3 Easter

 April 19, 2026

 

Luke 24.13-35

 

 +Back in 2019, when I became the Rector of St. Stephen’s after serving as Priest-in-Charge for many years, Vonnie and Thom Marubbio gave me this.

 

This drawing.

 

It is a drawing by the French artist Jean Louis Forain called “Apre l’Apparition” or “After the Apparition.”

 

It is an amazing piece of art!

 

In it, we see the two disciples on one side of a table, one seated, one kneeling in awe.

 

On the table is a broken loaf of bread.

 

And across from them is an empty chair.

 

One of the disciples looks in amazement at the empty chair, a glow on his face, both of them realizing who is was that had just been sitting and breaking bread with them. 

 

I love that piece of art (I look at it every day), and I love what it represents.

 

I find myself looking at it at times and just sitting in silence in its perfect simplicity.  

 This holy moment at Emmaus.

 I love the story of Emmaus.

 I love the story because it’s a story that begins not in joy, not in triumph, not in the basking Easter glow.

 It begins in disappointment.

These disciples are leaving Jerusalem.

 They’re leaving the place where everything had happened.

 They’re leaving the place where everything fell apart.

 Jesus, the one whom they have followed and loved and believed was the Messiah, the Son of God, was been betrayed, and tortured and killed.

 They have failed him.

 They were not there for him at the end.

 They too fled in fear, like the other followers.

 So, here they are, leaving the scene of their loss.

 And as they do, they are leaving hope.

 They had hoped.

 They even say that, “We had hoped…”

 I think that might one of the saddest sentence in all of Scripture.

 They had hoped Jesus was the one.

 They had hoped this finally meant something.

 They had hoped death wouldn’t have the last word.

 We’ve been there.

 We know this feeling.

 We have walked that road of Emmaus ourselves.

 Sometimes many times.

And so here they are.

 Hope has died.

 There are in despair.

 They are confused.

 They are grieving. 

 They are trying to make sense of a world that no longer holds together the way it used to.

 Again, we know this.

 We have known disappointment in our lives.

 We have known loss and fear and crushing despair.

 We too have hoped that faith would feel more certain than this.

 And what do we do in those moments?

 We walk.

 Sometimes we just have to walk away.

 We walk carrying our pain, our disappointment, our confusion, and that strange absence of God.

 Then, sometimes happens to them.

 Without announcement, without spectacle, Jesus is just there.

 He comes alongside them.

 Not in glory.

 Not in blazing resurrection light.

 He comes as a stranger.

 And they don’t recognize him.

 There’s sometimes so honest and weirdly beautiful about that.

 They don’t recognize him. 

 The fact of the matter is: this is exactly how Christ often comes to us.

 Christ just appears in our midst.

 And we don’t recognize Christ.

 In our Gospel, Christ listens to them.

 He asks them questions.

 He lets them tell their sad story.

 He lets them speak.

 He doesn’t interrupt.

 (Which, as you’ve heard me say recently, I think is an epidemic right now in our society. We interrupt each other. He don’t listen to each other.  We don’t hear each other).

 Jesus doesn’t correct them, at least not right away.

 He receives their grief, he receives their confusion, he receives even their incomplete understanding.

 There’s something so beautiful about that.

 And that is important for us today.

 This is how God works in our lives as well.  

 God is not afraid of our unfinished thoughts.

 God is not threatened by our disappointment.

 God does not require us to have everything sorted out before drawing near.

 But then, in our story, somewhere along that road, something begins to shift.

 Jesus opens the Scriptures to them.

 He reframes the story for them.

 He doesn’t erase their pain.

 Instead, he places it inside something larger.

 Something that includes suffering, yes.

 But that doesn’t end in suffering.  

 And how do they respond?

 They say, later, “Were not our hearts burning within us…?”

 Burning.

 Not exploding.

 Not suddenly certain.

 But burning.

 A slow, steady warmth.

