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Rev. Hannah Lovaglio’s Sermon: April 19, 2026
We Had Hoped
Luke 24: 13 – 27
Two disciples are walking along the road to Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem, heads down, hearts heavy, trying to make sense of what has just happened.
And somewhere along that road, they say the truest thing they know how to say, to a stranger:
“We had hoped…”
We had hoped.
Past tense.
Hope, for them, is something that used to exist. Something that belonged to a different version of the story. A version where Jesus was still alive. A version where the ending hadn’t come crashing down the way it did.
We had hoped that he was the one.
We had hoped that things would turn out differently.
We had hoped that death wouldn’t get the final word.
We had hoped.
If we’re honest, we know that language.
We had hoped the diagnosis would be different.
We had hoped the relationship would hold.
We had hoped our children would be safe, our work secure, our world kinder than it is.
We had hoped our faith would feel stronger than this.
We had hoped we would recognize God more easily than we do.
That’s the road to Emmaus. Not just a physical road, but one we know by heart. A road we return to, again and again, whenever life turns out differently than we imagined, differently than we planned, differently than we thought we deserved.
The words we speak on that road are words of pain, disappointment, bewilderment, and yearning.
We had hoped.
On the road to Emmaus, on that first Easter, for these two, nothing has changed—yet.
The tomb is empty, yes.
The women have told their story.
Angels have spoken.
But for these two disciples?
None of that has landed. None of it adds up, amounts, counts.
Because grief has a way of doing that.
One of the most honest descriptions of grief I’ve ever heard is this, from someone who learned the hard way:
Grief is holding multiple, conflicting emotions at the same time—and all of them are true.[1]
It’s a world of “yes, and…”
Yes, I’m grateful—and I’m angry.
Yes, I’m relieved—and I’m heartbroken.
Yes, I believe—and I’m not sure what to believe anymore.
That’s where these disciples are walking.
This description of grief can be found within the text itself, as they explain these things to the unrecognized Jesus “Yes, and besides all this…” the scripture reads. Yes, and besides all of this pain now they’re saying something strange. Yes, and besides all this exhaustion there is word of something else. Yes, and as if that wasn’t enough, now even more…
Yes, they are sad to be leaving Jerusalem—and maybe relieved to be going home.
Yes, they are talking it all through—and also exhausted by the retelling.
Yes, they feel something stirring as this stranger opens the scriptures—and also feel the weight of everything they’ve lost.
Yes… and.
And somewhere in the middle of all that complexity, all that contradiction, all that grief…
They say it out loud:
We had hoped.
They do not yet recognize the one with whom they speak. As Luke puts it, their eyes were kept from seeing.
That’s another thing grief does.
It protects us from seeing what we’re not ready to see.
It narrows our vision.
It lowers our gaze.
They are looking down.
They are looking backward.
They are looking at what was.
As they should, memory is their only comfort, the invisible heartstring that ties them to the one they lost.
We had hoped.
And Jesus—this unrecognized, unassuming, walking companion—does something remarkable.
He doesn’t interrupt them.
He doesn’t correct them right away.
He asks a question:“What are you talking about?”
And a follow up question, “what things?”
Open ended invitations for them to lay it all down.
And they tell him everything.
They tell the story.
They name their disappointment.
They rehearse the heartbreak.
They say, we had hoped.
There is something deeply spiritual and good for us to learn here.
Before Jesus reveals anything—before resurrection is recognized, before hope is restored, he listens.
He walks with them.
He lets them tell the story as they understand it.
Even when they don’t yet understand it fully.
And then, slowly, he begins to hold it up against a different light.
He tells the story again, but this time, a bigger story.
A story that stretches back through Moses and the prophets.
A story where suffering is not the end.
A story where death is not the final word.
A story where God has always been making a way out of no way.
And something begins to happen.
Later, they will say:
“Were not our hearts burning within us…?”
But they still don’t see him.
Not yet.
Because knowing the story is not the same as recognizing it’s unfolding right before you.
And here’s the surprising thing about resurrection:
It is quiet.
Not loud.
Not obvious.
Not the kind of thing that forces recognition. These two are but two of many who will come face to face with the resurrection and miss it, at least at first.
If we were writing the story, maybe Jesus would march straight into Jerusalem—prove everyone wrong, settle the score, make it undeniable and loud.
But instead?
He takes a walk. On a back road. With two grieving people who don’t even recognize him.
And if we’re honest, that’s not always what we hoped for either.
We had hoped resurrection would be clearer than this.
We had hoped there’d be more dramatic.
We had hoped the sign would be unmistakable.
But instead, it comes quietly.
Hidden in conversation.
Carried in companionship.
Slowly unfolding, step by step.
They arrive at Emmaus.
Jesus acts as if he will keep going.
For a moment the story could have been so different, resurrection could be right beside them and kept on walking, never received.
But they say those simple, sacred words:
“Stay with us.”
Words always worth the risk.
Stay with us, because the day is nearly over.
Stay with us, because the night is coming.
Stay with us, because we are not ready to be alone.
And he does.
They sit at the table.
He takes the bread.
He blesses it.
He breaks it.
He gives it to them.
He has done this before.
At ordinary tables.
At miraculous tables.
On mountainsides and lake shores.
At his last supper.
And in that familiar, embodied, ordinary act: their eyes are opened. They recognize him.
And suddenly, “We had hoped” is no longer the final sentence.
Instead, they say:
“Were not our hearts burning within us?”
Do you hear the shift?
From past tense to present experience.
From what was lost to what is now alive.
From impossible, to possible.
They get up, and they run back to Jerusalem. Because hope has changed tense. Hope is no longer something they once had; hope is something they are presently living.
Maybe this is the invitation for us.
Not to rush past “we had hoped.”
Not to pretend it isn’t real.
Not to skip over grief, disappointment, or heartbreak.
But to trust that even there, especially there, on the road where hope feels like it belongs to the past, Jesus is walking with us.
Unrecognized, perhaps.
Unseen, often.
But present.
Listening. Opening the story. Holding our lives up to a different light.
Waiting for the moment when, in the breaking of the bread, in the sharing of life, in the ordinary becoming holy, our eyes might open.
And maybe we won’t say it all at once.
Maybe it will come slowly.
In glimpses.
In moments where the light hits just right.
Where something in us stirs and we can’t quite explain it.
Where we catch a glimpse of something beautiful and spend the rest of our lives trying not to forget it.
If today your story can hold the resurrection hope, if your heart burns and your eyes can recognize, then grab a friend’s hand and get moving. Run back to the community. Tell the story. Pay attention to those walking with their heads down. Hear and hold another’s lament: ‘we had hoped.’ Ask better questions, make more room at the table, offer presence, bread, story, and love.
And if today your story sounds like that lament, the past tense: we had hoped, hear this good news: You’re not behind. You’re not failing. You’re not alone. You’re on the road. And Christ is walking with you. And we are walking with you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Katie Hawkins-Gaar, https://mysweetdumbbrain.substack.com/p/yes-and-
—
Rev. Hannah Lovaglio (she/her/hers)
Minister, Central Presbyterian Church
