The Adventurous Lectionary – Third Sunday of Easter – April 19, 2026
Acts 2, 14a, 23-41; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; I Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
Today’s reading highlights the Emmaus Walk. It could be titled, “Let’s Go For a Walk,” “O Master (Savior) Let Me Walk with Thee,” “Walking with Jesus,” or “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” Jesus doesn’t come to us solely “in the garden” but on the highway, the seven mile stretch from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and in our own daily journeys. Jesus also comes to us at the dinner table in our house, when our eyes are open and we discover God is in this place – our homes – and now we know it. We can move with the Spirit anywhere, and find Jesus on any lane and locale.
The Emmaus story is about embodied movement. Resurrection moved the cells as well as the soul of Jesus, and the cells and souls of his followers. They went from the tomb and upper room out into the world, not always knowing where they were going, but trusting God’s Spirit to guide the way. As Wendell Berry notes in his “Manifesto: Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front,” resurrection still gets us out of our comfort zones and calls us to the open road, spiritually, ethically, and sometimes physically. Movement is essential, spiritually, even if our movements are a bit more circumscribed and careful these days. Practicing resurrection, as Berry says, challenges us to take the road less traveled and go against the grain of our society and social order.
I love to walk. Each morning, and virtually every day in the predawn hours, I walk a few miles on in the quiet suburban streets of Potomac, Maryland. I spend the walk observing the world around me and my own inner thoughts. I often use the time for intercessory prayer and personal centering, taking in God’s energy of love and sharing it with others. Sometimes I even take my sermon or a writing project on a walk and always return with new insights. On rare occasions, when the weather is “bad,” I retreat to the bright lights of a local mall, often pondering the consumerism of our society and then remembering God can be experienced anywhere, even in a mall. In recognition of my love for walking, one of my friends sent me a paperweight that proclaims, solvitur ambulando, “it will be solved in the walking.”
Moving and eating is at the heart of the Emmaus reading and our lives. A walk and a meal can transform your life, and that’s what happened in the encounter of Jesus with two of his earliest followers. Trudging down the road, two utterly confused followers are joined by a third man. Their world has been turned upside down by the events of the past week: celebration, conflict, violence, and death, and now the possibility that their martyred spiritual leader has come back to life. Resurrection is just as unsettling as crucifixion. It doesn’t fit into any rational world view, including the theology of resurrection of the first century Jewish people. They could imagine the resurrection of all humanity at the end of history, but not the resurrection of a solitary individual. The notion that Jesus rose from the dead is unsettling and yet in that unsettledness, new visions can emerge.
Two men walk the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus and are joined by an inquisitive stranger. They respond to his questions, first sharing their common grief, and then entering into a strange conversation with their unexpected companion, who unfolds the story of salvation through resurrection to them. Somehow, they cannot recognize their companion as the teacher and healer Jesus. Perhaps, it is a bit of divine magic allowing them to gently adapt to a new way of seeing; perhaps, it is the highly energetic body of their companion that both reveals and conceals Jesus’ identity.
Confused, weary, and grief stricken, the two men nevertheless reach out to the stranger. They invite him to supper. While we don’t know the menu, we do know that as the meal ended, they come to know his identity as the Risen Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Their hospitality leads to a theophany, an encounter with the Risen Jesus, who is known in the simple Eucharistic acts of praying and eating.
Movement and meal lead to revelation, and then Jesus is gone, vanishing from their sight, but leaving them with warmed hearts, lively spirits, and energetic bodies. They are so energized that they walk seven miles back to Jerusalem to share their good news that Jesus is risen and on the road.
Take a moment to contemplate the surprising reality. After breaking the bread, Jesus vanished from their sight. He may have needed to be on the move as well. God is not static, imprisoned by yesterday’s revelations and the church’s creeds and scriptures. God is alive and on the move, doing new things and sharing new insights with other pilgrims on the journey. Can we experience Christ Alive and on the move in the privacy of our homes? Can we encounter Jesus in the breaking of the bread whether we are home, sheltering by ourselves or with family? Can we experience our daily meals as an invitation to share in divinity?
The reading from Acts connects repentance with salvation. Repentance involves a spiritual movement – turning from what was death-filled to a new beginning. Lord knows, we need national repentance. Not the self-satisfied repentance of National Prayer Days, smug in believing God is on our side and somehow we are God’s chosen ones. But the repentance of confessing, and then transforming, our waywardness as the prelude to taking a new route as individuals and as a nation.
The Epistle of Peter tells us that in light of the resurrection, we need to trust and love. We need to become aware of the imperishable God in the context of the perishable world. Our world is perishable. Mortality is real, perhaps more real as a result of death-filled prevaricating perorations by the US president. God is God, and our president isn’t! In the face of national self-destruction and state-sponsored domestic and international chaos, we can trust God’s resurrection love that liberates us from fear even when we are afraid, and calls us to love despite our caution
We really don’t know exactly where Emmaus is located, as Marcus Borg suggests. Several possibilities have been surfaced, but perhaps vagueness is a virtue. In not localizing Emmaus, we can open to the possibility that Emmaus is everywhere. Wherever we are on the road and at every mealtime, Jesus comes to us, filled with energy and possibility, and the joy of resurrection. We can have new life, and we can be born again, right now at any venue. Let’s keep moving, and chart new adventures, because Jesus walks beside us on the road, in our living rooms, backyards, or wherever we are.
So, let us take a walk with Jesus! Maybe even a congregational prayer walk after church. Let us look for God in the breaking of the bread, whether at home or the communion table. We might even discover Jesus is walking with us, hidden by our busyness and anxiety. If we pause a while, we will see him and find our way forward.
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Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. He is the author of over ninety books, including his Christological trilogy Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet; Whitehead and Jesus: An Adventure in Spiritual Transformation; and Messy Incarnation: Meditations in Christology in Process and also Creation Sings: Forty Days of Spiritual Wisdom from the Non-Human World; and Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America’s Visionaries. He is married to Rev. Kate Epperly, D.Min. and lives in Potomac, Maryland.
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