Breakfast on the Beach

Do you know what it feels like to let someone down? Not a small thing. A big thing. The kind that makes you want to hide your face.

Peter knew.

On the worst night, when Jesus was taken away, people asked Peter, "Aren't you his friend?" And Peter said, "No. No. I don't even know him." Three times he said it. And there had been a fire that night, a little charcoal fire, and Peter warmed his cold hands beside it while his heart went colder still.

Then Jesus died. And then, oh, then Jesus rose again! But Peter could not forget what he had said. Some sorries are too heavy to carry. So Peter did the thing he knew how to do. He went back to his boat. "I'm going fishing," he said. And the others went with him.

They fished all night. They caught nothing. Just black water and empty nets and the gray light coming up over the sea.

Then a voice called from the shore. "Children, have you caught anything?"

"No," they called back.

"Throw your net on the other side."

So they did. And the net grew heavy, so full of fish they could not haul it in. And Peter knew. He just knew. "It's the Lord!" And he could not wait one more minute. He jumped right into the sea and swam for the shore.

And there, on the sand, Jesus was already waiting. He had made a fire. A charcoal fire. Peter had smelled that smoke before, on the night he said no, and Jesus remembered it too. He was waiting there to feed him.

"Come and have breakfast," Jesus said.

So they ate, the warm fish and the bread, the morning light spilling gold across the water. And when they had eaten, Jesus turned to Peter.

"Simon, do you love me?"

"Yes, Lord. You know I do."

"Simon, do you love me?"

"Yes, Lord. You know I do."

"Simon, do you love me?"

And Peter's eyes were wet now, because three times he had said no by a fire, and three times Jesus was letting him say yes. "Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you."

"Then feed my sheep," said Jesus. "Follow me."

Jesus walked Peter right back to the fire, right back to the wound, and there he healed it. He took the very thing Peter was hiding from and made it the place where he was loved again.

That is the kind of Rescuer Jesus is. He comes looking for you in your boat, in your no, in your too-heavy sorry. He builds a fire and cooks your breakfast and asks you, gently, again: do you love me?

The rescue had come. Right there on the sand, the broken thing was being mended and the lost friend brought home. Jesus was not done with Peter, and he is not done with you. He has only just begun to love you all the way back, and that love will never, ever run cold again.