It’s one of the last things He says before He leaves. The disciples have gathered on a mountain in Galilee — Matthew tells us that some worshipped when they saw Him, and some doubted, which I find quietly comforting, the idea that both responses were present in the same moment, in the same group of people who had walked with Him for three years. And then Jesus comes to them and says something that was never going to make sense by the world’s logic: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Twelve people. Mostly fishermen. No platform, no infrastructure, no resources beyond what they carried. And He tells them to go to all nations — not some nations, not the nearby ones, not the ones that seem receptive — all of them. Every corner. Every people group. Every language and culture and geography on earth.

And then He says the thing that makes the impossible feel possible: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The commission isn’t given without the promise. The sending comes with the presence. He doesn’t say go and figure it out — He says go, and I will be with you in the going.

Why Mango Sago?

This dish came to me slowly and then all at once. I was thinking about the Great Commission and what it looks like visually — this idea of something spreading outward in every direction, reaching every corner, different people carrying the same message in different ways — and I kept coming back to this bowl of mango sago with its big and small tapioca pearls suspended throughout. Because that’s exactly what it is. The large pearls represent the leaders, the ones who go first, the ones who anchor the movement. The small pearls are the followers, the disciples made by disciples, spreading further and further through the base until you can’t take a spoonful without encountering both. Together they fill the whole bowl. Neither works without the other.

And then there’s the mango itself — bright, unapologetically joyful, impossible to contain. You blend it into the base so the flavour runs through everything, and you scatter it across the top as well, and it turns up in every bite regardless of where you dip your spoon. That felt right for a message that was always meant to be everywhere.

Other Resurrection inspired recipes:

Recipe

Serves 4 to 6

For the sago

• ½ cup large tapioca pearls

• ½ cup small tapioca pearls

For the mango base

• 3 cups mango flavoured kefir (plain kefir or Yakult works — adjust sweetness accordingly)

• 1 ripe mango, peeled and roughly chopped

• 1 cup ice

For the bowl

• 1 can evaporated milk

• 3 tbsp condensed milk, adjusted to taste

• 3 ripe mangoes, cut into small cubes

• 1 cup mango jelly, cubed

• 1 cup nata de coco

• 1 cup ice

Method

1. Cook the large pearls first. Boil the ½ cup large tapioca pearls in plenty of water, stirring occasionally, for around 30 to 40 minutes until fully translucent with no white centre. Drain, rinse under cold water, and sit them in a bowl of cold water so they don’t stick together.

2. Cook the small pearls separately. Bring a fresh pot of water to the boil and cook the ½ cup small tapioca pearls for 10 to 15 minutes, again until fully translucent. Drain, rinse, and keep in cold water alongside the large pearls. Don’t combine them yet — cooking them separately gives you control over both.

3. Blend the mango base. Add the 3 cups kefir, 1 chopped mango, and 1 cup ice to a blender and blitz until completely smooth. Taste — if you’re using plain kefir or Yakult, add a little condensed milk here to bring up the sweetness before you build the rest of the bowl around it.

4. Build the bowl. In a large bowl, stir together the evaporated milk and 3 tbsp condensed milk. Drain both sizes of tapioca and fold them in gently. Pour in the blended mango base and stir to combine, then add the cubed mangoes, mango jelly, and nata de coco and fold everything together so the toppings stay intact. Add the remaining cup of ice and stir through.

5. Serve. Spoon into bowls or tall glasses, making sure each one gets a good mix of large and small pearls throughout. Finish with extra mango cubes on top and serve immediately while cold.

A Closing Thought

What I keep coming back to in Matthew 28 is the order of things. He doesn’t say believe more, or prepare more, or wait until you feel ready — He says go. The movement comes before the feeling of being equipped for it, and the promise of His presence is given for the journey, not as a reward at the end of it. The disciples who heard those words on the mountain were the same ones who had doubted moments earlier, and He commissioned them anyway. That’s the shape of the Great Commission — it was never reserved for the ones who had it all figured out.

The large pearls go first, and the small pearls follow, and together they spread through every corner of the bowl until the whole thing is full. Make this for people you love. Share it widely. Let it be a little abundant and a little joyful, because the message it carries always was.

