I preached this sermon on Sunday, April 19, 2026, at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH. The lectionary text cited is Luke 24:13-35.
Many of you know that, after Easter, I took a few retreat days back down at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. It’s the Trappist monastery where the monk and writer Thomas Merton lived, prayed, and authored some of the most important pieces of spiritual writing of the 20th century. I highly, highly recommend going there if you’re in need of the deep solace of silence in a beautiful place.
You may also recall that last year I went there and got violently ill! Thankfully this year I had a much more healthful experience.
But just up the road an hour or so from the Abbey, in a very different sort of place, right in downtown Louisville, is another Thomas Merton-related sight that’s also worth seeking out. It’s a state historical marker in his honor, right on the corner of 4th Street and Muhammad Ali Blvd, just a stone’s throw from the Roman Catholic cathedral.
On one side of this marker it has the standard sort of language for a plaque: “Thomas Merton, 1915-1968. Trappist monk, poet, social critic, and spiritual writer,” etc. etc.
But it’s the other side of this marker that really captures my interest. Because inscribed there, on this sign right amid the bustle of downtown Louisville, is what I’d wager to be the only state historical marker anywhere to commemorate a mystical vision. Really. Here’s what it says:
A Revelation.
Merton had a sudden insight at this corner, March 18, 1958, that led him to redefine his monastic identity with greater involvement in social justice issues. He was “suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people….” He found them “walking around shining like the sun.”
What a remarkable thing to read on a street sign. I’ve seen a lot of roadside markers in my travels, but I can’t think of any others that say, in effect, here, a man saw God in the faces of his neighbors. Here, a man glimpsed the beautiful truth that trembles beneath the surface of everything.
But that’s exactly what happened. Right there, next to the garbage cans and the bicycle racks and the people asking for spare change and the office workers and all the rest of our disjointed, everyday clamor, there Thomas Merton saw the love and the light that is God. Which suggests that God can be revealed anywhere, in anyone. And that, in fact, God might be everywhere, in everyone. If that is so, it changes everything.
And, as Christians, we proclaim that it is so.
We do this not just out of some vague sense of the generic blessedness of all things. No, it’s something far more unusual and amazing: we make the claim that God is, through Jesus, truly, materially present in creation: tangible and alive, beckoning us with winks and whispers and half-hidden angels. When you hear us speak about a “sacramental” world, that is the sort of thing we’re getting at.
And our particular understanding of this tangible, sacramental presence is shaped especially by these strange, beautiful passages that we hear in Eastertide: Jesus in the garden outside the empty tomb and Jesus in the locked room and now, Jesus on the Emmaus Road. In all of them, there is the risen Lord appearing and and disappearing, hidden and visible all at once like a beam of light dancing momentarily upon the dust.
Our whole faith is predicated on these stories and their central claim—the claim not just that “we like the Lord” or “we remember the Lord” or “we think the Lord was a really swell guy” but that “we have seen the Lord.” Though he was crucified and died, we have seen the Lord. We have seen the Lord, and still he lives, and still he waits to be seen again…and again…and again…for he is the beautiful truth trembling beneath the surface of everything, shining like the sun.
And if we have seen the Lord still alive in this world, it changes everything.
Speaking of today’s story of Emmaus, Luke’s gospel actually offers this as the first appearance of Jesus after the resurrection. The other Gospels vary, but there is a similar pattern across all of them: Jesus is at first hard to recognize, and then suddenly plainly visible. We might wonder why this is so.
Is Jesus just feeling sort of sneaky? Is he having a bit of fun with his resurrected body and just scaring the disciples, like Casper the friendly ghost?
I think not. As strange as these passages are, it’d be a mistake to treat the resurrection accounts like ghost stories…to assume that the authors want to emphasize Jesus’ elusiveness or his otherworldliness.
No, I think that they are actually meant to emphasize the exact opposite: that, far from being elusive and inaccessible, the resurrection means that Jesus is now part of everything. That he is right here in front of us. That he is everywhere, and in everyone. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
So these are not ghost stories and maybe not even “mistaken identity” stories at all. Maybe we are meant to understand: Jesus is the stranger we meet on the road, and he is the one we invite to our table. He is the gardener and he is the one who prepares our breakfast and he is every other person who might cross our path when we look at them through the eyes of love.
And so the invitation to his disciples—including us—is simply to look. To look for him always, always, so that at the close of each day and at the close of our lives, we might be able to say: I have seen the Lord. Everywhere, I have seen the Lord.
Now, this sounds quite lovely in theory, that Jesus is everywhere we look, but it’s actually a rather challenging idea. Because if we love Jesus, and if Jesus is everywhere, in everyone and everything, then we might have to change our attitude a bit.
Because Jesus, if I’m honest I don’t want to see you in a few folks I have in mind. Are you SURE you’re hiding in there? Are you sure you didn’t vacate a few of these premises? No? Lord, help me see you, then. Even in the ones I can’t stand. Even on the days I can’t stand myself. Help me to see you. Becasuse I know it will change everything.
And it does. As it says on that Thomas Merton sign, his vision in Louisville altered him. His monastery became not just one location but the whole wide world. He became passionate about social justice and antiwar movements and interfaith dialogue precisely because he saw that there was nowhere and no one beyond the scope of God’s presence.
And so I wonder, how would we live differently if we saw what Merton did that day? How would we relate to others if we actually saw the light of God, the face of God in all those other faces? It’s a question worth pursuing.
So here’s my Eastertide challenge to you: imagine if you will (and try, if you dare) going about for one whole day and, every single person you see, say to yourself, “Hello, Lord.” (I do recommend saying it just to yourself so as not to freak people out.) But you get the idea:
The barista at the coffee shop—hello, Lord. The person in the car next to you on the road—hello, Lord. The person you recently argued with—hello, Lord. And yes, even the angry talking head on your TV screen—hello, Lord (help me to see you).
Let it be like a quiet prayer you carry. And see what you begin to see. I wonder if our hearts might start burning within us.
Because I don’t think that the story of Emmaus was recorded by those first disciples simply because Jesus did some ghostly tricks. No, I think it lingered in their memory because glimpsing his face in the dying light brought them to life. It changed them. It changed everything. And from then on, wherever they went, on every lonely road and city street corner, at every full table and in every quiet place, and in the face of every stranger, and lover, and enemy, and friend, on some level they kept asking themselves: is it you, Lord? Is it you?
Is it you, trembling beneath the surface of things, shining like the sun?
And the resurrection teaches us quite simply: the answer is always yes.
By Another Road 