Easter 3A - 2026

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year A
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty

Christ is Risen… and goes unrecognized.

That is the thread that runs through our Easter season. Again and again, Jesus is there, alive, present, walking with his people, and yet they do not know him. Not Mary in the garden. Not the disciples by the sea. And today, not even the two on the road to Emmaus, who walk with him for miles, speaking their grief and confusion, never realizing that the very one they mourn is now beside them.

How does it feel to you? Christ is nearer to us right now than we can imagine, and still we fail to see him.

The two going to Emmaus eventually realize that after their “hearts were burning within them” and they walked and talked. Yet it is not until they sit down, not until he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. That suddenly Christ is made known.

“Made known in the breaking of the bread.”

It is the shape of the pattern of God’s redeeming work in the world. Take, bless, break, give. That is the four-fold framework of Christ on earth. And now, it is the pattern of risen presence among us in our lives and in every gathering we share around our table.

The Church uses the Greek word anamnesis to describe Christ presence in the Eucharistic Prayer. Not simple remembrance, not a mental recalling of something long ago, but a making-present. The once-for-all act of Christ’s self-offering is not repeated, but it is made present to us, here and now, through this holy action. In the Eucharist, we do not merely think about Christ’s sacrifice, we participate in eternal moment: past, present, and future made one.

So that the risen Christ, who once broke bread at Emmaus, is known again, in this breaking, at this table, in this moment.

Easter is not just about what happened to Jesus. It is about what is happening to the whole creation. In the resurrection, God is not simply reversing death, God is renewing the world. And in the Eucharist, we are given a glimpse of that renewal. Ordinary bread. Ordinary wine. Taken, blessed, broken, given, and through them, Christ is present.

And we, too, are caught up in that same pattern.

We are taken, called out of our ordinary lives.
We are blessed, named and claimed as Christ’s own.
We are broken, by the realities of suffering, loss, and love poured out.
And we are given, for the life of the world.

This is discipleship in the shape of resurrection.

Which is why the early Church devoted themselves, as the Acts of the Apostles tells us, “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.” Not out of habit. Not out of obligation. But because this is where Christ is made known.

We do not come to church simply to fulfill a duty, or to maintain a tradition, or even to seek comfort. We come because we need to see. We come because, left to ourselves, we miss him. We walk our roads of grief and apathy, speaking of hope in the past tense, unaware that hope itself is walking beside us.

And here, at this table, our eyes are opened again just as if we were on the Emaeus.

So if the Risen Christ still goes into the world unrecognized, let us be some of those faithful who may not always see clearly, yet still long to see. Those who meet Christ not as a memory, but as a living presence.

Amen.