Friday of Easter Week, April 10, 2026
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Breakfast with Jesus
Jesus said to them,
“Come and have breakfast.”
None of the disciples dared ask him,
“Who are you?”
They knew it was the Lord.
Jesus came,
took the bread and gave it to them,
and did the same with the fish.
Chris, Marc and I were camping at Moraine View State Park near LeRoy, Illinois with the youth group from Vineyard. We were pretty scrunched in the tents. As it got dark the guys in the campsite next to us started drinking beer. They got louder and louder. They were getting on my nerves; I was, after all, chaperone for a bunch of Christian kids. What would they think? What would their parents think?
Actually, the kids were asleep. Kids can sleep anywhere. The hard ground was a whole lot harder for me than for them. I was already old (over 40 at the time!) and spoiled by too many soft beds. I could hear the couple who led the group every week grousing in the next tent.
A clap of thunder interrupted their complaining. Within a very few minutes the skies opened. The lake we were camping beside seemed to rise up and meet us. This was too much for the boys with the beer; they threw their tent in the car and took off. Hallelujah! Let the water rise, let the floods come!
We weren’t in watertight Eureka tents, though, and pretty soon the ground was soaked and our tent floor was too. The canvas rooftop sagged full of water, and when I pushed on it and the water fell, it quickly found its way inside along the not-so-level ground. By now the kids were waking up.
Wet sleeping bags, scary thunder, no room to move. “Let’s pray guys!” I shouted. So we prayed the Lord’s Prayer. A couple of times. The rain poured down. We sat on our wet sleeping bags, eyes closed, and while sleep came and went, the night wore on. In the early morning hours the rain slowed and stopped. The silence was wet and sweet.
Why is this such a great memory for me (and perhaps for all of us)? Why this weather disaster of a trip, when so many other camping trips with crisp clear air, sunsets to knock your eyes out, the romantic sound of a thousand birds singing at sunrise, gentle lake lapping at the shore … they don’t stick at all in my memory like the Night of the Living Flood.
It could have been breakfast. Tasting so so good after the miserable night. Adults and kids equally exhausted, ready for anything normal. Jesus woke us up to the smell of fish (bacon?) on the fire, we knew we were still alive, and our new day began.
It had to be breakfast. It had to be Jesus.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
O TASTE AND SEE that the Lord is good;
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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