THE LAST SUPPER AND THE FIRST BREAKFAST

Scripture: Mark 14:17-31; John 21:1-19

INTRODUCTION

All four of the gospel authors – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – describe what happened at the Last Supper in the Upper Room, each of them writing from a slightly different point of view. But only one of those original evangelists – John – goes on to tell the story about the first breakfast by the shore of the Galilean Sea.

I don’t know why that is so, except to say that John’s gospel was the last to be written, sometime around 100 A.D., which was 70 years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. By that time the early church was up and running full steam, so perhaps John believed that this first breakfast scene helped to set the stage and lay the foundation for that first century Christian community of faith.

Well, whatever the reason was that John added chapter 21 to his gospel account long, long ago, I would like to explore with you on this Communion Sunday just how these two stories about the Last Supper and the First Breakfast still touch our lives today.

Consider first that the breakfast Jesus shared with His disciples by the sea was a clear and visible sign of the reality of His resurrection. On the way to Jerusalem, He had told them that He was going to suffer and die (Luke 18:31-34), and during the Last Supper, He promised that they would not be left alone – I will come to you, He said (John 14:18), thereby offering them the assurance of hope.

Jesus kept that promise as He appeared to those men and women in the Upper Room on that first Easter evening, and then again eight days later when Thomas was with them. So we can imagine the joy in their hearts and the great expectation in their eyes when they saw the Lord alive for the third time as the sun rose over the Galilean Sea!

The resurrection was then, is now and always will be a great mystery which those early believers witnessed face to face and which we, all these centuries later, accept and affirm as the central reality of our faith. The Presbyterian pastor and author Frederick Buechner describes it this way:

“I cannot tell you what I think I would have seen had I been there myself…but I can tell you this: that what I believe happened, and what in faith and great joy I proclaim to you is that somehow He got up, with the life in Him again, and the glory upon Him…I was not there to see it, any more than I was awake to see the sun rise this morning. But I affirm it as surely as I do, that by God’s grace, the sun did rise this morning because that is why the world is flooded with light.” (Frederick Buechner, “The Magnificent Defeat,” 1966)

My friends, there is no way that we can ever explain it or completely comprehend it. But as the light and the life of Jesus’ resurrection power continues to pour into this world of darkness today, we can see it with our own eyes and receive it into our hearts and minds by faith.

I was dazzled by it yesterday, visiting a close friend and longtime member of this congregation who has just been diagnosed with cancer. My intention was to go and comfort her, but during our time together, it was she who ministered to me, saying without a shadow of a doubt, “I am at peace, and I am not afraid.”

That’s what Jesus promised, you know, and that’s what those disciples discovered at that first breakfast long ago as the sun came up over the Galilean Sea. The risen Lord appeared to them and they were re-assured of the reality of His resurrection. So it can be, for you and for me and for all those who believe that He is alive and that His Holy Spirit is at work in our world today.

II.

There’s a second thing John wants us to see and understand in this story about the first breakfast – the Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay calls it “the universality of the church.” Barclay says that, with Jesus’ encouragement, as the disciples cast their nets back out into the water, they caught a huge quantity of fish, 153 in all, and the number is significant. In the first century, there were “153 species of fish in that region, and therefore the number symbolizes the fact that someday all people of every nation will be gathered together to Jesus Christ.” (From The Daily Study Bible Series by William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, Page 329)

Now I know something about counting fish in a boat. Last week, Barbara and I were in Scotland at a place called the Lake of Menteith, and it reminded me of a fishing competition on a windy night in that same place four years ago. Casting for trout into the white-capped waters for three hours, our boat caught nothing. As we came back to shore and all the fishermen from the other boats dumped their catches into the holding tanks, the judges would shout out loud “10 for boat #1, 8 for boat #2, 12 for boat #3.” We were boat #9, and with our heads down in humility, the judge shouted out “Boat #9 – clean!” Which might sound kind of “spiffy,” but it really meant zero, no fish. Needless to say, it was not a high water moment in my fly-fishing career.

So it was with those first disciples, fishermen all of them, who caught nothing by themselves, but hauled in 153 fish when Jesus gave them some help. And John’s point in telling that part of the story, says William Barclay, is that “the net stands for the church and there is room in the church for people of all nations.” (Ibid)

In other words, we Christians need to remember that our own local congregations do not define the boundary lines of God’s Kingdom on earth. There is a wider circle, which we call “the church universal,” that includes believers of other races, colors, regions and nations and we have been called not only to reach out to them, but also to receive from them the gifts which they have to share with us.

Moreover, living as we do in this pluralistic world of many religions, we Christians need to bear witness to what we believe about Jesus Christ, while at the same time being open to finding out about what Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and people of other faith traditions believe about God.

In this post September 11, 2001 era, if we have learned anything at all, we know that there are human beings on this earth who are fearful and hateful toward us – toward our culture and way of life…and we cannot afford to look at and act toward them in the same fashion – surely not as Christians who believe that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

III.

Now there is one final lesson we can learn from Mark 14 and John 21 about the Last Supper and the First Breakfast, which teaches us not only about the reality of the resurrection and the universality of the church…but also about the loyalty, grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

I have wondered from time to time as Jesus sat there at that table that night, whether He really wanted to be in that room with those people. I think of a woman who invited some people to dinner and at the table she turned to her six year old daughter and said “Would you like to say the blessing?” “I wouldn’t know what to say,” the little girl replied. “Just say what you hear Mommy say,” the wife answered. So the little girl bowed her head and said “Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”

I think Jesus might have felt that way, sitting there in the Upper Room at the Last Supper, knowing that one of those disciples around the table would betray Him, and that all of them would eventually forsake Him.

Our Lord knew at the Last Supper that He would be betrayed, and Judas stood accused sitting there at the table. Jesus went on to say that the rest of the disciples would fall away, but Peter refused to accept that prediction. He said to Jesus Even though they all fall away, I will not. And Jesus answered him Truly I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times…(Mark 14:17-21, 29-31).

Well, that’s exactly what happened after the Last Supper. And can you imagine the guilt and remorse Peter must have felt as Jesus knelt down to cook that first breakfast by the sea? John says that When they had finished breakfast, Jesus (looked at Simon Peter right in the eye and) asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He answered “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” A second and then a third time, Jesus asked Peter the same question, and in exasperation, Peter finally blurted out “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” And Jesus said to him “Then feed my sheep…and follow me.”

Three times Peter had denied Him after the Last Supper. Three times Jesus asked him at the First Breakfast “Do you love me?” And that gave Peter the opportunity to confess his sin, to be forgiven for his betrayal, to let go of his guilt and to be restored to a right relationship with the Lord again. And with that said and done, Jesus blessed him to become the leader of the early church.

CONCLUSION

Do you know what that means? It means that if there is anyone here this morning in the sanctuary, or listening by radio or watching on television, who seeks forgiveness and wants another chance; if there is anyone who needs to let go of their guilt and to be restored to a right relationship with God or with anyone else; then what better place than here, what better time than now to ask the Lord to set you free and show you how to start all over again.

As we come to this table, let us remember and never forget that The Last Supper and the First Breakfast have been set before us to restore us to the Lord, to renew our souls and to show us the way that God wants us to go.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.