“Open up to the Kin-Dom”

Third Sunday of Easter

April 1, 2026

‍Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Luke 24:13-35

Children’s Message:

Looking for Jesus

Message:

As the disciples walked along the road back home, Jesus comes alongside them. And the text tells us that their eyes were closed to recognizing him. It’s not that they refused to recognize him. They simply were unable to. Recognition was closed off from them. Unattainable. They were simply too far into their grief and despair to see what was right in front of their faces.

When he asks why they are grieving, they can’t believe he hasn’t heard! “Heard what?” he asks. And they tell him all about their hopes and dreams pinned on a man who ended up getting himself killed by Rome. They tell him about the crucifixion and the humiliation that it brought. They tell him about the burial and tomb. They tell him about the women returning from the tomb that very morning to tell everyone it was empty. They tell him the women gave some cockamamie story about Jesus being alive, but no one has been able to corroborate it. The whole Jesus movement has fallen apart, years wasted, hope dashed. They tell him everything.

To which Jesus basically says—according to one theologian—“You idiots.” After which, he tells THEM the real story. Not just dashed hopes but lives healed. Not just a revolutionary killed but people redeemed. Not just Israel’s oppression but creation liberated. And yet, their eyes and hearts and minds remain closed.

Not until he eats with them do they finally recognize him. Across the table. Holding bread. And wine. Speaking the blessing they have heard so many times before. And at the moment they realize—at the moment they SEE—he vanishes. Because once they see him, they no longer need to see him. Once they get it, they no longer need his explanations.

Last week’s passage and this week’s passage go together—though they come from different authors and different perspectives. The stories both happen on Easter day—on resurrection day. The same day the women went to the tomb, Jesus shows up amidst doubt and dismay. He shows up behind locked doors and opens the disciples’ hearts. He shows up on the journey and at the table, and opens the disciples’ minds. He shows up in the midst of our own darkness and despair and opens the door to hope.

Open hearts and open minds can open doors.

In her essay on this passage, Diana Butler Bass asks:

“What if resurrection means opening the heart to radical joy? What if it means sitting at a table and eating with those whom we assumed dead—and at the table, we discover that those we’d left to the grave are as fully human as we are? What if it means experiencing and understanding the world with imagination and possibility? What if it means that we both feel differently and think differently? What if it is like moving from locking down to opening up? From fear to love?”[1]

To think and feel differently. To become open rather than closed. To love rather than fear. What if that is what resurrection means? What if that is what it means to live as a Christian—a Christ-follower? Not more rules. Not more shame. Not exclusive access to a heaven filled with more of the same closed-off fear-mongers. Not a sinner’s prayer or accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Not even theological assent to a particular creed.

What if it’s simply about becoming open? Open to possibility. Open to hope. Open to a way paved by vulnerability. I’ve often described my theology before entering seminary as a prison. I had built up all the walls to protect myself from sin. I built them from bricks made of literal readings of scripture, of my desire for certainty, of my insistence that faith is black-and-white. And somewhere along the way, those walls began to crumble. And I realized that instead of protecting myself, those walls had imprisoned me. I was closed off from the kin-dom around me.

When my mind and heart opened to new ways of approaching scripture and faith, the walls fell, the doors opened. It was like learning to breathe again.

Open hearts and open minds can open doors.

When the disciples told Jesus about their experience, they said, “We had hoped.” And when Jesus opened the scriptures to them, he essentially told them that their hopes were too small. They had hoped Jesus would liberate Israel. But Jesus came for so much more than that. Jesus came to liberate creation—to liberate love—to liberate faith—to liberate religion. Jesus came to throw open the doors and crumble the walls of hate and certainty—to reduce to nothing the barriers we’ve constructed. Jesus came to open hearts and minds to the true grace and love of God.

As long as we keep putting walls up around the resurrection, we keep our hopes small and our minds and hearts closed. But just like the tomb, just like my self-imposed prison, just like the locked room of the disciples, Jesus doesn’t let a little thing like stones and doors and walls stop him. It doesn’t matter how many times we may attempt to put God in a box, the little bugger will keep escaping and challenging us to think bigger—hope bigger—love bigger. Until there is no box—only the kin-dom of heaven.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE

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[1] Bass, Diana Butler, “A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance,” St. Martin’s Publishing Group: New York, 2025, pg. 205.

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