We Had Hoped…
One year ago I was in the very early days of the first sabbatical I had ever earned in my nearly 20 years of vocational ministry. I had so many hopes and plans for the time I was scheduled to be away – time for rest and travel, study and prayer, pilgrimage and writing. I had spent nearly a year preparing, planning and paying for this season of renewal. April 2025 Jessica wishes more than anything I could go back and give April 2024 Jessica the biggest hug. I wish I could go back and tell her to take some deep breaths and give herself a break. I spent most of April 2024 feeling like I was “doing sabbatical” wrong. I just couldn’t figure out how to rest and relax. I remember feeling panicky, like I was wasting precious time. And maybe that was my mistake. I ‘scheduled’ the relaxing part of my sabbatical for the beginning. Knowing myself – and how it takes me a long time to ease into rest and to quiet my chronic anxiety and give myself permission to be “off” I put a lot of pressure on making April count before the “sabbatical demands” of a spiritual pilgrimage and doctoral coursework intensive and thesis writing took over. Just writing that makes me laugh at how absurd my expectations for myself and sabbatical really were.
And then there was a windstorm that knocked down half the tree in our backyard that pulled down power lines that caused an electrical fire in our house – and everything really went off the rails. So what was already a sabbatical packed with too many things and too much pressure on myself, became multiple months steeped in trauma and deep grief and financial insecurity and familial instability – with a side of cancelled pilgrimages, living out of a hotel with kids and dogs, multiple insurance claims, doctoral work and travel that had to be done regardless of a family crisis and trying, to the best of our ability to put on a brave face for the kids while trying to keep things as normal as possible for them in an incredibly abnormal season of life. All while trying to be grateful that 1) we didn’t lose our whole house 2) I was on sabbatical which meant I could be more present to deal with this situation and 3) in the grand scheme of things this was nothing compared to what many other people deal with on a regular basis. But, wow. I had hoped and imagined and prayed for those few months to be so different.
2025 is one of those years when Easter falls just about as late as it can in the calendar. Sunday April 20th is the day we will celebrate the miraculous gift of the empty tomb and proclaim that even death does not hold power over the Incarnate Love of God. My favorite of the resurrection appearances that Jesus makes is told in the gospel of Luke and happens later in the day, when the resurrected Christ happens to show up and begins to walk for seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with a couple of unnamed disciples who do not recognize who he is. Jesus says, “What are you two chatting about as you are walking?” And they say to him, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what has happened these past few days?” Like, duh, have you been buried under a rock or something? Jesus says, “What things?” And they say, “About Jesus, a prophet – so powerful in word and in deed – in the eyes of God and all the people. And our religious leadership delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. We had hoped he would be the one to set Israel free…”
Still not revealing himself as the Christ, Jesus takes them to task – challenging them that perhaps these things had to happen and just because things seem hopeless or didn’t work out as they had hoped doesn’t mean it wasn’t working out how it needed to, or in a way that God couldn’t or wouldn’t work with or work through for the good of God’s people. That this was, indeed, a long game, and that while they could only see a small part of it, they had to trust that God was at work, and had been at work and would continue to be at work for something bigger than what they could see or understand.
By that time it was getting dark, Jesus had walked the whole seven miles with them. Not too shabby for a recently dead guy, and they begged him to stay and eat with them, which he agreed to do. As they broke the bread around the table, their eyes were opened to his true identity. Immediately the Christ vanished from their sight.
I’m not one to get in the weeds over the scientific veracity of the resurrection story – or get too worked up trying to prove these fantastical tales of Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection. I have long known that’s not the point of the story or necessary for us to believe in Jesus or profess our faith as Christians. But, my, how my heart burns inside me when I read those words, “We had hoped…” I feel deep in my soul that human longing for things to have turned out differently, especially in the midst of grief and loss and a sense that God has utterly abandoned things to the worst humanity has to offer.
We had hoped…
I am grateful for Jesus’ Emmaus road reminder that God’s work in this world is bigger than what we can see and understand. That, in fact, is one of the benefits of being a part of a faith tradition at all. It is a reminder that we are just one part, one generation, one cog, one bend in the river, one brush stroke of God’s masterpiece that is this entire creation. We only get to see our little piece of it – for good or for ill – and learn from what is recorded, correctly or otherwise, from the past – and do our best with it. So let’s keep hoping, even when everything our eyes can see suggests that hope is futile. Let’s keep breaking bread with strangers and expect Incarnate Love to show up. Let’s keep on keeping vigil in the graveyards and not be surprised when the tombs are empty. Let’s keep on loving our neighbor and praying for our enemies and trusting that God’s long game makes it all worth it.
That story in Luke’s gospel ends with those disciples sprinting the seven miles back to Jerusalem where they encounter the other disciples who say to them, “Christ has risen! It’s true!”
Thanks be to God,
Pastor Jessica
Rev. Jessica Margrave Schirm – Senior Pastor (she/her)
Grinnell United Church of Christ – Congregational