Today’s find: Unmistakable

On this, the sixth day of Easter, the Risen Lord turns up in unexpected places.

In the Gospel story we hear today, it’s on the shores of the Sea of Galilee…where he is grilling up some fish:

“Come, have breakfast,” he says to the disciples.

It reminded me a bit of the time I spent on that very shore just a couple of months ago.

My fellow pilgrims and I spent some time meditating on that same scripture passage from John 21.

And as we prayed, I think many of us felt like those first-century followers: We were pretty sure we had just seen the Lord.

Still…

“None of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’

What is it about the Easter Jesus that makes him so hard to recognize, anyway?

Our hearts may be burning…but there’s a reluctance in the encounter, too. Something that seems to hold us back.

I had a flashback to that moment just this morning, as our Kairos team prepared to enter Menard…for the first full day of our Kairos Weekend.

Not as serene a setting, perhaps. But we felt the Lord’s presence even so. None of us doubted that grace was about to pour out on us…

We knew, somehow, that our nets would soon be full. And this, remarkably, is exactly what transpired over the next 12 hours. Men who didn’t know each other from Adam on Thursday…somehow had grown to become brothers-in-Christ by close-of-business Friday, inside the prison.

It must be Jesus, we figure. Because it’s certainly not us…not this band of sinful, broken men…who manage to make the fellowship flow.

We simply don’t have it in us.

But when we’re obedient to the Lord’s instructions, good things seem to happen…despite our many faults.

When we cast our lots, our nets, with Jesus…

…we find that he’s sure to reveal himself in some frankly unmistakable ways.

• Let us remember that we are in the presence of the Holy and Merciful One.
• IHS