything approaching the size of a man eater.
The story circulated and splashed across headlines around the world. There’s some debate on the actual dimensions of the beast as modern scientists have studied the photographs, but either way, El Monstruo was the largest fish that had ever come out of those waters. In fact, many people say this story, and certainly this village and its hearty fishermen, were the inspiration for Hemingway’s gold standard, The Old Man and the Sea.
What’s most interesting though, is that great white sharks are not supposed to live in this area. It’s extremely rare that one was found here as it’s outside of their normal range.
As I stood there looking out at the water, I pondered the shocking nature of this catch. I thought about how it made worldwide news because it was so giant, so unique, so unexpected! Since we were there for Christmas, outreaches, I was preparing a Christmas message and was thinking about how Bethlehem was a surprise location too — an unexpected place for God to reveal his greatest gift to humankind. Bethlehem was off-the-beaten-trail. It was just a small, boring place on the way to other places. Nothing great ever came from there but the prophet Micah wrote that one day, a leader would be born in Bethlehem, that would rule the whole world!
Then, Bethlehem would be known everywhere, by everyone.
As I preached about Jesus, the King of Kings, born in a little village to people born and raised in another little village where the biggest shark in history was captured, I knew that God wanted to get the point across that he uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He uses average Joe’s to accomplish extraordinary tasks. It doesn’t matter where you came from, who your family is, what your past looked like, how limited you feel, what your abilities are…God’s plan is to use you.
His power and the invitation towards partnership with Him means that there is a powerful and unexpected monster (in the best way, of course), right under the surface of your life.
What if we believed that? How would our life change? What would be possible if something huge was meant for our lives, our families, our communities, and our world in this generation, and all we had to do was attach a little faith to the fact that it doesn’t have to make sense? Jesus colors outside the lines!
Unexpected is just the way Jesus does his best work.
The message of Christmas — the story of the monster of Cojimar — is that our Lion lives matter, they count, and there’s so much He’d like to do with lives surrendered fully to him.
Believe Jesus loves you. Receive his rescue and new life. Have faith for the impossible!
You’re not insignificant, overlooked, left out or ignored!
You’re loved, wanted, and powerful beyond your imagination!
Live like a Lion. The world is gonna hear about you!
PS. One of my all-time favorite Christmas songs is by Andraé Crouch, and it’s called Bethlehem (The World Is Gonna Hear About You.) It’s found on his 1999 album, The Gift of Christmas. You should definitely give it a listen – you’ll be blessed!