When Jesus preforms miracles involving water in the New Testament, today's audiences are likely to miss the true import of his acts. We need the context of the Old Testament to get a more complete picture. As God revealed himself more and more throughout Old Testament history, the Israelites came to a deeper and deeper understanding of who God is and how he interacts with his creation.
One such development was the question of how God created the world. Early on, the Israelites conceptualized the creation of the world as God subduing the forces of chaos, which were represented by water. In this understanding, God defeated chaos and pushed back the waters to make room for the dry land. Only much later, toward the end of the Old Testament period, did the Israelites come to the full understanding that God created the world out of nothing.
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