Monday Meditation: He’s Alive! Part 5: He served a simple meal
This account of breakfast with Jesus is one of the most compelling in Scripture. It’s fun to anticipate how Dallas Jenkins will present it in some future episode of The Chosen TV series.
There’s plenty of drama here: Confused and probably dejected disciples working all night against the elements with nothing to show for it. A mysterious figure in the distance, a voice across the water, Peter’s impetuous jump into the sea to see who’s on shore.
And then the miracle! Exactly 153 fish straining nets that had been empty all night. It was like the first encounter a few of them had with Jesus about three years earlier. He created a miraculous catch that day, too, after a night of unproductive fishing, and now he had done it again.
Who else could it be but Jesus in the mist before them? Did this mean their life with him could be as it was before?
Not exactly. In a way, this did signal another new beginning, but now the task was greater than they’d ever imagined, and they had no idea what was before them.
But the miracle and the mission are not the most special elements here. Let’s focus instead on the simple meal Jesus himself fixed for them. Fried fish over a charcoal fire, exactly like dozens of meals they’d eaten before.
We can relate, can’t we? Meals with others are the fabric that holds our lives together. Sometimes they mark crossroads events: wedding banquets, retirement dinners, or funeral lunches. But more important are the day-by-day get-togethers that build unity and move us forward. We feed the people we love, and we accept their dinner invitations, too. Sharing a meal relaxes us and allows us to enjoy and learn from those across the table.
Today’s story is just such an incident: Jesus on a quiet shore eating a spontaneous meal with the men closest to him. It’s not a big event like so many we know from the Bible: evil kings vanquished and mighty armies conquered by the hand of God, his people walking on dry land where once there had been water, or his Son standing atop the sea in a raging storm. Angels in the sky, dead men brought to life, Jesus astounding his disciples from outside the grave that didn’t hold him.
Our stories are not big like that. They’re hardly even known, and indeed, many of the unpleasant or mundane details of the care we give are not worth telling.
But lest we grow weary of wondering whether God is in our story, we do well to remember this one. The next time we prepare our simple breakfast—maybe we’ll be eating alone or maybe we’ll be patiently feeding the one in our care—in the seclusion of our loneliness or worry or fear, let us imagine that Jesus is right there with us. The Scripture we’re reading today encourages us to believe he is.
Read: John 21:1-14
Pray: Lord, help us to know you’re with us even in the ordinary days of our lives that will never be a story for someone else to read. Thank you for today’s reminder that you do great things among the simple elements of everyday life.
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