Third Sunday of Easter

 Video of Service

Third Sunday of Easter (A)

April 19, 2026

Text: Luke 24:13-35

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

            Sorrowful and sad, disappointed and dejected, they plod the Emmaus path.  Their Lord, crucified, like a common criminal.  Those closest to Him in hiding.  Roman and Jewish authorities both on high alert.  So much for the messianic dream of an independent Israel, delivered from Roman tyranny.

            Step after step.  It’s a seven-mile journey.  When, all at once, they are joined by a Stranger.  He inserts Himself into the conversation.  “What is this that you are talking about along the way?”  “What is it?  What do You mean?  Where have You been holed up this whole Passover Feast long, that You’re the only Visitor to Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have happened?”  “What things?” the Stranger persists.

            Now, you and I know who this is.  What is Jesus doing, playing with them like this?  Why is He asking these questions?  We know good and well that He knows the answers.  Well, think about it.  This does have a familiar ring to it, this line of questioning, doesn’t it?  “Adam, where are you?”  “Who told you you were naked?”  “Did you eat of the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”  “What things?” Jesus says.  “Tell Me.  Say it out loud.  Work it out, guys.  What has happened?  Confess.” 

            You and I know what He’s up to, but they don’t.  Their eyes are kept from recognizing Him.  Kept by what?  Or whom?  Jesus?  Probably.  Everybody has a hard time recognizing Him, now, in His risen and glorified body.  Until He gives them to recognize Him.  We see this throughout the post-resurrection appearances, and He has His purposes in it.  But also (and this is very instructive for us)... their own spiritual blindness.  The inability of their minds to comprehend even the possibility that the rumors might be true: That this Man, who was crucified, dead and buried, is risen.  Impossible.

            So, they trod and plod, and they try to explain: “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him.  But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:19-21; ESV).

            One of them is named Cleopas.  Perhaps he is the Clopas from John 19 (v. 25) (Cleopas being a Greek name, Clopas, Hebrew).  That’s what the early Church thought.  In that case, this is Jesus’ uncle, Joespeh’s brother.  But who is his companion?  Scholars have debated, as they are wont to do.  Some say Clopas’ son, Simeon.  Others have suggested Mary, the wife of Clopas (one of the many Marys in the Gospels).  Whoever it is, doubtless, the early disciples knew.  They are in on the joke.  But Luke doesn’t tell us.  Why?  It’s a literary device.  Who is this unnamed second person?  Literarily speaking, the second person is you.

            On the road with Jesus.  Walking the wrong way, as it turns out.  You should be walking toward Jerusalem.  Toward the gathering of disciples, not away from it.  But there He is, and your eyes are kept from recognizing Him.  Kept, perhaps in some sense, by His design, but certainly by your own spiritual blindness and the inability of your mind to comprehend that the risen Lord Jesus Christ walks with you.  He is present with you, you know.  He promises it.  But you act like He is not.  Like He is gone.  Far removed.  Like you’d hoped that He would help you and be with you, but there’s no way that could be true now.

            You silly Christian.  You know better than that! 

            But, there He is.  He is faithful.  With you always.  In the flesh.  And in spite of yourself, and your silly, stupid doubts.  Doing what?  Calling to mind His Word.  The Scriptures.  Moses and the Prophets.  And more, with you, who live in the New Testament.  The Apostles and Evangelists.  The fulfillment of the Old.  Every page... every Word... it is all about Him.  His coming in the flesh.  His sin-atoning death for you.  His resurrection on the Third Day, as He said.  His ascension.  His rule at God’s right hand.  His coming again to judge, and to raise you from death... to life.  This is why you should daily be in the Scriptures at home.  Because this is Jesus, speaking to you, even when you can’t, for the life of you, see it.  He is breathing His Spirit into you by His Word.  Turning you around.  Drawing you to Himself, and to His heavenly Father.  And to His body, the Church.  To His body, the Supper.

            Sometimes, by grace, it does dawn on you that He is speaking to you.  Those are marvelous moments of clarity.  Embrace them.  Revel in them.  But most often, not.  Lest we be too elated by the surpassing greatness (2 Cor. 12:7).  But also, because of our own dullness.  “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25).  When that is the case, God, open our blind eyes.  Melt our hard hearts.  Give us ears, that we may hear!

            So, this is what our Lord does.  He comes alongside Cleopas and you, and leads you deep into the Truth.  It’s hard to see Him, isn’t it?  But just listen.  He is inserting Himself into your life and conversation.  Speaking to you, here and now, in the Scriptures and the preaching.  Showing you from all the Scriptures that it was “necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory” (v. 26).  He opens your mind to understand.  And, as He does, your heart burns within you.  Doesn’t it?  Sometimes it doesn’t.  That is your own hard-heartedness.  Repent of that.  But often it does.  When the truth of it… the beauty of His love for you, and His redemption of you… hits you in new and different ways, as if for the very first time.  You see Him so clearly where you hadn’t before.  Or you seem Him again where you have in the past, but in a way that is new and fresh.  And not theoretically, as an abstract idea, or a Savior far-removed.  No... Incarnate.  Tangible.  Embodied.  Near.  Present, as He promised.  Present for you.

            And when that happens... O, Lord Jesus, will you not stay?  “Abide with us, our Savior,” you plead.  “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.”  Come in, and dwell with us.  “Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest.”  And He does.

            And then, you go to the Table, and the Guest becomes the Host.  He “took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them” (v. 30).  That is what He does for us!  We know those words!  And what happens?  It’s like scales fall from our eyes.  There He is!  We recognize Him in the Breaking of the Bread.  From here on out, that is where He’ll be for us.  That is where He will always be for us, until the Day He comes again in glory.  This is how we’ll see Him.  The body given.  The blood shed.  Now risen from the dead.  Living and life-giving.  Absolving and cleansing.  Comforting and encouraging (literally, putting all the courage of the One who has conquered sin, death, and Satan, into us!). 

            It turns our feet back to Jerusalem, to the holy Church of God, where we know we belong.  It turns our sorrow into joy, our disappointment into hope and confidence.  We run to the assembly of our fellow believers, and proclaim the truth continually to one another: Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  And now we go His way, about His business, knowing ever and always that He is with us on the Way, the risen Lord Jesus.  Never mind if it’s often hard to see Him.  You and old Cleopas, just keep listening as He speaks to you in His Word.  And just like the first disciples, devote yourselves “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).  And in that, your eyes will be open to Him.  Because He is here!  For you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.