This weekend, Rev Derrick Tickner from Shepshed has shared his thoughts on ‘The Breakfast that Changed the World’
The Breakfast that Changed the World
Reading: John 21
An over-statement of fact? Just possible, but let me set the scene by painting a word picture for you . .
It’s early morning, and for a weary, hungry group of fishermen it has been another one of those wasted nights – nothing to show for hour upon hour of fruitless labour, constantly hauling in the nets to find them empty, time and time again. Dawn has arrived: the fishermen are not only frustrated, they are very hungry!
Suddenly the aroma of a cooked breakfast reaches them – who on earth had found fish when they had worked all night and caught nothing?! Who indeed? Only the One who had created the fish in the first place!
And this is not a fictional story, but one of historical fact. Lives were changed around that breakfast. In fact, we wouldn’t be here had it not been for that incident, when, early one morning, the risen, living Lord Jesus appeared to His despondent disciples.
The conversation that follows between Simon Peter and Jesus is very special, a first-hand account by an actual eyewitness, John. Here is Jesus, the finest spiritual surgeon, at work!
He gently takes away the guilt burden of those awful moments for Peter around that never-to-be-forgotten courtyard fire (John 18 v.15 – 18, 25 & 26) when he had denied his Lord, not once, not twice, but three times. In the tenderest of ways Jesus asks, “Simon, do you love Me? . . . Simon, do you love Me? . . . Simon, do you love Me?” You probably know the story well; three times Jesus asks, and Simon Peter replies, “Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You”!
The words of an old hymn come to mind: “Ransomed, healed, restored, FORGIVEN…” What Jesus did for Simon Peter, He can do for you too. Why not ask Him now …?
You can listen to ‘Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven’ on YouTube, a recording of community singing from the Waterfront Hall in Belfast in 2016.