April 19, 2026
The Third Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Acts 2:14a, 36-41 ~ Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17 ~ 1 Peter 1:17-23 ~ Luke 24:13-35
I believe that most of you know that I spent the bulk of my adult life living and working in and around Philadelphia. If I could call anyplace “home,” that would probably have been it, at least until I settled here. If you know anything at all about Philadelphia, you know that we take our allegiances very seriously. People there will live and die with the Eagles or Phillies, Flyers or Sixers. Fights will break out over who has the best cheesesteak, and don’t even thinkabout saying that it’s Pat’s or Geno’s. Pittsburgh may be on the other side of the state, but to a Philadelphian, it might as well be on the other side of the moon.
There is perhaps no deeper rivalry, however, than between those who will drive miles out of their way to buy a hoagie and gas up their car at a Wawa and those who will do the same for a Sheetz. Y’all don’t have these around here, so just in case you don’t know what on earth I am talking about, Wawa and Sheetz are convenience stores and gas stations that now cover most of the mid-Atlantic states, kind of like Cumberland Farms but on steroids. Wawa was founded in Delaware County, just south of Philly, and Sheetz was founded in Altoona over near Pittsburgh, so on the far side of the moon. And no self-respecting Philadelphian is going to go out of their way to go to Sheetz when a Wawa is within driving distance. If Eagles fans will throw snowballs at Santa Claus, you can imagine what they are going to think about a traitor to Wawa.
Now that you are in on all of this and wondering what this has to do with anything, one Sunday afternoon I was driving back to my home in Charlottesville after spending a weekend in Philadelphia to officiate the wedding of friends and to preach at one of the historic downtown churches that morning. It was a lovely weekend, but I was a little weary and had a long drive ahead. I will do just about anything to avoid driving on I-95 between Philly and Washington, so when I used to make that trip, I would usually head a little west and come down through the countryside on Highway 15. It is a lovely drive and doesn’t take too much longer, but one does run the risk of getting behind some slower traffic on the two-lane parts of the drive.
Well, as I said, I was a little tired, so it was pretty much a given that I would get behind slow traffic. The particular traffic in my way that time was a gas tanker truck. And it was a Sheetz gas tanker truck.
So, not only was I tired and grumpy and stuck behind a truck, I was stuck behind a Sheetz truck. And to top it all off, I was running low on gas and I needed a pit stop myself.
Of course, my best option for gas in that part of Pennsylvania was…a Sheetz station…into which the slow truck turned in front of me. I swerved into a parking spot and stormed inside to take care of my business, and then stormed back out with a little cartoon thundercloud over my head and pulled up to a gas pump to begin filling my almost-empty tank. It was not until that moment that I looked up and really saw the despised Sheetz truck that had foiled my speedy trip home. And there, emblazoned on the side of the truck were the words “Eating is believing.”
Now, I don’t know what the Sheetz advertising gurus wanted me to think about that tag line – presumably something about the slop they prepare and call food – but my mind went immediately to the text I was scheduled to preach on the next Sunday, “he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35).
Yes, eating is believing.
In a bit of lectionary whiplash, our reading from Luke takes us back to Easter day once again, that first resurrection day. At the point our story begins (at least in Luke’s version) no one has actually seen Jesus. The women saw the burial cloths and the angels and went to tell the disciples who, Luke makes clear, did not believe them, so Peter had to go see for himself. But no one has actually laid eyes on the risen Lord just yet.
The two on the road to Emmaus hear the report from the women and the confirmation from Peter. The Sabbath being over, they were, presumably, making their way back home.
Imagine for a moment what must have been going through their minds. While not in the original Twelve, these two obviously were followers of Jesus. Perhaps they were in that parade from the Mount of Olives on Palm Sunday. Perhaps they witnessed, from a safe distance, the trial, the beating, the execution. They make clear that they had hoped that this Jesus was the long-awaited messiah, and their disappointment is evident in their words.
Even when they tell this stranger walking alongside them about the women and the empty tomb and Peter, they clearly have not been able to grasp the implications of it. Yes, Jesus had said that he would rise again, but it is simply too fantastical to imagine.
Keep in mind that these two were not looking for Jesus. In fact, Jesus is probably the last person they might have expected to meet along the way. They literally stumbled upon the sacred. I imagine that there are times this has happened to you, finding grace – finding Jesus – where you least expect it, even on the side of a Sheetz truck.
So these two, Cleopas and his companion, may well have been walking along in a dazed silence, unable to come up with words to comprehend or express what they had seen and heard. Sorrow and sadness mixed with trepidation and a hope chaser.
And then the stranger appears, chides them for their foolishness, and begins to trace messianic history from the time of Moses.
This story could all have ended right there. The disciples reached their destination and Jesus makes to continue on along the road.
What possessed them to invite him to stay? Yes, hospitality was an absolute requirement in Jewish culture, but given the experiences of the past three days, they might have been excused for begging off this time.
And it doesn’t appear that Jesus showed any inclination to stop or expectation that he would even be asked to stop. The text tells us that they urged him strongly. The Greek says that they constrained him. Whatever it was that they did, and no matter how strongly they did it, they issued an invitation.
And because of that invitation, the risen Lord took, blessed, broke, and gave to them the bread of life. They recognized him in the breaking of the bread.
But they didn’t stop there. They went and they told the others, still huddled together in that Upper Room, and then you know what happened? Jesus appeared to them, too.
I think that Luke, unlike the other evangelists, inserted this story for a specific purpose – actually a series of teachable moments, for his original audience and for us.
First, God always invites us into relationship, but we are perfectly free to say “no.” It doesn’t mean we aren’t loved anyway, but if we don’t respond to the invitation by inviting, by welcoming God in Christ into our hearts and into our lives, we miss out on the abundant life we are being offered.
Second, the risen Lord is revealed to us week after week when we gather as a community and break bread together. We priests take, bless, break, and give – the four-fold action of the Eucharist as it is often called – just as Jesus did (and don’t think for a moment that we do this without fear and trembling). We invite you to come to the table and to recognize Jesus in your midst.
But it doesn’t end there.
Jesus continues to meet us when we go and tell. Just as Cleopas and his companion go and tell all that they have seen and heard, so we are sent out from this table to go and tell.
And Jesus meets us there. Every. Single. Time.
It’s as if Luke is giving us the road map for the life of the Jesus-follower: invite, receive,
and go.
And it all centers around the fellowship of the table and the breaking of the bread.
Yes, eating is most certainly believing. So come, take and eat, then go and tell.
[1] https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/easter-2017-message-presiding-bishop-michael-curry-go-forth-be-people