A Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Acts 2:14, 22-33; Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35
Audio Recording
Picture the scene. It’s the afternoon of the first Easter Sunday — just hours after the women have reported the empty tomb. Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem, heading home to Emmaus, about seven miles down the road. And as they walk, they talk. Actually, “talk” might be too mild a word. The Greek suggests they were debating, maybe even arguing — going back and forth, trying to make sense of everything that had just happened.
Their world had collapsed. Three days earlier, the man they had staked everything on — the one they believed would redeem Israel — had been arrested, condemned, and executed like a criminal. And now there were these wild reports from the women. Angels. An empty tomb. But no one had actually seen Jesus.
So they’re walking, and they’re lost. Not geographically; they’re lost in grief and confusion, in dashed hope and bewildered faith.
And that is exactly where Jesus meets them.
He draws near and falls into step with them — but their eyes are prevented from recognizing him. He asks a simple question: “What are you discussing as you walk along?” And they stop. Looking downcast. One of them — Cleopas — actually seems a little irritated: “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”
And here’s where I always picture the Lord suppressing a smile. “What sort of things?” he asks.
They proceed to tell him — their broken hopes, their confusion, the women’s report — and Jesus gently but firmly corrects them: “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
Then he opens the Scriptures to them. Beginning with Moses and working through all the prophets, he shows them how the entire story of salvation — every promise, every covenant, every sacrifice — had been pointing to this moment all along.
Now, that word necessary is worth sitting with for a moment. Jesus doesn’t say the crucifixion was a tragedy that God managed to turn around. He says it had to happen. It was the plan — not the plan of his enemies, but the plan of the Father, designed before the foundation of the world, as Peter tells us in today’s second reading. Jesus came into the world precisely to offer himself. The cross wasn’t a detour. It was the destination.
We heard Peter make exactly this argument in our first reading from Acts — his Pentecost sermon, one of the most extraordinary speeches in all of Scripture. He’s addressing the very crowd that had called for Jesus’ death just fifty days earlier. And he tells them plainly: this was God’s doing. Not your cleverness, not Rome’s power, not the machinations of the high priests. God’s set plan. And the same God who handed Jesus over to death raised him up — “because it was impossible for him to be held by it.”
Do you hear the confidence in that? Impossible for death to hold him. The resurrection wasn’t a surprise ending. It was the inevitable result of who Jesus is.
But here’s the part of the Emmaus story that I think speaks most directly to us, especially those of us who have been walking with the Lord for many years. Notice what happens as they near the village. Jesus acts as though he’s going to continue on. He doesn’t invite himself in. He waits. And the disciples urge him: “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
That invitation — stay with us — is what changes everything.
Because when they sit down to supper and Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, their eyes are opened. In an instant they recognize him. And in the same instant, he vanishes from their sight.
And they turn to each other and ask the question that echoes down through every generation of believers: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Friends, that question is for us today. Because what these two disciples experienced on the road to Emmaus is not a one-time historical event. It is the pattern of every Mass.
Think about it. We come here sometimes like those disciples — carrying our burdens, our losses, our unanswered questions. Maybe you’ve had a hard week. Maybe you’re grieving someone you love. Maybe you’re struggling with your health, or worried about your family, or just plain tired. And sometimes, if we’re honest, we walk through those doors feeling a little bit like those disciples walking the road — hearts heavy, hopes a little dim.
But then the Liturgy of the Word begins. The Scriptures are opened to us. And if we are listening — if we are truly present — the Lord himself is walking beside us, opening our minds to understand what he has done and what it means. That’s not a metaphor. That’s what the Church teaches. Christ is truly present in the proclamation of his Word.
And then comes the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The bread is taken, blessed, broken, and given. And in that act — as it has been in every Mass since that first Easter Sunday — Jesus makes himself known to us. Not in a vision or an apparition, but really and truly, body and blood, soul and divinity.
The real question is: are our hearts burning?
Peter tells us in today’s second reading that we were “ransomed… not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.” The price paid for your salvation was incalculably high. And it was paid for you — personally, individually, by name.
So what do we do with that? The disciples didn’t sit there staring at the empty place where Jesus had been. They got up — immediately, in the dark, and made that seven-mile journey back to Jerusalem — on fire with the news. They had to tell someone. They couldn’t not.
When we receive Christ here today, we are given the same fire. The question is whether we carry it out those doors.
“Stay with us, Lord — for it is nearly evening.” He has stayed. He is here. The day is not over.
And our hearts are burning.