Read: John 21:9-14 NRSV
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
Jesus’ interactions with his disciples are full of miracles that prove he is indeed God: he passes through doors and fills their nets with fish. But his actions and appearance also prove that he is indeed man: his flesh is wounded from the Crucifixion and he prepares bread and fish to eat. This brings us back to what separates Christ from other deities. Through the incarnation he became man, he didn’t wear his humanity like a disguise, like Zeus transforming into a cow. As a man he could eat, be wounded, and die. And that body, the body of God incarnate was resurrected again after three days in the earth. That is why we say Christ is crucified, Christ is resurrected, Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. He didn’t shed his body like a chrysalis after it bore the punishment for our sins.
We use the present perfect tense for the verb “is,” meaning that Christ continues to be crucified, resurrected, and seated at the right hand of the Father, as opposed to he was crucified, resurrected, seated at the right hand of the father and now exists in some different state. The difference is important. I can use the present perfect tense to say that the woman is my wife, and it means something quite different than saying the woman was my wife. Christ’s sacrifice takes on even more significance when we consider that he is crucified. His pain was more than just a bad weekend. Likewise, his resurrection is more significant. He continues to overcome death on our behalf, maybe as regularly as we break bread.
