Come and Have Breakfast

Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”

John 21:12

There is an ordinariness to the resurrected Jesus. But there is also a glory. He is a man like us yet unlike us. It is the likeness that draws us in, but the unlikeness that causes us to bow down in worship.

Here is Jesus, on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. He looks like a man asking for fish. His disciples are out on the boat, just like before. They can't catch anything. So Jesus tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. They do as they're told and find the fish that they were looking for. John recognizes the man as Jesus and shouts out to Peter, and Peter jumps into the water to swim to his master.

When Peter arrives, there is Jesus on the shore with a charcoal fire. There was one other time that John mentions a charcoal fire. It's when Jesus is in the court of the High Priest before his crucifixion (John 18). The servants and officers make a charcoal fire because it was cold. It is there, before that distinctive smell of the charcoal, that Peter denies his Lord.

Luke tells us that after the third denial, the Lord looked at Peter, and Peter went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61). And here is Jesus again before Peter with the smell of charcoal in the air. But, this time, there are no tears. There is no denial. It is only Jesus on the shore bidding Peter, and the rest, to come and have breakfast.

Jesus and Peter had a hard conversation after that. But Jesus gives Peter forgiveness because he paid for his sins. He was free to love him now. He was free to feed the sheep now. No matter how hard the night was, Jesus was there in the morning inviting him into his presence.

He'll be there for you too.