Come and Have Breakfast
“Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’” — John 21:12
Jesus was on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, looking like an ordinary man asking for fish. His disciples were out on the boat, a life they had known before him. They couldn’t catch anything until the man on the shore told them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. When they did, the fish came in droves. It was a familiar scene, a replay of events on the day they met their Savior (Luke 5:4-7). When Peter recognized the man on the shore, he jumped into the water to swim to his Lord.
As Peter waded out of the water, Jesus was there before a charcoal fire. That, too, was a replay of prior events. In John 18, when Jesus was in the court of the High Priest before his crucifixion, the servants and officers made a charcoal fire because it was cold. It is there, before that distinctive smell, that Peter denied knowing Jesus.
Luke tells us that after the third denial, the Lord looked at Peter, and Peter went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61). Here was Jesus again before Peter with the smell of charcoal in the air. But, this time, there were no tears. There was no denial. It was only Jesus on the shore bidding Peter to come and have breakfast, to see the results of Jesus’s work on the cross—that even Peter’s rejection could not keep him from the table.
They had a hard conversation after that. Jesus doesn’t shy away from hard things. “Do you love me?” he asked three times, the same number of times Peter denied him. Jesus left no sin unforgiven. With the smell of that charcoal fire still in the air, Jesus applied the cross to Peter’s sins. He extended Peter forgiveness, and Peter felt it. Peter was free to love him now. He was free to be an apostle now.
No matter how hard the night was, Jesus was there in the morning inviting him into his presence.
No matter how hard your night might be, Jesus will be there for you too. Whatever your charcoal fire might be, the cross of Christ changes the memory from failure to forgiveness, inviting you to the Lord’s table where he will meet you again in resurrection power and healing.