Jesus loves you — and so do I.

Scripture: John 21:1-6:

'1Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee.#21:1 Greek Tiberias It happened this way: 2Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus#21:2 Thomas (Aramaic) and Didymus (Greek) both mean twin.), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3“I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 5He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. 6He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. '

There’s a moment in John 21 that I keep returning to. It’s post-resurrection, the disciples have gone back to the water, back to what they know. Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, seven of them out in the boat fishing through the night but they catch nothing. Then morning comes and a figure appears on the shore. They don’t recognise Him at first. He calls out to them “Have you caught anything?” and when they say no, He tells them to cast the net on the right side of the boat. They do. And the nets overflow.

One hundred and fifty-three fish. Scholars have puzzled over that number for centuries — some say it represents every species of fish known at the time, a symbol of all nations gathered in, others say it’s simply John’s way of telling you that they counted, that they couldn’t believe it, that they stood there in the boat and counted every single one. What strikes me most though isn’t the number. It’s what happens next. They haul the net to shore and Jesus is already there — charcoal burning, fish on the grill, bread waiting. He doesn’t need their catch. He provides before they arrive. “Come and have breakfast,” He says. The miracle wasn’t just the fish. It was the table He had already set.

Why Fish Pie?

I could have made ceviche, a bouillabaisse, a whole roasted sea bass, something technically impressive. But John 21 didn’t call for any of that. It called for something that felt like abundance gathered together, multiple fish, many hands an one dish. A great fish pie is, at its core, a theology of enough.

Other Resurrection inspired recipes:

Recipe

Serves 4–6

For the seafood

• 300g skinless salmon fillet

• 200g smoked haddock, undyed

• 200g cod or halibut

• 200g raw king prawns, shelled and deveined

• 200ml whole milk

• 100ml dry white wine

• 1 bay leaf

• 3 black peppercorns

For the béchamel

• 40g unsalted butter

• 40g plain flour

• 200ml reserved poaching liquor, strained

• 100ml double cream

• 2 leek, finely sliced and sweated in butter until soft

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

• Zest of 1 lemon

• 1 tbsp finely chopped tarragon

• 2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

• Salt and white pepper

For the mash

• 1kg Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and evenly cut

• 100ml warm whole milk

• 75g unsalted butter

• 50g Gruyère, finely grated

• 1 egg yolk

• Fresh nutmeg, salt and white pepper

Optional but worth it

• 1 leek, finely sliced and sweated in butter until soft

• Salmon roe and chives to garnish

• A few drops of truffle oil through the mash

Method

1. Poach the fish. Place the 300g salmon, 200g haddock, and 200g cod in a wide pan with 200ml milk, 100ml white wine, the bay leaf, and peppercorns. Bring to the gentlest simmer — occasional bubbles, never boiling — and poach for 6 to 7 minutes. The fish should be just barely cooked through since it will finish in the oven. Lift out carefully with a slotted spoon, strain and reserve exactly 200ml of the poaching liquor, and once the fish is cool enough to handle, flake it into generous chunks rather than fine pieces.

2. Make the béchamel. Melt 40g butter in a saucepan over medium heat, add 40g flour and stir for 1 to 2 minutes until the paste smells faintly nutty. Gradually whisk in the 200ml reserved poaching liquor, then add 100ml double cream and bring to a gentle simmer for 3 to 4 minutes until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Stir in 1 tsp Dijon mustard, the lemon zest, tarragon, and parsley, then season with salt and white pepper. Fold in the sweated leeks here if you’re using them.

3. Assemble the filling. Gently fold the flaked fish and 200g raw prawns into the béchamel — the prawns go in raw so they don’t overcook in the oven. Pour everything into a buttered ovenproof dish and set aside while you make the mash.

4. Make the mash. Boil the 1kg potatoes in well-salted water until completely tender, drain, and leave to steam-dry for a few minutes. Mash or rice them, then work in 75g butter and 100ml warm milk in stages — don’t rush this or overwork it. Stir in 50g Gruyère, 1 egg yolk, a grating of fresh nutmeg, salt, and white pepper. It should be smooth and just firm enough to hold its shape.

