Easter 3, 2026
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
There are a few Sundays in the Church year when the best sermon following the Gospel is simply to point at the Altar, and sit down. This is one of those Sundays. “He had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” Point at the Altar. Any questions?
But, let’s start with this. “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” What kept them from recognizing him? I think it might be helpful to think about how anesthesia works here. Doctors give you anesthesia to dull your sense of pain, so that they can do difficult things. The anesthesia is what allows them to do what has to be done to, hopefully, make you better. To heal you.
In a similar way—for our own self-preservation—grief acts like an anesthetic. The pain of deep loss is sometimes shut out by shutting down. The process of mourning can make us oblivious to what is around us, so that we might have time to be healed.
In today’s Gospel reading, two disciples are walking down the road, talking about the awful things that have happened in the past few days. Their friend and beloved Rabbi has been brutally executed and buried in a tomb. And they have heard rumors of his rising from the dead. And they are terribly confused and heartbroken as they walk together on the road.
And, suddenly, a stranger appears to them, and starts walking with them. (And this is where the anesthesia comes in.) “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” The very person they are talking about, the resurrected Christ of God is suddenly walking with them, the one they were just talking about, and they do not know it is Jesus because “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”
They’ve been kept from seeing what is obvious to us. They have been “put under,” in a sense by grief, and they don’t recognize the person who is talking to them. As they are walking together, the disciples are able to very clearly recite the expectations they had of Jesus. It’s almost a credal statement when you look at it:
Cleopas says, “Jesus of Nazareth, was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. It is now the third day since these things took place.”
It’s a great opening for a creed, right? But it’s missing the good parts. It uses “hope” in a past tense: we had hoped. And it proclaims the tomb empty, but that does nothing to make hope present tense. They’re confused, and disappointed, and under the anesthesia of grief. They are being prevented from seeing that it is Jesus they are telling all this to.
And it seems kind of unfair that Jesus says to them “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” That’s like the doctor taunting you for not noticing that she is performing surgery on you. Can the disciples be blamed for not knowing that it is Jesus when, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”? It’s not their fault they don’t recognize him!
But a closer look reveals that Jesus is not taunting them for not recognizing him on the road. No, what Jesus is talking about is their inability to connect the dots. To close the deal. They’ve got the setup perfectly, they have all the pieces, but they’re missing the main point. When Cleopas rattles off that narrative creed thing, he stops at the grave, and that is why he uses “hoped” in the past tense, saying, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” All the clues are laid out in front of them, but their grief stops them from seeing the crucial connection. In a sense, they don’t believe the resurrection because they didn’t expect the pain and suffering of the Messiah.
The disciples were under the impression that Jesus cannot be the Messiah because he has suffered and died, rather than ride into Jerusalem on a white stallion. These disciples, like many, figure that the Messiah cannot suffer and die and then still be the one in whom they had hoped. And that is why Jesus asks them, “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"
And so now, under the anesthesia of not recognizing the resurrected Jesus, Jesus will do what needs to be done. He begins with Moses and all the prophets, and shows them how the scriptures point to exactly what has happened. Jesus can explain to them why he is the answer to their hopes. Why he is the one to redeem Israel. And, because they do not recognize Jesus, they can take all this in, without the distraction of the resurrection. Because of the anesthesia, right?
They’re catching on, but they still don’t see Jesus. They can tell something is happening as he talks to them (they say that their hearts were burning within them), but the one talking is still a stranger in their eyes. Still the only one in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what has happened these past few days. And then they come to the place where the disciples are planning to stay the night, Jesus acts like he’s going to walk on. They plead with him to stay the night and he agrees.
So, they all go inside, and they sit down at a table together. And then . . . “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” You’ve heard that around, right? As in, every Sunday morning, right? At the table with friends, blessed the bread and broke and gave it to them. Yes, that’s familiar, because we’ve heard it before. But this part is different:
Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. Isn’t that the strangest thing? It’s like as long as they just think he’s some stranger who hasn’t heard about what has happened, he is with them physically. As soon as they recognize him to be Jesus, in the breaking of the bread, he disappears . . . .
Now granted, it sounds a little trippy, but it’s almost as if the bread becomes his body, isn’t it? They can see Jesus in the breaking of the bread. They recognize Jesus in the bread.
And when they get back to the other disciples, they tell what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. But there’s an interesting thing that is left unsaid in this whole story.
When Jesus meets the disciples on the road, they are heartbroken and confused. At no point in the story does it say the disciples became happy and understood. At no point does the text say that Jesus made everyone live happily ever after. It’s not as if the presence of Jesus replaces or ignores our sadness and pain.
Jesus comes to meet them on their walk, in the midst of their blinding sorrow and pain. And yet their hearts are burning within them as he opens the scriptures to them. Meeting them where they are; not judging them in their blindness. And in the breaking of the bread, they recognize the risen Lord who has been with them all along. In the breaking of the bread, they recognize Jesus, who has been with them all along.
Jesus does not take away pain and sadness. Jesus introduces hope and comfort. The promise of the resurrection brings hope. The presence of Jesus, made known to us in the bread, brings comfort. Can we have hope while still being sad? Certainly! Can we experience comfort while still being in pain? Most assuredly. And in the bread and wine, the resurrected Christ is made known to us, no matter our present circumstances.
As we heard, the disciples were confused and grieving on their journey. Maybe you have that today as well: some sadness, or worry, or bitterness that acts like an anesthesia, keeping you from hearing clearly the resurrection story. For those disciples, breaking bread with Jesus opened their eyes to see that he was with them, had been completely present with them on their walk, and has indeed been raised from the dead. You and I share their recognition of the Risen One, here today.
I would like you to listen to today’s Collect one more time:
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
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