Breakfast and Worship

In John 21:1-17 we have the account of Jesus preparing and sharing breakfast with the disciples on the beach. Jesus is now alive from the dead and has come to restore fellowship between Himself and the disciples.

As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread (John 21:9)

Jesus’ breakfast on the beach is a liturgy. It’s a symbol of the life and worship we now have with Jesus Christ. At this breakfast, Jesus renews fellowship with Peter by extending morning mercy (Lamentations 3 22-23) and re-incorporating Peter into the company of the Apostles.

Though Peter was estranged from Jesus because of his sin, Jesus forgives him and signifies His forgiveness by sharing a meal.

That’s what is happening week by week as we gather to receive what we have been receiving daily: Bread from Heaven. It happens most pointedly as a congregation when we gather around the Lord’s table.

We talk about worship as covenant-renewal, and that covenant renewal is offered and received at the Lord’s Supper. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood,” Jesus said, and as we drink the cup we are asking God to remember His covenant and His promises to us. And we are asking Him to welcome us and keep us in covenant fellowship with Jesus and with His people through the forgiveness of our sins.

But this post-resurrection appearance and communion by the sea with Peter doesn’t end with a meal and the same is true of us.

We don’t walk away from worship and fellowship on a Sunday, dusting our hands and thinking, “ Well, that’s that’s that done for another week.”

Jesus is not finished with Peter when He has forgiven him and shared the food of forgiveness, and He is not finished with us.

After breakfast, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him, and tells him three times to feed the Lords Lambs. Before it’s over, Jesus tells Peter how he will die; how he will share in the sufferings of his Saviour.

Our time with Jesus does not simply end with a meal either. Daily we are to renew fellowship with Him. But this renewal is not only for gathering and the granting of new mercy: It’s also for sending. The hand of the Lord not only feeds us, it sends us. Specifically, He sends us, as He did Peter, out to die.

God sent that Eternal Word to become flesh, to die and rise again for the life of the world. As we gather ourselves to Him, we’re are also renewed in fellowship with the Risen Word, and like Him, we are sent out from Him to be witnesses of His death, unto death.

We do that, beginning with our own homes, by feeding lambs, loving the flock and bringing words of restoration to the weak. We do it by feeding others, and welcoming them with mercy.

Small mercies, moment by moment, meal by meal. Man to man.