5. Top and bake. Preheat your oven to 190°C. Spoon or pipe the mash over the filling, starting from the edges and working inward to seal the sides. Drag a fork across the surface to create ridges — these catch the heat and turn golden. Dot with a little extra butter and a final scatter of Gruyère, then bake for 25 to 30 minutes until deeply golden on top and bubbling at the edges.

6. Serve and enjoy! Rest for five minutes before serving and enjoy!

A Closing Thought

When Jesus said “cast your nets on the right side,” He wasn’t giving a fishing lesson. He was demonstrating something He’d been saying all along, that in His presence, there is more than enough, and that the lack the disciples experienced through the night wasn’t a verdict, it was just the darkness before the morning. He didn’t wait for them to arrive with something to offer — He met them empty-handed, tired, having caught nothing, and He fed them anyway. There’s something worth sitting with in that. We bring what we have, we cast our nets, we show up — and He was already there before us, with the table set and the charcoal burning, ready to say come and eat.

Make this pie for someone you love. Gather around it and let it be a little abundant, a little extravagant, a little more than you strictly need — because that’s kind of the whole point.

Jesus loves you — and so do I.

Scripture: Mark 16:1-8

‘1When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” 4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ” 8Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

They went in the dark, and they went with purpose. Mark tells this story with a kind of plain, unhurried simplicity that I think is part of why it lands so hard that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James bought spices, rose early, and made their way toward the tomb while the sun was barely beginning to lift, asking each other the only practical question left to ask: “Who will roll away the stone for us?” There’s something about that question that I find deeply human. They weren’t in denial, they weren’t expecting a miracle, they were just two women who loved someone and were walking toward the hardest possible task with the only thing they had left — the willingness to show up and do it.

The spices they carried weren’t symbolic. They were practical, purposeful, and in the ancient world, genuinely expensive. In first-century Jewish burial tradition, aromatic spices — cinnamon, myrrh, aloe — were brought to anoint the body, to honour the dead with fragrance when there was nothing else left to offer. This was grief that still had work to do, love that refused to be inactive even in the face of the irreversible.

And then they arrived and the stone was already moved. Mark doesn’t slow down for the drama of it, doesn’t give you a cinematic pause — the tomb is open, there is a young man in white sitting inside, and he says the most quietly extraordinary sentence in human history: “He is not here. He has risen.” The spices they carried, the ones they’d bought and prepared and brought through the dark — they were no longer needed. The stone they’d been worrying about the whole walk over was already gone. Everything they had brought to that morning turned out to be unnecessary, not because their love was wrong or their preparation was wasted, but because what they were walking toward had already been overtaken by something so much greater than death that death simply wasn’t there anymore.

Why Horchata?

I’ve been sitting with this passage for weeks trying to figure out what dish could carry it, and the answer kept coming back to horchata and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The spices the two Marys brought were cinnamon, myrrh, aloe - warm, ancient, fragrant and horchata is built entirely on that register, with cinnamon as its essential backbone, the flavour the whole drink is oriented around. There’s something in that overlap that felt too right to ignore.

But it’s also white. Strikingly, almost unnervingly white and that matters because white is the colour Mark reaches for to describe the figure in the tomb. “A young man dressed in a white robe.” Some translations render it as dazzling white is the visual signature of this entire passage. It’s the colour of the angel, of the linen burial cloths left folded behind, of the early morning light just catching the horizon as the women approached. Horchata holds that colour in a way that no other drink quite does. it’s not translucent, it’s not pale, it’s genuinely, quietly, startlingly white, and when you pour it over ice on an Easter morning it looks like exactly the thing it’s supposed to represent.

