What did you eat for breakfast today? Perhaps some toast and jam, or maybe some fruit or cheese. If you were in a hurry to get out the door you might have grabbed a granola bar, or skipped breakfast altogether. Breakfast is generally not our dominant thought, and we would probably think that what we have for breakfast is not a concern of God. Many Christians think that the small, trivial parts of our life are too insignificant to bother God with, and certainly breakfast would be one of these unimportant items. However, as we read in today’s Gospel account, God did think about His disciple’s breakfast.
At the time of our passage it has been a couple of weeks since Jesus’ resurrection. The disciples had been told to meet Him in Galilee (Mark 16:7; Matthew 28:7), and that is where they headed. While there waiting to see Jesus, several of the disciples decided to go fishing, as this had been their previous livelihood (vs. 1-3). Following their previous practice, they took their boats out at night onto the Sea of Galilee (called the Sea of Tiberias here, the Roman name), and cast their large nets into the water, drawing them back into the boat, hoping for a catch. As occasionally happened, they spent the whole night and caught nothing. Dawn came, and having caught nothing, the group decided to pack it up and head for shore.
Still a distance from shore they saw a fellow on the banks, who calls out to them if they had caught anything. They didn’t recognize that this was Jesus, and responded back to Him that they hadn’t caught a thing. Jesus told them to throw their nets over on to the right side of the boat. Still not recognizing Him, they did as He said. What a catch they now got! There were so many fish in their nets that they couldn’t pull them aboard, they weighed so much! (vs. 6).
Jesus had performed a very similar miracle at the beginning of His ministry, right there at the Sea of Galilee (Luke 5:1-11). Then, just as now, the disciples had toiled all night fishing, and had caught nothing. Jesus had told them the same thing, to cast their nets on to the other side of the boat, and they, as now, caught a large amount of fish. John might have remembered back to that day when he gave up everything and followed Jesus. His eyes were now opened up and he recognized that this man on the shore was their Lord and Savior, and told Peter, who jumped in the water and swam to meet Him (vs. 7).
When the others in the boat arrived at the shore they saw that Jesus had a small fire going with some fish frying, along with some loaves of bread (vs. 9). He told them to bring some of the fish they have caught. After counting the fish they found that they had caught 153, a large catch for one night of fishing, and despite the heavy load, the net had not broken (vs. 10-11). After counting the fish, Jesus invited them to sit down and have breakfast with Him (vs. 12 - 13).
Why would this be worth mentioning by John in his Gospel? He must have had hundreds of breakfasts with Jesus through the course of the over three years that he was with Jesus. I believe God put this in the Scriptures so that we know that Jesus cares about every part of our life, not only the big, significant issues we face, but also the small, mundane parts of our day. Jesus loved His disciples, and He loves us. He was concerned that these men had been out all night fishing, and now that it was morning, they were both tired and disappointed. They would not have eaten since the day before, and rather than go rest or head out into the day hungry, Jesus made a meal for them. Jesus cares when we are hungry. He cares when we are tired. He cares when we are disappointed. Jesus knew that these men were all three at that moment, and He prepared breakfast for them. He loved them and wanted to share some more time with them over a meal, which He lovingly prepared for them. There is not a single area in our life that God does not care about, whether it is the big things, like our health or jobs, or the small things, like what we eat for breakfast. Let’s start each day thanking the Lord for caring about every area of our lives, including our breakfast.
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