We had hoped
The road to Emmaus
It is the third day, and two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem, away from the wreckage of everything they believed. A stranger falls into step beside them on the Emmaus road and asks why they are downcast, and they pour out their grief in three of the saddest words in the Gospels. We had hoped. We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, but they crucified him, and the women's report of an empty tomb has only deepened the confusion. The redemption they staked their lives on is, as far as they can see, simply over.
Here is the ache underneath the scene. They are so blinded by the death of their hope that they do not recognize the risen Jesus beside them, the very one they grieve, explaining from Moses and all the prophets how it had to be this way. He is present the entire time, and they cannot see Him through their disappointment. Only later, at the table, when He takes the bread and breaks it, do their eyes open, and He vanishes from sight. And in the same breath they realize what they had missed: their hearts had been burning within them the whole way, while He opened the Scriptures on the road.
“We hoped that it was he who would redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.”
— The two on the Emmaus road — Luke 24:21 (WEB)
“Weren't our hearts burning within us, while he spoke to us along the way, and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Disorientation is the ache of dashed hope, the future you counted on dying in your hands. This phase asks you to keep walking even when you cannot recognize God in your disappointment, trusting that the risen Christ is present on the road of your grief, doing quiet work you will only see later.
We had hoped is the native language of disorientation. The prayer that went unanswered. The prayer that was not answered. The future you had already furnished in your mind, now dismantled. The redemption that did not come, or did not come the way you were certain it would. To say we had hoped is to walk a road away from a Jerusalem where your expectation died. But look at where Christ is in the story. He is not waiting back in the city for you to get your faith together; He is on the road, in the middle of the disappointment, walking unrecognized at your side.
He is on the road, in the middle of the disappointment, walking at their side, unrecognized, doing the patient work of reopening the Scriptures to grief-dulled hearts. That is the comfort hidden in the scene, and it may be hidden in yours. The risen Christ has a way of being nearest in the very we-had-hoped where He seems most absent. Your task on the disorienting road is not to manufacture recognition. It is to keep walking, and to keep breaking bread, until your eyes are opened and you realize He was there the whole time.
The Church grieves its own we-had-hoped: a hope that died, a vision that failed, a future its people were sure God would bring that never arrived. Whole movements and traditions have walked their Emmaus road downcast, blind to the risen Christ in their midst, certain the redemption they staked everything on was simply over. The story promises He is present even when unrecognized, falling into step beside His people, opening the Scriptures, setting cold hearts to burn. Before a watching world that has read the Church's disappointments as proof its Lord is dead, the task of the whole Church is to keep walking and keep breaking bread, until its eyes are opened to the One who was beside it all along.
When hope dies and you cannot find God in the grief, what cannot be shaken is His unrecognized nearness. He was beside the disciples the entire road. What remains is the risen Christ present in your disappointment, the burning heart that proves He was there before you ever knew it.
- What we-had-hoped am I carrying away from a Jerusalem where my expectation died?
- Where might the risen Christ be walking beside me, unrecognized in my disappointment?
- Can I keep walking and breaking bread until my eyes are opened to see Him?
Lord, I am on the Emmaus road, telling You my we-had-hoped without knowing it is You I am talking to. Open my eyes. Let me find that You were beside me in the disappointment all along, opening the Scriptures, setting my heart to burn. Be known to me in the breaking of the bread. Amen.