 The kind of warmth that you almost miss if you’re not paying attention.

 The kind of warmth you could easily explain away at some point.

 To me, that’s often how resurrection happens.

 It’s not about certainty.

 It’s more like a  flicker.

 A stirring within us.

 A sense that maybe, just maybe, all is not lost.

 But even then, they still don’t recognize him.

 Not until they get to the table.

 They sit.

 He takes bread.

 He blesses it.

 He breaks it.

 He gives it to them.

 Just like we do here at the Eucharist.

 And when the bread is broken, in that one holy moment, something amazing happens!

 This scene from the illustration happens.

 Their eyes are opened.

It didn’t happen on the road.

It didn’t happen in the conversation.

 It didn’t happen in the talking and the explaining and the discourse.

 It happened without words.

 In the breaking of the bread.

 They came to know him not by explanation, but by participation.

 Not by argument, but by gift.

 They recognize him in the act that has always defined him.

 Self-giving love.

 And in that one instant, without one other word, he simply vanishes.

 And they are left, staring, the glow of his presence still fresh on their faces.

 Now, I know, it sounds at first kind of rude.

 He just leaves.

 Without one more word.

 No good bye.

 No so long.

 But the important thing to remember is this.

 He’s not gone.

 He has simply shifted.

 No longer in front of them as something tangible to be seen.

No, now he is within them,

 He is a presence that stays with them.

 And they, in turn, turn back.

 They go back to Jerusalem, that place where so much pain and disappointment happened.

 They walk the same path that they had earlier walked in sorrow and disappointment.

 But now that road has been transformed into a road of joy and life.

 See.

 That’s resurrection.

 That too is Easter.

 So, where are we on this road right now?

 Because I can tell you, I have been in every part of that road.

 I’ve walked that road in disappointment.

 I’ve walked that road in loss.

 I’ve walked that road in sadness.

 But I’ve also walked that road realizing that all is not loss.

 I’ve walked that road in joy too.

 I’ve walked that road rejoicing in  resurrection and renewal.

 And the amazing happiness that comes after so much loss.

 This story is our story in so many ways.

 As we come forward to this table, we realize that what happened then, in Emmaus, happens here again and again every times we celebrate the Eucharist.

 Resurrection and recognition happens every time we gather, every times the bread is taken and blessed and  broken, and given.

 Resurrection happens in something so ordinary it almost escapes notice.

 In something so simple it can be missed entirely.

 It is in this way that Christ truly makes himself known.

 Not by overwhelming us.

 Not by forcing belief.

 But simply by giving himself again and again to us.

 In a tangible way.

 In something so simple we can hold it in our hands.

 And having done so, once we have been fed, we are sent back out.

 Back into that world that still doesn’t quite make sense.

 Back into lives that are still marked by loss and disappointment.

 Back onto roads where Christ walks with us, often unrecognized.

 But now we know.

 Or at least, we are beginning to know.

 He is here.

Right here.

 With us.

 The story is not over.

 In the breaking of the bread, we find a presence that death cannot undo.

 And that is enough to cause us to turn around.

 It is enough to cause us to go back.

 It is enough to move us to say, even if our voices tremble.

 Alleluia. The Lord is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Easter

 

April 5, 2026

+ Although it might not feel like it out there, with all this beautiful fresh snow—ugh!—it is Easter.

 But let’s face it:

 Easter happens no matter what it may be like outside.

 Mary Magdalene, as we hear in our Gospel reading for today, comes to the tomb in the dark, in the cold early morning.

 That’s an interesting detail.

 She comes while it’s still dark.

 Because we need to remember—Easter does not begin in sunlight.

 It begins in confusion.

 It begins in grief.

 In the half-light where nothing yet makes sense.

 Mary comes to that tomb not coming expecting a miracle.

 She coming there to mourn.

 She comes to place sealed up.

 She comes to place that is a final place, a place of burial and disposition.

 She comes to a place where the story, as far as she is concerned, is over.

