To GOD, land is important.

He makes covenants with His people involving land and their offspring (Abraham).

He gives them the land He has promised (Joshua, Caleb, etc).

He tells them to build altars of remembrance (Jacob, Joshua, etc.).

He exiles them from land (the Prophets).

He brings them back to land from which he exiles them (the Prophets again).

He calls them from the bountiful, lush land of Bethsaida, reminiscent to first century Jews of the lush Nile Delta of Egypt, and speaks to them in groups of 50 and 100 in the desert hills North of the Sea of Galilee as he feeds them miraculously, hearkening their hearts and ours, to Moses.

This.is.an.endless.list.

But land is not significant outside of its connection to His people, both of the old covenant (the Jews) and the new (the gentiles AKA everyone else). And the LORD loves to speak to His people in places on this earth that call to mind moments where He has been faithful to them. Ever has and always shall He speak this way.

It was near this place on the Sea of Galilee pictured above (accounting for change in the water level and the general vagaries of history) that Jesus first called some of his disciples, the young bumbling, passionate, and endearing Peter among them (see Matthew 4 and Luke 5).

And it would have also been on this spot that Jesus (in John 21), the Risen LORD, Champion over Sin AND Death, Kicker-of-Sufferings-Teeth, Son of GOD and Son of Man, forgiver of sins, would have revealed Himself again to the discouraged and broken young men who had returned to their nets... would have appeared unrecognizable to their sorrowful eyes... and they would have obeyed as this stranger urged them to put down into the Sea of Galilee those same nets they had abandoned years before to follow Him... and seen those nets filled with fish once again...

... and they shared anxious, excited glances as they rowed back to shore, and "something burned within them" as they ate around that fire, a fire I would most like to have been at with this strange wanderer, but they couldn't.put.a.finger on it.

But THERE on the shore as the stranger began to speak while they ate the fish he had prepared, there where He had first called them did it dawn dawn on those materially poor, young, discouraged, leaderless fisherman in a country oppressed by cruel Rome, destined to die humbly for their King, THERE... 

Jesus looked upon Peter, flawed and the dearer for those flaws, Peter, and asked him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" And three times was Peter asked, and I'll wager through tears many and glad did he answer each time... and there was he restored to the endless love of a Good Father through the grace of His matchless Son, Jesus Christ.

For we serve a perfect GOD, who sacrificed for us His only Son, a sacrificial length to which this newly minted father cannot fathom nor dream of deserving.

You see, Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. I was lost.

To a humanity in need of rescue (a truth no optimist can escape), He who would claim to be GOD on this earth need be interested in and master of rescue and redemption.

For Peter, and for the worst of sinners, and for me, JESUS. IS.

"Man looks upon man and says, "You are who you are." Jesus looks upon man and says, "You are not who you are, but who you may become." - A.W. Tozer