As you are I'm sure aware I am a man of many talents.

One of them is my talent for forgetting something in seconds.

Usually the conversation goes something like.

If you're going in the kitchen would you fetch me a glass of water.

Followed by the usual dutiful, yes dear,

then I come back in 20 seconds later with whatever I went in for – a mars bar or something-

to be greeted with Err. Richard, Where's the glass of water

– Expletive – return trip to kitchen – glass of water.

It is scary how quickly something fades from the mind. In my favourite example I managed to forget which pair of shoes I was putting on in between the left foot and the right foot, so turned up to St Giles with one black one and one brown one.

It is scary how quickly information passes from the mind.

Already Easter has been and gone, the holiday is over, the royal couple married, normal service resumed. The surplus eggs have been flogged off buy one get one free. So I bought 4.

Maybe it is scary how quickly Easter fades from the memory, if not necessarily from the waistline.

For Cleopas and his companion, it took less than a day for Easter to fade. If Cleopas is the same person as the Clopas mentioned in John – we know that if he was not present at the cross, his wife certainly was. He was certainly present with the disciples on Easter day and at the Last Supper.

He heard Mary Magdalene race breathless and afraid back from the tomb that morning, but already the story had faded to what Luke calls an idle tale.

He had been there when Peter and John returned, confirming all that Mary had said.

And yet by the late afternoon Easter was already over for him. The festival of Passover had been and gone, the holiday was over. The royal one slain, the left over Matzos sold off, buy one get one free.

Did he know though, that even if he had turned his back on Easter, Easter had not turned its back on him? For Easter walked beside him, followed his tired, disenchanted footsteps as they trudged out of the holy city, if only he had the eyes to see.

Second only to my ability to forget things is my talent for losing e things despite knowing exactly where they are.

I'm sure you've had the experience of looking for something, which you could have sworn was there a minute ago – but now it has mysteriously disappeared.

I did this on Friday – spending half a very sweary hour charging round the house with increasing frustration looking for the five new dog collars I had just put down on my desk as the start point of the funeral service got ever closer.

I knew full well I'd put them on my desk – but having searched there, and the bathroom, bedroom, living room and kitchen, I concluded that either they were on the desk or that the new spaniel had eaten them all. Back to the desk. No dog collars. I looked at the dog and suggested that if this was his idea of some sort of dog based pun, then I was having none of it, and searched the house again.

Finally in desperation I returned to the study. The dog collars were of course in the middle of my desk, hiding in plain sight.

For Cleopas and his companion, it is not just that Jesus is hiding in plain sight right next to them as they walk along. This lack of recognition is a common feature of the resurrection stories but it is a metaphor, as failing to see if throughout the bible, for a failure to truly grasp what is going on.

Luke says 'their eyes were kept from recognising him'. It's not that he was wearing a dodgy moustache and glasses disguise or was travelling to Emmaus wearing a hoodie.

Rather their failure to recognise him is a symbol of their failure to truly recognise him all the time that they spent with him. That is why there is so much irony when they ask him “are you the only stranger who does not know” and he replies that he is the only one who does truly know.

Easter has been walking with them for days, weeks, maybe months or years – in fact there is some suggestion in ancient writings that Cleopas was Joseph's brother, Jesus' uncle and that his son went on to become the Bishop of Jerusalem after James was killed. If this is true, and it would explain why Cleopas is named and his companion is not, then Easter may have been present with him, unrecognised for over 30 years. Hiding in plain sight. Following all his tired, disenchanted footsteps if only he had the eyes to see.

Easter was not over for Cleopas, even if his eyes could not see or his mind relegated it to mere story, an idle tale. Easter was not over so long as his heart burn within him.

And it is not just his failure to see which is symbolic in the story – the way Luke tells the tale, it has already become a parable of the life of the Early Church. It says to them, and to us, that Easter is never over, so long as the journey continues. And quite deliberately the story parallels the pattern of worship of the church – the pattern of the communion service which has been broadly the same for 200 years, giving us the context for the journey.

The story begins with a coming together of believers, who meet to share their concerns.

Where two are present, Christ comes, at first unnoticed into their midst.

They move on to hear the scriptures read and explained. They share fellowship together, share once again in the bread and the wine, rediscover Jesus alive again in that meeting place and then go out to share that story with others.

There is a reason why Easter is not over for the church, but runs in a season for several weeks. A reason too why all our communion services tell the Easter story again and again.

It is easy for Easter to slip away from us, as our journeys become crowded with our own cares and concerns, our hurts and disappointments. It is easy for Easter to be forgotten.

And yet the church is called to proclaim that Easer is never over, although it may hide among us, undiscovered and yet in plain sight.

Easter is eternal, and he will accept our invitation to stay with him as darkness approaches, that as we meet to share our concerns and to open the scriptures, we too may recognise him and find easter renewed in the breaking of the bread.

Amen.