When was the last time that you were despondent or depressed? Perhaps you cannot remember or perhaps sadness is a way of life. Remember COVID? In those days, despondency was rampant.

Today’s Gospel portrays two of Jesus’ disciples filled with sadness and perhaps even despair. These two disciples had hoped in Jesus, but now for two days, they have been reflecting on and probing what has happened. The one in whom they hoped is gone. The crucifixion has robbed them of their hopes and dreams.

We can experience similar moments in our lives. A loved one suffers or dies; an illness strikes without warning; a relationship ends.

But, look beyond ourselves, beyond our issues, beyond our pain. If we look at our world we see much chaos: natural disasters beyond our wildest imagination, secure jobs that have become very insecure, public systems that promised the moon and deliver a mere token, educational systems that are teetering, retirees who find that the golden years may end up being cheap imitation plastic. Are you sufficiently depressed yet?

What one word summarizes all of this? