Jesus Cooks Fish
Feb
6
Written by:
2/6/2009 3:58 PM
Jesus dies. Then he raises from the grave. He shows up and interacts with his disciples on a few different occasions.
Then, sometime after these few interactions, the disciples go fishing -- they go back to life before Christ. They don't know what to do. I think I can relate. They go back to what felt normal - back to what came naturally to them - back to what was safe and comfortable - back to work - back to providing for their families and for themselves. What else were they supposed to do? They went fishing.
Then Jesus shows up. And he cooks fish. He eats with them. There are no fireworks, no rebuke, no eloquent sermon or theological dissertation. Just a small fire and a few fish. It's this picture of a family. This group that has gone through so much over the past few years and especially the past few weeks... here they are sitting down together for a meal. Some of them may have thought about the last time that they were together around a table. They may have about Jesus breaking bread and saying "This is my Body..." There must have been a short period of time when they thought that would be their last meal together - the Last Supper. But here they are again.
I wonder if Jesus broke the fish like he broke the bread.
The section of the communion prayer that we focused on this week was this: "so that I might perfectly love you today and worthily magnify your holy name..."
Nate talked about our humanity as our highest calling... about Christ taking us on a journey to become the people that God created us to be, the people that reflect the image of God. Speaking for all of us, he said this: "I'm not as passionate as I want to be. I'm not as wholly committed as I know I should be. I don't the have kind of unreserved agape love that I keep reading about in the Bible that I'm supposed to have..." And yet somehow Christ meets us where we are, with our families and our friends, around a table. He sits down with us and cooks us fish.
And in the series of meals that marks our life, Jesus shapes us into the people that we are created to be.
Amen.