A swimming manual advises teachers to think back to their first experience with water so that they do not take the strangeness of water for granted. It lists disturbing features for new swimmers: pressure on the body; the way in which water's density affects breathing and heart rate; buoyancy; and changes in vision, hearing, touch, and smell. First-time swimmers also experience a fear of drowning.4 Similarly, new preachers may feel disoriented when immersed in Scripture and preaching responsibilities for the first time.
The "preaching swim" model visualizes swimming down a river. It begins with immersion into a flow at the river's source. The river gathers strength as it widens and deepens, bringing life and health to people on its banks. Each week as I take my preaching journey, I live in the flowing power of God's Word to bring it to my hearers in fresh ways. "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert" (Isa. 43:19)
Sometimes early explorers such as Lewis and Clark traced rivers back to their sources and thereby opened up continents. Preachers move in the other direction, beginning at a bubbling source in God's Word that flows out, creating new channels, deepening and impacting lives of individuals, communities, and nations.
Scripture's references to springs and rivers resonate with life and energy. In dry deserts, rivers represent life. "On every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water" (Isa. 30:25); "The LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams" (Isa. 33:21); "I will open rivers on the bare heights" (Isa. 41:18); "He will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the LORD drives on" (Isa. 59:19). Jesus offers living water, which "will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 4:14). John 7:37-38 contains the promise, "Out of a believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water," which is linked with the work of the Holy Spirit.
Ezekiel 47 traces the prophet's progress into the river — ankle-deep, waist-deep, and then deep enough to swim. The river flowing from the temple teems with life, offering fresh water instead of salt water so that "everything will live where the river goes" (v. 9). Scripture's last chapter (Revelation 22) visualizes this river filled with the water of life, which nourishes fruit and trees for the healing of the nations.
Water may be a cause for praise (Pss. 36:8; 46:4), but its energy can also be destructive, causing fears of being overwhelmed (Pss. 42:7; 69:1-2, 15).
There are other evocative references. James 3:11 likens the tongue to a spring and warns about it being a source of fresh or brackish water. Baptism speaks of immersion and identification with Christ (1 Peter 3:21).
The swimming down a river metaphor seems to encapsulate much that is important for preaching. Most importantly, it conveys God's energy and movement in the preaching process. In the ancient Near East's dry and thirsty lands, water represented the mystery of God providing resources and energy for life. In a parched world that longs for an authentic word from God, flowing water speaks of surging good news as the Triune God initiates, sustains, and empowers the preacher's task. We preach because God commands it, empowers it, and blesses it. Preaching continues to owe its power to a preacher's immersion in the deeper currents and tides of God's Word. At its best, preaching is a pulse-racing, people-changing, community-developing, history-forging adventure.