A couple of days passed and I found myself in the upper room with what was left of the Twelve (Judas was gone and there were rumors he had hung himself). I don't know why we gathered. There was nothing left to do, but sit and hope that those in charge didn't want his followers as well.
Then the women burst into the room and began to talk about angels and stones, and how they had gone to put spices on the body, only the body wasn't there, and they didn't know how they were going to move the stone, but it didn't matter cause the stone was gone and there was an angel and...
I didn't catch most of what they were saying, they were pretty excited and it was hard to catch it all. Then Mary Magdalene said something I did understand. "Jesus is alive!"
I took off running toward the tomb. Peter was right behind me. I must admit that Peter is in better shape than I am and made it to the tomb first. He stopped at the entrance. I bolted past him and went straight in. There were the linens and the head cloth, but there was no Jesus! He was alive!
All of us who saw him after that (and there were more than you might think) all have our favorite story of meeting him. The two chaps from Emaus tell the tale of how they met Jesus on the road home, but didn't recognize him until after he left. Thomas tells his tale of disbelief and being invited to touch the wounds. My story is about the time he made us breakfast on the beach.
Those of us who fish were out in the boats. It was a horrible night. We weren't able to catch a single thing. We fished through the night and not a single fish came into our nets. At one point I think we kept fishing just cause it was personal. We weren't going to let the Sea win.
Sometime around dawn we heard a voice from the shore. "Caught anything yet?" When told him that we hadn't, the stranger told us to cast our nets on the other side of the boat. Confused, we were desperate enough to try anything. We cast our nets on the other side of the boat. We had to strain to pull the net it in it was so full of fish. At once we all recognized who it was that spoke to us from the shore. It was Jesus!
Of course I jumped from the boat and swam ashore. The guys still give me a hard time about that. Not so much that I jumped from the boat to get to Jesus sooner, but that I didn't stay in the boat to help them unload the catch.
We sat and talked and ate fish. Everything was back to normal. It was better than normal. As the meal wound down Jesus got up and began to walk down the beach. He asked John to walk with him.
As they were gone, the rest of us speculated as to what they could be talking about. We decided that it would be funny if Jesus was going to talk with each one of us and reveal our future and tell us how we were going die. John came back to the group just as we offered this hypothesis. "That isn't funny!" he said. Then he turned to me and said, "You're Next." I walked down the beach and caught up with Jesus.
"Peter, do you love me?"
"Of course I love you!" I was hurt that he would even ask.
"Then feed my sheep." I had completely forgotten about that night. I had forgotten that I had disowned him. Feed his sheep. Who I am to do such a thing? I stopped dead in my tracks.
"Do you love me?"
"You know that I do." I said without looking up.
"Then feed my sheep."
"Do you love me?" he asked a third time.
One for each denial.
What was he trying to accomplish here? "You know that I do."
"Then feed my sheep."
I said nothing. Eyes down, feet kicking at the sand. Jesus reached out and placed his finger under my chin.
He lifted my head.
Our eyes met.
Again the look in his eyes was unlike any I had ever witnessed before.
Compassion. Mercy. Justice. Love. Peace.
Forgiveness.
Restoration.
He had called me home. He had called me to feed his sheep. He had forgiven me and restored me. All without words. All with a simple look.
As we turned to walk back to the others I looked up at Jesus and asked him what he talked about with John. He put is arm around my shoulder and laughed.
"Don't worry about him." he chuckled. "Maybe he'll stick around for all eternity."
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