Sermon transcript:
Sometimes when I look at or listen to my oldest child Calvin, I swear I am seeing and hearing my late father-in-law, Jim Saunders. Calvin is tall like his grandfather, has the same quiet, unassuming personality, the same logical, mathematical mind, and even the same turn of phrase, “I suppose.” And they say it the exact same way. You know, when somebody close to us dies, we try hard to remember the peculiar and distinctive things that made them who they were. It’s our way of hanging on to them. People have traits that are peculiarly theirs: a laugh, a walk, a tilt of the head, certain phrases they use. When they’re gone, those are the things we have left — the things that remind us of them.
This comes to mind because I find it fascinating how the two travellers on the road to Emmaus finally recognize their dead friend Jesus — and how long it takes them. The story is almost farcical. These two followers of Jesus are walking along, and pop! — Jesus appears out of nowhere. Then Jesus seems to toy with them, saying something like, “So what are you talking about? Anything interesting happen lately?” You can imagine the two looking at each other thinking, “Boy, is this guy dense.” Cleopas, one of the travellers, responds, “We’re talking about Jesus, who was killed. Have you been living under a rock?” Jesus continues the farce by asking exactly what happened. Then he practically tells them that all the Old Testament scriptures predicting the coming of a messiah are really talking about him. But still — they don’t recognize Jesus. Jesus is walking right beside them, interprets scripture for them, and they don’t see him. The one they loved, the one who was killed, is right there — and they don’t know it. Luke shows us here a deep human problem: God’s presence is near, but we can fail to recognize it. The divine can be hidden even in the familiar.
There are plenty of people today who have trouble recognizing Jesus in Christianity. Sometimes it’s because of blatant distortions — like when political leaders depict themselves as divine figures, or when scripture is twisted to justify violence. The United States’ Secretary of Defense makes a practice of invoking scripture, completely out of context, to explain and justify military adventures.1 At different press briefings, he invokes Psalm 18:37–38:
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them and did not turn back until they were consumed. I struck them down so that they were unable to rise; they fell under my feet.”
Most recently, he invoked 1 Samuel 15:3:
“Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
What mockery of the God of Jesus the Christ. In these moments, Jesus becomes unrecognizable, turned into a mascot of power and conquest rather than the suffering and serving Christ of the Gospels.
Even more subtle, though, is the way the church itself can veil Jesus. Over centuries, layers of language — “Messiah,” “Son of God,” “Lamb of God,” “Savior” — can obscure the person who walked the roads of Galilee teaching love, forgiveness, and humility. To many in our world, Jesus has become a set of religious slogans rather than a living presence. Some people recognize Jesus in these descriptions. But truth be told, most don’t.
Luke has a similar problem. Scholars believe Luke’s gospel is written outside of Palestine for a mixed audience of Jews and non-Jews. For his Jewish audience to recognize Jesus as one of them — as a continuation of their religious tradition — Luke needs to connect Jesus to the Jewish story as the fulfillment of all the hopes for a messiah in the Hebrew scriptures. Luke says to his Jewish audience, “Look at Jesus. Does he remind you of anybody?” But then Luke goes further: To both audiences, the Emmaus story is meant to take them deeper than the words on the scrolls of scripture or the inherited beliefs of a faith tradition in recognizing Jesus.
At the end of the day, the travellers invite the stranger to stay with them. They sit down to eat. Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them — and suddenly their eyes are opened. In that moment of hospitality, they recognize him. Luke wants his listeners to see that recognition does not come through mastery of Scripture or through religious titles, but through love made tangible — through gestures of welcome, vulnerability, and shared table. The breaking of bread becomes the revelation of Christ himself. What was hidden becomes visible through love enacted. As real as bread broken and shared in community — as our young people will do today after service. The simplest, everyday things conveying the deepest spiritual realities.
Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “The blindness of the two disciples does not keep their Christ from coming to them.”2 Grace finds us in our need. Jesus comes not just to the faithful and confident, but to the doubtful, the disappointed, and the broken-hearted.3 The road to Emmaus is not just their story; it’s the story of grace seeking us still.
We don’t need an extraordinary vision to experience the risen Christ. Every act of love — every piece of bread broken and shared — reveals his presence. Every time a Sunday school leader honours the questions or the leadership of a young person, the risen Jesus is present. Every time our pastoral care team reaches out in person, by phone, with a prayer shawl or a flower to someone in need, Jesus is there. Every time our Inclusive Ministries Committee shows up at Pride in the Park and proclaims to 2SLGBTQ+ folks that they are beloved in the eyes of God, the risen Jesus is there. Every time our Outreach Committee — through you — pays for a pizza lunch at A Better Tent City, Jesus is there. People will say, “I recognize Jesus in that church.” Jesus’ peculiar trait of love — made real among us. These acts of hospitality — love incarnate, love that meets us in our vulnerability — are the marks of the risen Christ among us. The simplest, most ordinary things — like bread broken and shared — carry the deepest truths of God.4 While some seek a Christianity based in glory and triumph, Jesus is seeking us in the places he’s always been found: namely, in human frailty, in human brokenness, in the outcast and forgotten.5
When someone we love dies, we hold on tightly to the small, peculiar things that made them who they were. Those details become the threads that keep them alive in our memories. In the same way, we walk our ordinary roads everyday longing for divine company, searching for the peculiar and distinctive marks of Jesus among us. May we be blessed with hearts and eyes that recognize the risen one in our midst — in the ordinary, in the vulnerable, in the love enfleshed among us. He is walking with us still.
Rev. Joe Gaspar
1 On the Media, “Pete Hegseth is Praying for a Holy War”, April 3, 2026,
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/pete-hegseth-is-praying-for-a-holy-war?tab=transcript
2 From her book, “Blessed Brokenness,” p. 22, quote found here https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2017/043017.html
3 Ibid.
4 Dietrich Bobhoeffer, source unknown.
5 Nadia Bolz-Weber, “Animate Faith: Facilitator Guide”, Minneapolis, MN: Spark House. 2012, found at http://www.sacketsharborpresbyterian.org/Sermons/04-03-16%20Easter%20Continues%20Luke%2024.pdf