The Last Breakfast

The Weekend Bible Study - with Ronald L. Dart

It was just at the crack of dawn. First light of the new day was just starting to show over the top of the Golan Heights. Still too dark to see anything. The men in the boat fumbled around because they knew where their tackle was, they knew what the boat was like, they knew where everything was by hand, by touch. They had fished a lot at night, so they didn't have any problem with that.

But on the shore, off to one side, they could see a little fire burning. They had fished all night long, and they were frustrated because they hadn't caught a thing. And, you know, fishing the way they fished was fairly hard work. And nighttime for them was the time—with daylight coming, hope for catching a lot of fish was beginning to diminish. But that little fire was burning over there. Someone was moving around the fire, and a voice came out across the sea there, about some hundred yards or so away where they were.

"Boys, have you caught anything?"

And one of them put his hand to his mouth and says, "No!"

He said back, "You're fishing on the wrong side of the boat. Try the right side."

Now, that must have in itself been a little bit of frustrating advice to those fellows out there because they'd been professional fishermen, off and on, all their lives. And there's just not a whole lot of difference between the right side of the boat and the left side of the boat.

And one of them says, "There's no point in doing that."

He says, "Well, you had a better idea?"

He said, "No, I don't."

So they threw the net out the right side of the boat. And before they got anything done at all, the net began to get very heavy. There was a lot of vibration coming up the lines, and they realized they had gotten themselves a load of fish.

And about that time, John leaned over to Peter and said, "It's the Lord. It's the Lord."

And Peter, who had been fishing naked all night (it must have been pretty warm), grabbed something and put it on him and jumped in the water. They were only 100 yards offshore, so they rowed their boat to shore, dragged the net behind them and up on shore, and they got counted over 160 fish they had in that net.

But Jesus already had a fire going, had fish propped up against it, cooking away; and he'd taken bread and put it up, toasting the bread against the fire; and so they had breakfast already well underway.

After breakfast, Jesus said to Peter (and the way I read the account, I think it was kind of privately when he said it, perhaps walking along the shore after breakfast as the sun was beginning to come up), "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me more than these?"

And Peter said, "Lord, you know I love you."

And Jesus replied, "Feed my lambs."

He walked a little further along, and he turned again and he said, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you truly love me?"

And he said, "Yes, Lord, you know I love you."

And Jesus fixed him with a glaze in his eyes and says, "Feed my sheep."

And then finally he said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?"

And Peter was grieved because he said it to him the third time, and I can understand why he might have been. And he said, "Lord, you know everything. You know I love you."

And Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."

Now, I can understand why Peter was grieved, but here's my question for you today (my first question of many): Why did Jesus call his love into question? Why was it questionable? Was it perhaps that he had denied the Lord three times? Most commentators who read this, most preachers who preach on it, make that comparison just like that. Peter denied Christ three times. Christ made him affirm his love back to Christ three times. There was reason for it.

You know, to deny your best friend, your closest friend, is a betrayal. And Peter had in every sense betrayed Christ. His love certainly could be called into question, and so Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee did so.

"Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?"

And now my next question for you: What if Jesus had asked you the same question three times?

"Robert, do you love me? Feed my lambs."

"James, do you love me? Feed my sheep."

"Shirley, do you love me? Feed my lambs."

Would it cross your mind to wonder why Jesus would need to ask you that question? Why? I mean, "Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?"

Because you do have to understand, I hope, that there are more ways to betray somebody or to deny somebody than the way Peter did. There are other ways to do it, as well.

I don't doubt for a moment that Peter loved Jesus. I mean, how could you not love a man like him after having spent this amount of time with him? When you read about Jesus, you see the character of the man, you see the charisma of the man, the love of the man. And you remember that Peter and all these guys had been up and down every road in Galilee and Judea with him. They'd camped out on the roadside at night. They'd eaten from the same pot so many times they couldn't even count them. They shared the same bread. They passed it around together. They actually slept next to each other on the ground.

How, after all that period of time, would Peter not love Jesus? I don't think there's much of a question as to how that would be so.

But we only know Jesus secondhand. We haven't had that chance. We haven't had that time. How could we possibly know Jesus like Peter did to love him as Peter loved him? But Jesus had to ask him anyway.

So I suppose he would ask me, as well.

"Ronald Dart, do you love me?"

And it's a painful question. But it's a question I have to answer. And so do you.

"Do you love me?"