Breakfast on the Beach: The Love of Jesus in Our Darkest Days

When we begin to orientate our lives around the spiritual discipline of hospitality, we need to be prepared for life to get a little messy.

And I’m talking about having to do a little extra dishwashing.

In her book Bread and Wine, Shauna Niequist says,

The heart of hospitality is about creating space for someone to feel seen and heard and loved. It’s about declaring your table a safe zone, a place of warmth and nourishment.”

A few days after Jesus was crucified, he appears on the shores of the Sea of Galilee while his disciples are out fishing on the water.

Peter sees him first. In his excitement, he leaps from the boat and swims to the shoreline. When he manages his way onto the beach, he finds Jesus cooking fish and bread over “a fire of burning coals.”

The greek word used here is anthrakia, or “charcoal fire.” It appears only one other time in the entire Bible.

The night Jesus is arrested, Peter warmed himself over an anthrakia. As anyone who has ever attended a backyard barbecue knows, a charcoal fire gives off a distinct scent.

It is with the warmth of the anthrakia on his hands and the smell of it in his nostrils that Peter tells three onlookers he has never met Jesus.

A few hours prior to Jesus’s arrest, Peter told Jesus he would “lay down his life for him.”

So what smell greets Peter as he emerges from the Galilean Sea soaking wet and eager to be reunited with rabbi?

The wafting scent of an anthrakia.

Because of the way our brain process information, our sense of smell is one of our most powerful memory triggers. How often does a hint of a particular perfume or the aroma of freshly cut grass suddenly whisk you away to a previous season of life?

Peter is greeted on the shores of Galilee with the scent of his most shameful memory.

How must he have felt in that moment? The rabbi he had followed for more than three years and the one whom he had denied ever knowing in his time of greatest need, stoking an anthrakia flame on a cold beach.

Does Jesus rebuke Peter? Scold him? Give him a lecture on faith and loyalty?

No. Jesus asks Peter a question.

“Peter,” he says, a warm smile playing across his lips. “Do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord,” Peter croaks out, tears glinting in the corners of his eyes. “You know all things. You know that I love you.”

And then they eat breakfast on the beach.

If Christians desire to become a hospitable people, we have to understand that we all come to the table broken.

Sometimes we are Mephibosheth — crippled, bitter, and forgotten.

Or we are Zacchaeus, the tax collector — despised, dishonest, and ostracized.

Or we are the unnamed prostitute — abused, objectified, and unwelcome.

Or we are Peter — vulnerable, frightened, and shameful.

We all come to the table broken.

But that is kind of the point.

And because of that we all have a place at the Lord’s table.