There’s a stretch of shoreline at Tabgha, on the Sea of Galilee, that doesn’t look like much at first. Mount Arbel rises behind you through the trees. Capernaum is a short walk up the coast. At the water’s edge there’s a flat rock many believe was an ancient dock — a place where fishermen pulled in and cleaned their nets.
Which means it’s very possibly the beach where Jesus first said follow Me to James and John, mending their nets with their father Zebedee.
And it’s almost certainly the beach He came back to when He went looking for Peter. Standing there, our group read John 21 out loud. What struck all of us was how deliberately Jesus went about putting a broken man back together.
The Man Who Was Sure He Was Finished
To feel what happens on that beach, you have to remember what happened before it. Peter had been in the inner circle for three years. At Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus asked who do you say that I am, Peter was the one who said it: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus told him that flesh and blood hadn’t revealed that to him — the Father had.
Near the end, Jesus taught something that must have sounded straightforward at the time: whoever confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Father and the angels. Whoever denies Me before men, I will deny before My Father.
Then came the arrest in Gethsemane. The disciples scattered — strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered — but Peter followed at a distance, into the courtyard of the high priest. He stood there warming himself by a charcoal fire.
A servant girl recognized him. You were with Jesus of Galilee.
I don’t know Him.
Again. I don’t know Him.
A third time. I don’t know the man.
And the rooster crowed.
Luke records that the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Peter went out and wept bitterly.
Think about the timing. The final teaching before graduation was don’t deny Me — and within hours, he had. Three times. And then he had to make the long walk back from Jerusalem to Galilee with John, carrying it the whole way.
We’ve often wondered what that conversation was like. John would’ve said what any good friend says — He’s merciful, He’s patient, He’ll forgive you. And Peter would’ve said what people in that place always say: You don’t understand. You weren’t there. You didn’t see how He looked at me.
“I’m Going Fishing”
That’s how John 21 opens. Peter says it plainly: I’m going fishing.
He’s going back to the old life. The nets he’d dropped three years earlier are still there, and so is the boat, and he’s done. Six other disciples go with him.
They fished all night and caught nothing. When you go back to what you left, it usually doesn’t work anymore — because you’re not that person now.
At daybreak a figure on the shore calls out: Children, have you any food? No. Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you’ll find some.
They do, and the net fills with so many fish they can’t haul it in. John says it first — it is the Lord — and Peter, who is nothing if not himself, throws on his outer garment and jumps into the water rather than wait for the boat.
When they drag the net ashore it holds 153 large fish. John notices that the net didn’t break.
The Second Fire
There on the beach is a charcoal fire, with fish already on it, and bread. Scripture mentions a charcoal fire twice. Once in the courtyard where Peter denied Him. Once here, where Jesus is cooking him breakfast. That isn’t an accident. The restoration is going to be as specific as the failure.
Come and have breakfast, Jesus says. John notes that none of them dared ask who He was, because they knew.
Then, after they’d eaten:
Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?
Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.
Feed My lambs.
Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?
Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.
Tend My sheep.
Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?
The third time, Peter was grieved. Of course he was — he could count. Three denials, three questions.
Lord, You know all things. You know that I love You.
Feed My sheep.
Restoration Comes With Marching Orders
Jesus doesn’t rehearse the failure. He doesn’t extract an apology or make Peter explain himself. He asks one question — do you love Me — and then, each time, He hands him a job.
The restoration isn’t only forgiveness. It’s reinstatement. Three times denied, three times commissioned. And then, at the end, the same two words He’d said on that same shoreline three years earlier: Follow Me.
Peter, being Peter, immediately glances at John and asks, Lord, what about this man? Jesus answers with something every one of us needs: What is that to you? You follow Me.
There’s a book by Pastor Chuck Smith called Why Grace Changes Everything, and in it he makes an observation that fits this beach exactly — the seasons he felt he’d failed most badly were often the seasons God blessed most. Because God’s blessing was never a payment for performance. Our righteousness isn’t ours. It’s Christ’s.
If you’ve ever been certain you’d disqualified yourself, John 21 is your chapter. The risen Lord walked to the shoreline, built a fire, made breakfast, and gave the man who denied Him the keys to feeding His people.
Feed My Sheep
That charge is the reason this ministry exists in the shape it does. When pastors call from Haiti — and they call constantly, usually with a serious problem — the first question back is always the same one: What book of the Bible are you teaching? How many studies this week? How many men are you training?
It sounds blunt. It isn’t meant to dismiss the crisis. It’s because everything else we do rests on whether the sheep are being fed. Ezekiel 34 puts it starkly: woe to the shepherds who feed themselves and don’t feed My flock. Food, water, medical care, construction — those are all real needs and we do our best to keep meeting them. But a church that isn’t being fed the Word can’t stand up under any of it.
Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep. He said it three times, and He hasn’t changed the assignment.
Let Down the Nets
There’s one more thing this shoreline preaches, and it comes from Luke 5.
Jesus tells Peter to launch out into the deep and let down your nets — plural. Peter answers that they’ve worked all night and caught nothing, but at His word, I will let down the net — singular. One net. It filled so full it began to break, and they had to signal the other boat.
That’s what a partial obedience produces. Imagine the full catch.
Years ago on a flight to the Philippines, a friend named Kevin spotted that detail and wouldn’t let it go. He said nets. Peter let down one net. We’ve got to let down the nets. We landed in Manila with an outreach planned and almost nothing to run it with.
Within days, through a conversation that started at a hotel pool, we were sitting in the office of the mayor of Manila. Kevin asked if he could share a verse and read him the account of Nebuchadnezzar — humbled until he understood that God rules in the kingdom of men — and then added that Scripture says the king who judges the poor faithfully will have his throne established.
The mayor asked his secretary to photocopy the page and put it on his desk. Then he asked what we needed. A stage. Seating. Portable toilets. Sound. He arranged a motorcade through the city with loudspeakers announcing the event three days out. He came and spoke at it himself. And when a couple of pallets of the Gospel of John were sitting in the port with no time to clear customs, he cleared them.
We’d gone over with nothing. The nets came in full.
That’s not a formula, and it isn’t a story about our faith. It’s a story about a Lord who says the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few, and who honors people who take Him at His word and let down everything they’ve got.
A Place of Restoration, a Place of Calling
That’s what that shoreline is. Two things at once. It’s where a man who was sure he was finished got breakfast, three questions, and his life’s work back. And it’s where ordinary fishermen first heard follow Me and I’ll make you fishers of men. Restoration and calling, on the same stretch of sand. Jesus walked up and down these shores, and He’s still doing both.
Come Stand in It
Each year Cross to Light brings a group to Israel to tour the land. Learn about the next Israel Bible Tour →
If you want to help feed the sheep — the pastors being trained in Haiti, the churches teaching the Word weekly, the relief that keeps families alive while they hear it — our Monthly Partners are what make that steady.
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