Other Resurrection inspired recipes:

Recipe

Makes approximately 1.5 litres — serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

• 1 cup long-grain white rice, uncooked

• 1½ cups blanched almonds

• 1 cinnamon stick — Mexican canela if you can find it

• 4 cups filtered water, for soaking

• 2 cups cold water, for blending

• 1½–2 cups whole milk or evaporated milk (oat or almond milk works too)

• 1/2 cup of Condensesd milk

• ½ cup granulated sugar, to taste

• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

• A pinch of fine salt

• Ground cinnamon and a cinnamon stick to serve

• A lot of ice

Method

1. Soak overnight. Combine the rice, almonds, cinnamon stick, and 4 cups of water in a large bowl, cover, and leave for at least 6 hours (overnight is better). Don’t skip this step because this is where all the flavour is developed

2. Blend. Remove the cinnamon stick and blend everything else — rice, almonds, soaking water on full power for 2 to 3 minutes. Longer than it seems like you need but the finer the blend, the silkier the drink.

3. Strain twice. Pour through a cheese cloth over fine-mesh sieve or nut milk bag into a large pitcher. Let it drip through and squeeze out of the cheese cloth. it should be fine enough to not pass through

4. Add everything else and chill. Stir in the cold water, milk, condensed milk, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Taste and adjust. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

5. Store Serve and ENJOY. Store in a large jug or in a glass container and refrigerate for up to a week. To serve pour over a generous amount of ice and dust with ground cinnamon. Add a cinnamon stick if you’re feeling it.

Jesus loves you — and so do I.

In Eden, meals were sacred. Adam and Eve didn’t pray for provision, they awoke into it. “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” (Genesis 1:29) Every branch was heavy with life, and every bite was an act of worship. To eat was to receive, to taste the generosity of the Creator.

But when sin entered the world, the table changed. What was once a place of gratitude became a place of grasping. Adam and Eve took from the tree that God had set apart (Genesis 3:6), choosing consumption over communion. Humanity began to eat apart from God rather than with Him. Yet even after the fall, God’s generosity did not end. The garden may have been closed, but the table of provision remained open.

From that moment forward, Scripture tells a story of a God who keeps feeding His people, not just to sustain their bodies, but to restore their souls. When the Israelites wandered through the wilderness, God rained down manna from heaven (Exodus 16:4). He could have spoken food into their hands once and for all, but instead He sent it daily, teaching them dependence. “Do not keep any of it until morning,” Moses instructed, because God wanted His people to trust that tomorrow, He would feed them again (Exodus 16:19–20).

This rhythm of hunger and provision became a form of worship. It was never about food alone, but about relationship. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Deuteronomy 8:3) The same God who satisfied their physical hunger was teaching them about the hunger of the heart, the deeper craving only His presence could fill.

When Jesus came, He carried this same truth into His ministry. He didn’t avoid the table He made it His pulpit. He dined with tax collectors (Matthew 9:10), shared meals with sinners (Luke 15:2), and accepted the hospitality of those the world considered unclean (Luke 7:36–50). Every meal became a message. Through bread and wine, fish and grain, He revealed what the Kingdom of God truly looked like, boundless with love and sincerity.

His first miracle happened at a wedding feast when He turned water into wine (John 2:1–11). Later, He fed five thousand people with just five loaves and two fish (Matthew 14:13–21). And on the night before His death, He chose a meal to reveal the meaning of His sacrifice. He took the bread and said, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” He lifted the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:19–20)

The Last Supper was not an ending, but a restoration. It was Eden redeemed. Humanity had once fallen by eating apart from God and now salvation was being offered through eating with Him. The table that had once divided creation from its Creator became the place where grace was served.

Even after His resurrection, Jesus continued this pattern. On the shore of Galilee, He appeared to His disciples and said, “Come and have breakfast.” (John 21:12) The risen Son of God chose to reveal His glory not with thunder or spectacle, but with a meal.

From Genesis to Revelation, the story remains the same: God feeds. He nourishes. He invites. And one day, this divine story of food will culminate at “the wedding supper of the Lamb.” (Revelation 19:9)

Food, in God’s design, is never just physical. It carries His fingerprints, His creativity, His generosity, and His love. Every meal is a reminder of His provision. Every table is a place of encounter. And every bite, when received with gratitude, becomes a small taste of eternity.

In a world that eats for pleasure or escape, God calls us to eat for remembrance to come back to the table where heaven meets earth. Because the truth is this: He still feeds His people. Not just with bread, but with Himself — the true Bread of Life. (John 6:35)