Imagine if you had a friend you were extremely close to 20 years ago. You went on many trips together. You confided in each other and shared every part of your life. This friend taught you how to enjoy each day and showed you how to have character. She enriched your days and you did the same for her.
Now snap back to today: You haven’t seen this friend in two decades and it feels as if this friend has been lost to you forever. Life got in the way. You just became different. You sadly never got to express all the things you wanted to say, and that’s left you with a deep ache inside. You often think about how you miss this connection every night when you get ready for bed. That’s when it comes to mind.
Now picture a new day. You are eating your breakfast at the counter, and your doorbell rings. It’s early morning, so you’re confused, but you answer the door. There on your porch is your long-ago friend. She looks not as she did many years ago, but it’s certainly still her. You stare in disbelief. As you wait for the expression to fill her face, she slowly smiles and opens her arms. There is a joy that overcomes you that you can barely express. All is well now.
This is my human interpretation of the type of elation and comfort that the friends of Jesus experienced at the Sea of Galilee after coming back from their night of fishing. What was even more astounding was that Jesus had already started making breakfast, and handing them both bread and fish to eat, as if there was nothing odd about his reappearance. It was just another morning with his friends.
This is a hopeful illustration that can give us a glimpse into “Day-To-Day Jesus,” who simply likes to sit with us, have a meal, and continue the conversation.
This moment calls to mind a song for me by a singer-songwriter who writes lyrics that truly “keep it real.” Here are some lines from a song called “Daylight,” by John Mark McMillan a title that happens to be quite appropriate for the topic of breakfast and close friends on the beach.
You can listen to the original version of “Daylight” on YouTube, here.
“Daylight comes to meet you on the road
Like a prodigal son, a prodigal hope
That you gave up on when you were young
Yeah, but daylight is coming on
We live on the edge
On the edge of a darkness oh
We live on the edge
On the edge of a darkness oh
But daylight is coming on
Heaven bends low for the naked and the poor
To settle up a debt, to settle up the score
To set up a table on the edge of a war
'Cause we've been bleeding on the edge of a sword”
Words like these help strip away what’s not real on our gilded facade, so we can be aware of our true self. We live on the edge of darkness, in dawn or twilight, between the night and the morning.
Daylight is Jesus holding out a fish and saying, “let’s eat together.”
Daylight is a close friend on a doorstep.
Daylight is being who you are–all of who you are–and knowing it will be OK.
God of breakfast, bread, and the beach, come near to us. Come near when all we see is darkness. We’re sitting on the boat all night and we believe we have nothing to eat. We tried and we didn’t catch the fish. Thankfully, you’re already been working the meal, so we won’t go without. We can be real with you because every day we struggle between dark and light; help us to live in this gray and look to you on the shore. Amen.
