Breakfast After You Failed Him
Jesus built the fire before Peter reached the shore
I once stood in front of our church and tried to picture Jesus building that fire on the shore of Galilee. Grabbing wood. Stacking rocks around it. Cleaning a fish and laying it on the coals while the disciples were still out on the water. He did all of that before anybody showed up.
That detail is easy to skim past, unless you've failed Him in a way you can't stop replaying. Then it's the whole story. Because the question under a failure like that is rarely whether God forgives in general. You know the verses. The question that keeps you up is more personal: Is there still a place for me?
Two Fires
John tells us about two fires, and he uses the same phrase for both.
The first one burns in a courtyard on the night Jesus was arrested. Now the servants and officers who had made a fire of coals stood there, for it was cold, and they warmed themselves. And Peter stood with them and warmed himself (John 18:18). Three times that night, standing close enough to feel the heat, Peter said he didn't know Jesus. Then the rooster crowed, and he went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75).
The second fire is on a beach a few weeks later. Peter has gone back to the only thing he knows how to do. "I am going fishing," he says, and six of the others go with him. They work all night and catch nothing (John 21:3). At dawn a voice calls from the shore, the nets fill, and John says, "It is the Lord!" When they land, there it is: a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread (John 21:9).
The last time Peter stood by a fire of coals, he ended the night alone and weeping. Jesus lit another one and cooked him breakfast on it.
The Dock at Dawn
Picture a man coming in off a lake at first light. The boat's empty. He's been out all night, and he has nothing to show for it, and he's been rehearsing on the way back what he'll say to the friend he let down. He ties off the boat slowly. Up on the bank there's a campfire, two folding chairs, and his friend holding out a second cup of coffee.
The friend didn't make one cup and wait to see how the apology went. He made two.
Prayed For Before He Fell
Here's something Peter knew on that beach that we tend to forget. Before any of it happened, Jesus had told him:
"Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren." (Luke 22:31-32)
When you have returned. Jesus spoke about Peter's restoration before Peter had even fallen. He planned Peter's next assignment while Peter was still boasting he'd die for Him. I said it this way in that sermon: Peter knew he'd blown it, but he also knew Jesus had already prayed for him, before he ever did a thing. That's why, when John said it was the Lord, Peter didn't stay in the back of the boat. He threw on his garment and plunged into the sea, swimming toward the One he'd denied (John 21:7).
Three Questions After Breakfast
Somebody will point to what comes next. Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love Me?" (John 21:15-17), and Peter is grieved by the third one. Doesn't that sound like probation? Maybe Peter got breakfast, but he still had to pass the interview.
Look at the order, though. So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter... The meal came first. Peter was fed, warmed, and seated before a single question was asked, so the questions weren't the price of a seat at the fire. And every one of Peter's answers is met with a job. Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep. Three denials, three commissions. In that same sermon I told our church the breakfast wasn't Jesus biding His time for the right moment to condemn Peter, and the questions weren't either. Every question came back with Peter's calling attached, the work he'd been made for, handed to the man who thought he'd forfeited it in a courtyard.
Paul put the principle in one sentence: If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). Peter denied Jesus. Jesus did not deny Peter, because Peter was His, and you're His too, held there by what Jesus did and not by your last good week.
Walking Up the Dock
You may not swim for shore. Some mornings you'll walk up the dock slowly with your hands in your pockets, still rehearsing the apology, unsure what you'll find at the top. Walk up anyway. The fire was lit before you got there, and the One who lit it knew everything you'd say and everything you'd done when He reached for the wood.
He reaches the top of the bank, sits down in the empty chair, and takes the cup his friend has been holding out to him the whole time.