Daily Verse
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Hope
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Tuesday's Reflection
Luke 24:21 — But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.
Two disciples walked the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter afternoon, and their hope was in ruins. They had believed Jesus was the one who would redeem Israel — they had staked everything on Him — and then they had watched Him die. "We trusted," they said, in the past tense. We had hoped. Now He was dead and buried, three days gone, and with Him every expectation they had carried. They were walking away from Jerusalem, away from the wreckage of a hope that had failed. It is one of the saddest sentences in the Gospels: we had hoped.
What they did not know was that a stranger had joined them on the road — and the stranger was Jesus Himself, risen, walking beside them while their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. He listened to their despair. Then He opened the Scriptures to them, showing how everything that had happened, including the death that had crushed their hope, was exactly what God had promised all along. Their hope had not been wrong — it had been incomplete. They had buried it three days too early. The very thing that looked like the death of their hope was the doorway to its fulfillment.
This is one of the most encouraging pictures of hope in all of Scripture, because it speaks to everyone who has ever said "we had hoped." The dream that died, the prayer that seemed to go unanswered, the future that fell apart — sometimes what looks like the end of hope is actually God doing something we cannot yet see. The disciples thought the story was over when it had barely begun. And the risen Christ was nearer to them in their despair than they ever realized. When our own hope feels buried, it is worth remembering that the One who conquered the grave often does His best work on the far side of what looked like the end.
Prayer: Lord, when our hope feels buried and we find ourselves saying "we had hoped," draw near to us as You drew near on the Emmaus road. Open our eyes to see that You are present even in our despair, and that what looks like an ending may be Your new beginning. Amen.