"Come and have breakfast"

Everyone seems to have their own favourite Resurrection story. Mine is this, from John.

It began for me more than thirty years ago when I was living on a kibbutz in Israel in Galilee and thought it was the coolest thing to put Galilee as the return address on my letters ..... it being the time still of snail mail. I arrived in Galilee in the autumn, which was warm and sunny and as soon as I could made my way down to edges of Lake Galilee. It happened that I was there, that first time, early in the morning and found my way to a small sandy beach surrounded by rustling reeds.  There I watched and dreamed or perhaps it might be called meditation today. Back then I just imagined what it must have been like, a practice that seemed faintly blasphemous but which continued all through my year there as I visited places of pilgrimage.

That morning the sun was just rising, fiery red in a clear sky that promised heat later in the day, and the faint breeze carried the tang of fresh water on it. Sitting silently I sunk into the story which came to me, which was this.

I imagined that Peter and the other disciples had returned to Galilee as instructed, having seen the empty tomb but still not really understanding and impatient Peter had said "I am going fishing". Fishing was what he knew after all, and perhaps he thought he could go back. The others, following as so often, joined him. What a hopeless night they had of it. Casting the nets out and drawing in nothing. Frustrating and fruitless, like their lives felt perhaps. In the early dawn a man on the shore called for them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. Once more they obeyed their Lord, albeit unknowingly. Though it seemed to me, dreaming that morning, that they weren't expecting Jesus, but had followed Him for long enough to recognise his commands even if they didn't recognise him.

As the net was hauled in full to bursting John suddenly knew who had called to them from the shore, from a spot very like where I was sitting. Pointing the Lord out to Peter, Peter leapt into the fresh, cold water desperate to pour out to his Lord the happenings in Jerusalem, his denials, the empty tomb, needing Jesus to make sense of it all and make things aright again.

The others came on with their haul of fish, some prosaic soul counted them - 153 fish. Fantastic fishing.

Jesus called them to breakfast.

Breakfast, such a menial task amongst fisherman, given to the least important of their company. Yet He said "come and have breakfast". To my very homesick self that morning, "come and have breakfast" was a phrase full of love and care - Jesus feeding my body, feeding my soul. Jesus welcoming me, comforting me. Grilled fish and hot warm bread, fresh from the ovens and the gentleness of His Presence.

Come and have breakfast.

When my Dad died, this was the Gospel I chose for his funeral, and as it was read I imagined once more Jesus calling one to of his sons. His "come and have breakfast" full of love and caring and welcome once again.