 But what does she find?

 She finds the stone rolled away.

 Even that’s not enough for her.

 She’s still confused.

 Who wouldn’t be?

 We, like her, would instantly imagine the worst.

 Someone has stolen the body.

 She is prepared, as we would be, for one more terrible loss on top of another terrible loss.

 I think many of us understand this well.

 We’ve been there.

 Few of us, I think, are comfortable with certainty.

 But we certainly understand that feeling of things being away taken from us.

 And when it happens, we try to make sense of it.

 What’s amazing about Easter is that it does not deny us that place.

 In fact, it begins there, in that place of loss and uncertainty and fear and darkness and cold.

 The Resurrection of Jesus is not simply some reversal of death.

 It’s not simply a return to the way things were before.

 It is something so much stranger than that.

 When Mary finally sees Jesus, what happens?

 She doesn’t even recognize him.

 Not at first.

 She mistakes him for the gardener.

 I think there’s something beautiful in that little detail.

 She thinks he’s a gardener.

 And maybe, in some way, he actually is.

 After all, in the resurrection, what is it Jesus does?

 He shows us what God has always done.

 God tends.

 God brings life out of the ground.

 God brings something new out of what seemed dead and finished.

 But it’s here, in this moment between Jesus the gardener and faithful Mary that everything happens.

 Everything changes.

 Jesus doesn’t explain anything to Mary.

 He does not give her some theological lecture.

 He doesn’t preach her a sermon.

 He doesn’t proselytize.  

 He simply says one word.

 One very important word.

 Her name.

 “Mary.”

 And in that moment, with that one word, everything changes.

 Because resurrection is not just an idea.

 It is a relationship between us and the one who has been resurrected.

 Resurrection is being recognized, and called, and claimed.

 Resurrection is about being known—truly and fully known.

 Even when everything has seemingly died around us.

 And in that moment of being known, of our name being called, we know what true resurrection is.

 This is what Easter is all about.

 That death doesn’t win.

 It doesn’t  get the last word.

 Life wins.

 Life triumphs.

 Again and again and again.

 We see it not only today, on Easter.

 We see it in the little deaths in our own lives every day.

 We see it when hope seems dead.

 When certainly seems dead.

 When love we thought would last forever ends.

 We don’t get the final say.

 God does.

 Easter shows us that God has entered into death.

 Not to avoid it.

 Not to soften it.

 But to break it open from the inside.

 And what comes out that broken-open death is not a restoration of the way things were before.

 But rather something completely and radically new.

 Something so incredible we couldn’t even imagine it.

 But let’s not be naïve about it either.

 The resurrection doesn’t magically wipe away everything that happened before.

 The resurrection doesn’t erase our wounds.

 When Jesus appears to the disciples, he still bears those wounds.

 His hand are still pierced.

 He has a wound in still in his side.

 These are not healed.

 They’re not hidden.

 They’re transformed.

 They’re transfigured.

 Easter doesn’t pretend that suffering did not happen.

 It simply states that suffering isn’t the end of the story.

 So if we’re feeling joy today, that’s Easter.

 But if we’re here with darkness on our hearts and worries in our souls, if depression and anxiety still plague us, that is Easter for us too.

 If we come here with doubt or grief or broken relationships in our lives, Easter is part of all of this too.

 Resurrection awaits all of us no matter where we are and no matter what we’re enduring.

 Christ is alive.

 He is alive in us.

 Not as some vague idea.

 But as a real Presence.

 Calling us each by name.

 By our own name.

 And in doing so, Christ restores us.

 Christ makes us whole.

 This is the good news of Easter—

 the stone has been rolled away.

 The tomb is empty.

 Death has been harrowed.

 And the risen Christ stands among us still, calling each of us by name, and leading us out of the darkness into an incredible new life.

 Realizing that causes to respond how?

 We respond by saying,

 Alleluia!

 Christ is risen!

 Christ is risen indeed!

 Alleluia!