My favorite resurrection story is the one in which Jesus makes breakfast over a charcoal fire on the beach. He cooks up some fish and calls out to his guys in their boats, “Come Have Breakfast.” They come ashore and taste the love Jesus has for them one more time.
I read this story from the Gospel of John as I officiated a burial service a week ago. The burial was up the North shore of Lake Superior at the Lutsen Cemetery. The day was beautiful with a slight breeze moving through the trees that were just beginning to change colors. The cemetery was tiny and hidden, located just off the road at the bottom of the ski hill. You could see the lake and the surrounding hills.
Jean Skinner’s family gathered there for one more ritual of goodbye. There were 12 people and 6 dogs. Jean deeply loved her family and all their dogs. Jean had raised her three kids as a single mom and that love had been returned to her in so many ways especially in her last years. And the dogs were often her companions at the nursing home.
Jean had gone back to school once her kids where a little older and gotten her master’s degree and PhD at the University of Oregon. And then she taught nutrition at the University of Tennessee for 30 years. Jean knew the importance of sharing meals together and eating the right kinds of food. Her studies of the food eaten by mothers and how this impacted their children’s food choices later show us how we are all deeply connected.
And Jean knew the importance of breakfast. Her kids told me that she would never let them leave the house without it. And Jesus doesn’t travel on before making the one’s he loves breakfast. I think it is his way of saying there is more, there is always more.
After the gospel lesson and a prayer, Jean’s daughter- in-law and granddaughter sang the 23rd Psalm. It was truly beautiful. Then Jean’s family gathered around her casket. Two long moving straps were placed through the wooden handles on the casket, her family held the straps tight and gently lowered her body into the earth.
Someday each of our bodies will be returned to the earth from which we were formed. For now, we tell the stories of people we love around our tables, nurtured by the words and the food. And we hold on tight trusting there is more.
And I trust that Jesus whispered on the Superior shore, “Come have breakfast, Jean”.
