Preached by the Rev. David Henson on April 18, 2026
“We had hoped he would be the one who would redeem us.”
We had hoped.
Every time I read this story, those three words stop me in my tracks.
Because it’s past tense.
Had hoped.
In other words, these two disciples, Cleopas and his companion, have lost all hope.
They had hoped that Jesus would be the hoped-for one, who would restore the fortunes of their nation, who would establish the new kingdom, who would redeem all things.
But the crucifixion had shattered all that beyond repair for them. Even the strange reports that very morning of an empty tomb weren’t enough to restore their hope. The whole ordeal was just too traumatic, too disastrous, having watched all their hopes, held in the person of Jesus, be tortured and nailed to a cross.
And so Cleopas and his friend walk away from all of it—
Their community. Their hope. The future they had planned.
It’s no wonder they are so sad when they encounter the stranger on the road.
I’ve always found it curious that this stranger, who turns out to be Jesus, doesn’t simply reveal his identity and put an end to their despair. But what’s perhaps more important is that he doesn’t condemn them for abandoning everything in that moment.
Maybe that’s because he knows companionship is the primary balm for hopelessness. And because he knows, too, it isn’t really their fault.
Their hopelessness isn’t a sign of their faithlessness or a moral failure.
Nor is it an accident.
Rather, it is intentional.
It is the exact result Rome intends with the crucifixion, with every crucifixion.
As followers and friends of the crucified one, Cleopas and his friend become secondary victims of the cross, casualties of a profound hopelessness strategically designed and built into the Roman system of peace through punishment and violence.
Crucifixion was never just about killing one person. It was always about sending a message to every person witnessing it, particularly any who might share the same beliefs or ideals as the person being crucified.
Empires of violence like Rome have always fed on such hopelessness. The oppressive powers of the world actively sow the seeds of hopelessness, cultivate a relentless sense of isolating despair, intent on reaping an abundant harvest of ennui, overwhelm, and powerlessness, especially among the vulnerable or anyone who might challenge or disagree with them.
And so the story of the Emmaus Road is evidence the crucifixion is working exactly how Rome hoped it would, intended it to, designed it.
Hopelessness isn’t a bug in the system. It’s the feature.
Jesus recognizes that what he sees in them isn’t faithlessness; it’s woundedness, wounded by the same force that wounded his hands, his feet, and his side.
Maybe you feel some of that same woundedness in your own weary soul.
Live long enough, and each of us will find ourselves on the same Emmaus Road as Cleopas, unwilling experts in “we had hoped”.
We had hoped he would live a few more days.
We had hoped we wouldn’t lose the house.
We had hoped it wasn’t cancer.
We had hoped our marriage would make it.
We had hoped we could pay for the operation.
We had hoped our adult children would still talk to us.
We had hoped our world would be kinder, gentler, less violent.
We had hoped things would be better, fairer, or even just a little more tolerable.
We had hoped.
We had hoped never to walk the Road to Emmaus.
But empires of violence are still just as present today as they were in Jesus’ time and they still largely operate by the same playbook, of paraylzing hopelessness and overwhelm.
Turn on the news or open your social media feeds, and you are forcefed a bitter feast of the worst of humanity. The onslaught of overwhelming bad news is enough to push a person to the brink.
That is not hyperbole.
As a pastor, I have seen it and witnessed it. I have seen folks reach the point of such profound despair and hopelessness they are ready to walk away from it all, even life itself. They see the chaos of the world, the sheer volume of violence and the cruel extent to which the most vulnerable among us are targeted and see no way out.
And so like Cleopas and his companion, they choose to walk away, along the road of hopelessness.
And that is where Christ shows up for them. It’s one of the most unexpected—and reassuring— elements of the Easter story.
Imagine, among the very first things our Resurrected Lord does the day he rises from the dead, is to chase down his despairing disciples on the long and lonely road of hopelessness and simply listen to them. He just walks with them in the opposite direction of where they should be, as if he has all the time in eternity, and lets them pour their brokenness out before him.
Then, he slowly, gently begins to heal them.
He begins to tell them a new story. He reframes the hopelessness and despair that has taken root in them and shows that God, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, is still at work, bringing new life and new light into a realm covered in death and darkness. He explains that they’ve been looking at the world, their lives, and their story through the wrong lens, the hopeless lens cast by the empires of violence like Rome. And so he begins to reveal to them what can be seen through the eyes of a loving God that not even death can silence and contain.
And they respond by doing something so quietly beautiful.
They insist this stranger stay for a meal. They offer hospitality. They offer welcome. Even in their hopelessness, they follow the teaching of Jesus, almost like a muscle memory.
They become the very hope of the world in which they have lost all hope.
And as they share a meal together, Jesus nourishes them not just with warm food to fill hungry bellies but with communion to fill their empty souls, until the smoldering embers of their hearts flare to life again.
And in that moment, the hopelessness blinding their sight falls away and they see Christ, the Resurrected Lord, and they know the truth.
That nothing can stop the love of God, not even their own hopelessness and despair and not even the mightiest empire and military the world had ever known, that the will of God is greater than the demands of death.
And so they run—that very moment, at night, in the darkness bearing the new light—back to their community, back to their lives, back to the living.
Hopelessness is transformed into hope, despair transfigured into purpose, death transubstantiated into life.
There is something so deeply comforting and deeply moving that the very first Eucharist of the Resurrection happens not in the midst of celebration, faith, and hope, but in the midst of despair, hopelessness, and the loss of faith.
That the first Eucharist was the means of healing them, making them whole, and bringing them back into the strength of their community.
So, if you’re on the road to Emmaus this morning, the road of hopelessness, know God holds no judgment or condemnation for your despair and troubled heart. Christ has not abandoned you on that path and is already walking with you, even if you can’t yet see him.
You don’t have to find your way back to hope or even to Christ, only back to his table, again and again.
Because it is here that we encounter Christ, here that we hear a new story beyond the despair of the world, here that we are healed, here that we find our hearts strangely warmed, burning with renewed hope for a world made new by a Resurrected Lord who is made known to us every time we break the bread together.