My earliest service of the year happened recently with the 6am service on the beach on Easter day. As the S-U-N rose over the horizon, we celebrated that the S-O-N has already risen from the grave. All along the beach, groups from different churches were doing the same thing – Easter was a special morning.

A few days after Jesus’ resurrection, he himself was on the beach of the Sea of Galilee early in the morning while seven of his disciples had returned to what they knew before they were devastated by his death – fishing. Jesus was on the shore with a fire already burning to cook bread and fish. (See John chapter 21 if you’d like to read more). The risen Jesus wasn’t some sort of ghostly apparition – he ate food and was tangible, showing that his resurrection was real and physical, not just something psychological.

There’s something else we can learn from this chapter. Even though the disciples were experienced fishermen they had had an unproductive night: they had fished all night and caught nothing. But Jesus had something better in store for them (I expect at least some of them thought ‘What does he know?’ when an apparent stranger on the shore shouted fishing advice). When they fished the way he suggested they landed a huge catch of 153 large fish. With Jesus, we always get more than we bargained for.