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A weekly sermon podcast from Ojai, California. Grounded in scripture and open to the world, these reflections invite you to listen, wonder, and live the story.
In these Sundays after Easter,
our lectionary readings give us an education in
recognizing resurrection.
On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene stands in the garden, weeping,
speaking to a man she assumes is the gardener until he says her name:
“Mary.”
In that moment, everything changes.
She recognizes him, not by sight or argument, but by being known.
The next week, Thomas needs something different.
He cannot receive the news of resurrection through words alone.
He needs to see and to touch.
And the risen Christ meets him there, offering his wounds without hesitation:
“Put your finger here… see my hands. See my side.”
And Thomas recognizes him through the wounds.
And now today, on the road to Emmaus, recognition comes in yet another way.
Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem,
away from the place where their hope has died.
Jesus comes alongside them, but they do not recognize him.
Not when he walks with them.
Not even when he opens the scriptures to them.
Only later, at the table, in the familiar act
of taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it,
Christ gives himself to be known, and their eyes are opened.
Three weeks. Three recognitions.
A voice that speaks your name.
Wounds that are not erased.
Bread that is broken and shared.
What begins to emerge is that resurrection is not always obvious.
The risen Christ is not always immediately recognizable.
Yet he is made known in particular ways, in human ways, in embodied ways.
Notice where the Emmaus story begins.
It begins not with faith, but with disappointment.
“We had hoped,” they say.
That small phrase carries a great deal of weight.
Whatever hope they had placed in Jesus --
hope for redemption, for change, for a different kind of world --
has come undone.
They are not on a triumphant march. They are on a quiet retreat.
And that is precisely where Jesus meets them.
Not at the empty tomb.
Not in a moment of certainty.
But on the road of disillusionment.
And he walks with them.
There is something deeply consoling about that,
because most of us, at one time or another, find ourselves on that same road.
We had hoped the relationship would last.
We had hoped the venture would succeed.
We had hoped the diagnosis would be different.
We had hoped the world would be more just,
more humane, more whole than it appears to be.
And somewhere along the way,
we find ourselves walking, not with clarity, but with questions.
The Emmaus story tells us that this road is not the absence of Christ.
It may be the very place where Christ draws near.
Yet even there, he is not immediately recognized.
Luke tells us that their eyes were kept from recognizing him,
which suggests that recognition is not simply a matter of proximity.
Christ can be near and still not be seen.
So what opens their eyes?
Not information alone.
Not even scripture alone,
even though their hearts begin to burn as he speaks.
Recognition comes at the table,
in the familiar act of taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it.
In that moment, Christ gives himself to be known.
Their eyes are opened as they are drawn into a presence
that has been with them on the road all along,
and what had been hidden becomes unmistakable.
What follows is a change in how he is present to them.
From that moment on, they no longer look for him only
in one place, in one body, in one visible form.
They begin to recognize him in the breaking of the bread,
in the shared life of the community.
And that is where the other readings begin to deepen this picture.
In Acts, Peter proclaims the resurrection not as an abstract idea,
but as something that calls for a response.
The people ask what they should do,
and Peter invites them to turn their lives toward this reality,
to be baptized, and to receive the Spirit.
Recognition leads to participation.
To recognize the risen Christ is not simply to perceive something;
it is to be drawn into a new way of living.
The psalm gives us the language of that response:
“I will lift up the cup of salvation… I will fulfill my vows…
in the presence of all his people.”
It is a life that is public, embodied, and communal.
And then First Peter adds yet another layer: “
You have been born anew… through the living and enduring word of God.”
This new life takes shape in love,
in a way of being with one another that reflects what has been given.
So when we hold these three Sundays together, a pattern begins to appear.
Mary recognizes him when he speaks her name.
Thomas recognizes him in the wounds.
The disciples recognize him in the breaking of the bread.
These are not only past events.
They are ongoing ways that Christ is made known.
Christ is known when you are called,
personally and intimately, by name.
Christ is known in places of woundedness
that are not erased or denied but held and transformed.
Christ is known in shared life,
in tables where bread is taken, blessed, broken, and given.
And that last one matters,
because the breaking of the bread
is not only something that happened in Emmaus.
It is something that happens here.
At this table.
Again and again.
In this simple pattern, Christ continues to give himself to his people,
so that what was once seen on the road becomes a way of life among us.
Which means that recognition is not something we achieve.
It is something that is given.
Our eyes are opened as Christ meets us in the ordinary,
in a voice, in a wound, in a meal, and makes himself known.
And perhaps that is the invitation this morning.
To notice where Christ is already walking with you, even if unrecognized.
To notice where your heart has been quietly stirred along the way,
and where bread is being broken in your life in ways that sustain and connect.
Over time, these become places of recognition,
not because we have learned to see more clearly on our own,
but because Christ continues to make himself known.
Because the promise of Easter is not only that Christ was raised.
It is that Christ is made known.
Here. Now.
In ways that are sometimes subtle, sometimes surprising, but always real.
And when we begin to recognize him
in the voice, in the wounds, and in the breaking of the bread,
we find that we are not simply observers of resurrection.
We are participants in it.
Amen.