“Now on that same day,” the scripture says, “two of them were going to a village called Emmaus.” On that same day. Meaning on Easter Day.

To recap, earlier that day the women went to the tomb to take the spices that they had prepared, but found the stone rolled away, the body absent, the tomb empty. They saw a mystical figure, all in white, telling them, “He is not here, he has gone ahead.” 

At this point, the disciples have heard the women’s testimony and some even believed them.

And now it is a few hours later, and the place is a few miles away. We find ourselves on a dusty road outside of Jerusalem, where two people are traveling on foot.

We don’t know much about these two, except that they were somehow connected to the Jesus movement, most likely as distant followers. They know what has happened over the previous few days. They know about the betrayal, and the denial, and the desertion, and the condemnation, and the crucifixion. With heavy hearts, they are discussing all that they have seen and heard. 

And suddenly, a stranger shows up and walks with them for a while. He asks them what they’re talking about, and they stop in their tracks, looking sad, because the story is still fresh. Their broken hearts are still raw.

But in spite of the fact that they were heartbreakingly sad and that the roads were notoriously dangerous… in spite of the fact that talking with strangers was patently unadvisable, particularly as afternoon moved toward evening—those two joined in conversation with the strange man. They told him about Jesus of Nazareth, a mighty prophet, who had been handed over to be put to death at the hands of the authorities. 

“But,” they said, “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

It’s a poignant line. “But we had hoped…” We had hoped that things would be different. We had hoped that Jesus would defeat Herod and Pilate and the rest of the ones who ruthlessly rule our land and our people. We had hoped that our friend and teacher would still be alive… still teaching and leading us. We took great risks to follow him. We staked our reputations, even our lives, on him. We had hoped that things would be different now.

We had hoped.

And if you’re like me, it’s a line you have uttered at one time or another. We had hoped the relationship would work out. We had hoped that there would be a job offer. We had hoped our beloved would be able to stay sober this time. We had hoped God wouldn’t feel so far away.

And we are surrounded by so many unfulfilled hopes. We had hoped that the chemo and radiation would work. We had hoped the depression wouldn’t return. We had hoped our children would grow up in a safer world. We had hoped things would go back to the way they were before Covid. We had hoped it would be clearer where to go from here.

There’s a lot of disappointment and heartbreak bound up in those four simple words, “But we had hoped…” More often than we would like, the things we hope for don’t come to fruition. We don’t get the job. We can’t figure out how to reconcile with our family member. The illness progresses. The one we love says goodbye. The things we want our bodies to do stubbornly refuse to happen. Even Covid still lingers.

The words we speak on the road to Emmaus are words of pain, disappointment, and yearning. They are the words we say when we’ve come to the end of our hopes — when our expectations have been dashed, our cherished dreams are dead, and there’s nothing left to do but figure out where to go from here. 

But we had hoped.

If we’re honest, even the Jesus who shows up in our text today is not really the Messiah we hoped for. “But we had hoped” he’d be more dramatic. More convincing. More unmistakably divine. We had hoped he’d make post-Easter faith easier. Part of the disappointment we face on the Emmaus road is the disappointment of a Jesus who prefers the quiet, hidden encounter to the big, showy burning-bush moments we crave.

In spite of this, we Christians are called to be people of hope. For we are receivers of the gospel promise that the way things are is not the way things will always be… that change is possible, and that life really could be different. 

After all, we follow the One who brought healing to people who thought they would never be well.

We follow the One who brought power to people who felt powerless… purpose to people who felt purposeless… meaning to lives that felt meaningless. 

We follow the One who defeated hate and fear and violence and death by the startling power of love. We Christians are called to be people of hope. 

But like those disciples on the Emmaus road, sometimes our hope leads to heartbreak. Sometimes we are stopped in our tracks by grief or disappointment or fear. Sometimes, all we can do is wallow in, “we had hoped…” And that’s just part of life.

Because the promise of our faith is not that our hearts will never break or that our hopes will never go unfulfilled. And it is also not that we will always be safe or that our needs will always be met. If you’ve read the gospels, you know that. If you’ve studied the history of the church, you know that. If you’ve paid attention to your own life, you know that.

The promise of this story is that in those moments, Jesus will show up beside us. 

The promise of this story is that when all seems lost, God will give us the strength to take the next step.

The promise of this story, and the promise of the Gospels as a whole, is that when our hearts break – not if, but when – we will not be abandoned. We will be accompanied. We will be guided. And we will find healing in unexpected places.

This week, I couldn’t help but notice that as soon as Jesus falls into step with the companions on the road, he invites them to tell their story: “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?”

Astonished by the question, Cleopas and his co-traveler tell Jesus everything. They share with him the story of their faith — its rise and its fall. They tell Jesus how high their expectations had been for their now-crucified leader, “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” They describe their devastation at his death. They tell Jesus the whole story. 

And Jesus listens. He hears them out, allowing them the balm of being heard. And then — when they’re done — he tells the story back to them, but as he does so, the story changes. In his retelling, it becomes what it really always was — something far bigger, deeper, older, wiser, and richer than the travelers on the Emmaus road understood. “Here’s what you’re leaving out,” Jesus seems to say. “Here’s what you’re missing.”

As theologian, Debie Thomas, writes, “When Jesus tells the story, he restores both its context and its wonder. He grounds the story in memory, in tradition, in history, in Scripture. He helps the travelers comprehend their place in a narrative that long precedes them, a narrative big enough to hold their disappointment without being defeated by it. When Jesus tells the story, the death of the Messiah finds its place in a sweeping, cosmic arc of redemption, hope, and divine love that spans the centuries.” 

And perhaps that’s one of the most poignant gifts that the church has to offer a scared and grieving world today. A broader perspective. A deeper hope.

When we find ourselves on our own Emmaus roads, our lenses can tend to become very small…very myopic. We lose all sense of the big picture. But when we are part of a community of faith, like this one, we are able to place our lives in the broader, more expansive context of God’s all-encompassing Story. Like Cleopas and his companion, we need Jesus to meet us on the road, and to help us find ourselves in a bigger, better story.

Beloved church, so very many things are different right now than we had hoped they’d be. And yet, Jesus hasn’t left us. In fact, he’s as present now in the sharing of stories and the breaking of bread, as he was in that encounter 2 millenia ago.

So keep walking. Keep telling the story. Keep honoring the stranger. Keep breaking bread together. Even when things haven’t turned out the way you had hoped. For it’s in those small interactions where God often shows up most astonishingly. May it be so, again. Amen.