Scripture

Then the disciple Jesus loved said, “It is the Lord!”

Observation

Jesus appears to a group of disciples who had gone fishing at the Sea of Galilee. They had worked all night and caught nothing.

At dawn, Jesus is standing on the beach, and He asks if they caught anything. They say, “No” at which Jesus tells them to throw the nets on the other side of the boat. They instantly have a huge catch.

John says, “It is the Lord!” Peter jumps into the water and swims ashore.

After the other return with the boat, Jesus serves them breakfast of fish and bread.

Application

They were slow to catch on, but eventually John says, “It’s the Lord!” Immediately Peter jumps off the boat to swim to shore where Jesus is.

Sometimes we can be slow to recognise Jesus in our midst. Maybe we just don’t expect Him to show up. When He does show up, He doesn’t look like we expect Him to, or act the way we think that He should.

What is more natural than for Jesus to take an interest in the activities of His followers? And then give them a miracle, and serve breakfast as well? These are all signs of the presence of God’s kingdom.

Sometimes Jesus turns up in a physical form- perhaps a homeless person or an unfamiliar stranger. When we show love to this person, we might recognise after the event that it was the Lord.

Sometimes in a worship time the Holy Spirit touches us in a powerful way- we say, “Jesus was truly here.”

We meed to pay attention to the spiritual realm as much as we do to the physical. I do not want to be like Jacob in the Old Testament who said, “Surely the Lord was in this place, but I did not know it.”

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I know that you appear to your people, and often we don’t notice. Please help me to recognise when you are at work in me, my church and my community. Amen.