Recalculating ...

2026-27
sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA
www.goodshepherdfw.org
by the Rev. Josh Hosler, Rector

The Third Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2026

Acts 2:14a,36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35

When I drive, I use GPS. A lot. And now I wonder how I ever went without it. I’m always needing to find my way to some new address, often one of yours. And as I frequently visit four different hospitals in our region, I don’t trust myself to remember how to get to all of them—not when I’m trying to keep to a schedule. I’m a person who hates being late, too, so I love knowing exactly how long it will take me to get from one place to another.

Of course, it doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes, even when using GPS, I accidentally make a wrong turn. And then my phone uses a certain word … “recalculating.” This can happen when bad traffic crops up, too, possibly because of an accident up ahead. “Recalculating.” In other words, things did not go the way we expected. Perhaps now there is a better or faster way to get there.

Living a life of faith is about always being ready to recalculate. And I have examples for you. Exhibit A is the gospel reading we just heard. Exhibit B is the reaction of the crowd to Peter’s speech on the Day of Pentecost.

First, exhibit A. On a springtime Sunday afternoon, two devastated and demoralized disciples are beating a hasty retreat from Jerusalem. Their teacher Jesus is dead—executed by the Roman Empire for sedition, a charge arranged by their own Jewish Temple authorities. How could things get any worse? Now they’re heading for Emmaus, seven miles away, hometown of one of them, apparently, or one of their friends, so they can lie low for a while while they … recalculate. But these new calculations already look very, very unpromising.

As they walk, along comes a stranger. Where did he come from? They didn’t hear him approaching. You know that awkward moment when you find yourself walking on the same path as a stranger, in the same direction, at the same pace? Eventually you either have to adjust your pace to give them room, or break the ice. Well, the stranger breaks the ice. “Hey, what are you talking about?” Like it’s any of his business.

But Cleopas decides to trust him. “You’ve just come from Jerusalem, too. If you overhead any of what we’re saying, you must already know.”

“No,” says the stranger, “I don’t.”

“Oh, come on,” says The Other Disciple—we’ll call him Tod—“you know, Jesus of Nazareth! We … we were absolutely certain that he was the Messiah. Now all our hopes are dashed.”

“Yes,” says Cleopas, “and now this other weird thing has happened. Some of the women we know told us that angels had given them a message that Jesus is alive! But obviously that’s not believable. We saw the Roman soldiers nail him to the cross.”

A smile begins to break across the stranger’s face. Already he has made them feel comfortable enough with him that he knows he can rib them a little. “Oh, you guys are absolute fools, aren’t you? Come on, get with the program! You know your Bibles. This was the only way the story could possibly play out.”

I will forever be annoyed that the gospel writer does not tell us exactly what curriculum the stranger lays on these two disciples as they walk the remainder of the seven miles to Emmaus. But have you ever been on a long hike with people you absolutely adore, and shared a deep conversation with them? The time just flies by, doesn’t it? And before you know it, you’ve arrived at the summit, and then you’re back down the mountain and outside your cars in the parking lot. And you still don’t want this time to end.

“Please,” they say outside the door of the house. “Please come in and eat with us. You haven’t told us where you’re headed, but the sun is setting, and you’ll need a meal and a place to spend the night.”

“All right,” the stranger concedes. “It smells good in there! Freshly baked bread!”

Cleopas and Tod pass the bread to the stranger first. He takes it. He blesses it. He breaks it. He gives it to them.

WHOA. This is no stranger. This is Jesus! Alive! Right in front of them!

Or … well, he was. Now, somehow, they don’t see him anymore. Do they see a stranger again? Or is the man’s seat suddenly empty? The storyteller leaves that detail to our imaginations.

Did this really happen?

Well, something happened! Something took place that led someone to tell the story, and then it got told for decades, and then the author of Luke’s Gospel wrote it down. And we still have it.

And we don’t have any other story to substitute for this one, so … this is the one we have. Will we accept this story, or not?

Cleopas and Tod immediately get up and return to Jerusalem. After sundown. In the dark. They have to tell the other disciples that Jesus is alive! This is how certain they are about what just took place.

