We Had Hoped

 Luke 24 13-35

4-24-22

 

Two people walking along the road to Emmaus

one of them is named Cleopas

we don’t know the name of the other one.

It’s three days after Jesus crucifixion.

Emmaus
Arcabus

They meet a stranger, a man they don’t recognize

who doesn’t seem to know about the events of Jesus.

So they tell this stranger about him.

‘Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty

in deed and word before God and all the people,

and our chief priests and leaders handed him over

to be condemned to death and crucified him.”

 

Then they add,

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

“We had hoped.”

They don’t just say that they hoped.

They had hoped. The Greek uses the past imperfect tense.

 

Past imperfect is the tense that says that we did something

continually, but now that time has passed. It’s over.

It talks about an unfinished action. 

It’s easier to see in other languages with conjugations and contractions. But in English

we use had before the past tense of the verb.

We had hoped. But now the time of hoping is in the past.

It’s almost as if they’re saying, “Remember when we had hoped”

That time was great,  but even the hoping is over now.

 

The two people on the road, one who was named Cleopas,

had hoped that Jesus was the one to save them.

They had hoped that Jesus was the one to make some changes,

to set the world on fire, to create justice and make things new.

We had hoped.

 

But then he was killed by the establishment,

like so many other prophets are.

And our hope died with him. That hope was past imperfect.

Unfinished. Jesus ministry and our hope are all over now.

 

It is in that state, in the absence of hope once felt,

that the Jesus meets the two people on the road.

Right where they are, disappointments, broken hearts and all.

He spends time with them, comes in and eats with them.

And they realize that it was Jesus who was with them all the time.

 

Most of us can probably relate to the

two people on the road that day. Cleopas and the other one.

We understand completely the experience of

the past imperfect tense.

 

We understand having “had hoped”

We had hoped that that job would have worked out

We had hoped that this time they would have stayed sober

We had hoped that we would have grown old together

We had hoped that the pain would go away

We had hoped that the cancer wouldn’t come back,

We had hoped that the pandemic would be over by now,

We had hoped there would be less poverty,

We had hoped that the war would be over,

We had hope that justice would prevail,

We had hoped that things would have gotten better by now.

 

As human beings in this world, we live with this “had hoped” feeling

We get excited about the prospect of things,

the promise, the dream. But things happen and time passes,

and everything don’t turn out as we had hoped.

We’re disappointed and reality hits us.

It’s never as good as it was in our vision.

Remember how we had hoped,

now we can only remember the hope that we had.

 

And this is right where Jesus comes into our lives as well

This Easter story is not just about that one walk and 

that one afternoon with two disciples on that one road to Emmaus.

 

The story of the Emmaus Road is a story about us.

In this story, Luke has given us a model of Christian community.

How we gather together as Christians:

 

We are the two traveling on the road.

We meet one another and join in community.

We tell our stories, we share our joy and pain.

We welcome broken hearts,

we share our joys and our disappointments with each other,

Those “We had hoped” moments.

 

And most of the time we don’t recognize Jesus

when we see him: in friends in strangers,

in those we welcome, in those we help, and  those who help us.

 

But when we gather, the scriptures are read

We read about other people that had hoped, and who lost hope.

We hear about how God was still there with them,

and then they had hope again.

We understand about God’s promises

and find that suffering and setbacks are part of

a full and meaningful life.

We make sense of Christ’s life and death and

help each other understand how we all fit in that picture

and after a time, our hope returns to us.

 

And finally, at the end of our time together,

We break the bread and share the cup of wine.

And we finally recognize Jesus presence with us

in Christ’s body and blood, broken and shed for us.

 

That moment of revelation is fleeting, but all we need.

And we realize, looking back at our whole journey,

that Christ has been with us the whole time.

Jesus has been there in the stranger and the friend.

Accompanying us, opening our hearts,

and breaking bread with us.

 

And with that knowledge, we go out

to tell other people, that Christ is with us.

That Christ is risen and God has not left us alone.

We don’t have to have “had hope” in the past.

We can still have hope right now.

 

Two people, one of them is named Cleopas,

and the other one isn’t named at all.

 

I think Luke did that so that we can put our own

name in that empty space.

Cleopas and you, whoever you are,

we walk down that Emmaus Road together.

 

We are the people of the road, the Way.

We are on a journey together.

A journey of joys and disappointments

of dreams demolished and then

our once-lost hope restored.

 

We are on that long journey.

And we whether we realize it at the moment or not,

Christ has been with us the whole time.