Can you imagine the recalculating they are doing in their souls all the way back?

I came across a quote this week from Margaret Aymer, who teaches at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary: “Luke’s story reminds us that our relationship with the resurrected Christ is a relationship of long walks, risky conversations, reframed traumas, and quiet dinners—an intimate relationship between Christ and the church, of words shared and bread broken.”

Well then. Exhibit B, which takes place forty-nine days later, is written by the same author. Last week we heard Peter address a group of Jews who had made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Festival of Shavuot. He told all these people, many of whom probably had never even heard of Jesus, that they themselves killed the man—with help from the Roman Empire. And that God then raised Jesus from the dead.

Today we hear the crowd’s reaction. Surprisingly, it’s not, “Hey, we didn’t kill Jesus! We never even knew him!”

No, it’s a very different reaction. We hear that they are “cut to the heart.” The crowd of Jewish pilgrims is recalculating furiously. And all they can say is … “What then are we to do?”

Peter is ready with a response, and it is very specific indeed. There are two tasks for them, followed by a promised task from God. “Repent. Be baptized. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

OK, let’s talk for a minute about this word “repent.” For most of us in this room, it is probably laden with unhelpful images. Maybe it’s street preachers with sandwich boards shouting that we’re headed for hell. Maybe it’s past mentors who knew us personally—clergy, or parents, or friends—urging us, in great anxiety, to pray for Jesus to enter our hearts before it’s too late!

Well, this may have been your path. But it’s not the only path. “Repent” is not a term that needs to be laden with shame. Because you know what “repent” really means?

That’s right. “Recalculating …”

To repent is to effect a course correction—to turn the wheel a different way—to accept the detour that’s offered—to shift onto a better road. And the reason it need not be laden with shame is that all your sins are already forgiven.

Repentance is always good news, even if the consequences that led to it don’t go away. You may still be stuck in traffic for a while. You may well be late to your appointment. But as Maya Angelou famously said, “When you know better, you do better.” The life of a Christian is a life of daily repentance. Free it from all this negative energy. If today’s repentance just means a minor course correction, well, why worry? Just do it. And if today’s repentance means no longer doing something harmful, that’s even better news! It means you’re open to changing and allowing God to make you a more loving person.

At least, I hope you allow that to happen. It might be hard work, honestly. You might not like having to recalculate. But it’s better if you do. God is in your repentance, even you have to accept for the time being that your behavior has broken other people’s trust in you. Hopefully, your repentance will help you begin to teach people something different about yourself. And if you need to repent from the worst thing you’ve ever done, know this and understand it well: You are far more than the worst thing you’ve ever done. You are a beloved, forgiven child of God, for whom Jesus destroyed death!

If you want to explore this with me further, let’s schedule a time to chat. But for now, let’s move on.

Peter’s second instruction is to be baptized. And according to the writer, THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE were baptized that day! How on earth is that even possible? And then what happened? We’ll hear more about that next week. But for today, let’s talk for a moment about Exhibit C.

Exhibit C is your own life. And if your life were the most pressing news item of the day, what would the headline be?

Dang, that’s a good icebreaker. I’ll have to use that.

If your life were the most pressing news item of the day, what would the headline be?

Is it happy news? Sad news? News that requires a response, a recalculation, a course correction?

Please take this knowledge away from your time here at Good Shepherd this morning. Peter’s recommended procedure of repentance, followed by baptism, is still both valid and helpful two thousand years later. And to this day, it still leads to a gift from God: the gift of the Holy Spirit pouring into you, energizing you to help with God’s work in the world.

It’s not always as obvious to others as it may be to you. But in conjunction with a worshiping community’s prayers and ongoing support, it can become incredibly clear.

Every Sunday when we pray the Nicene Creed, we say we believe in “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” Baptism is not repeatable. We consent to baptism to make public our process of recalculating. We consent to baptism to show everyone around us the new beginning that we are inviting the Holy Spirit to kickstart in us. Baptism is a public entry into a way of life marked by repentance, which is not shameful groveling, but constant course correction. Amen.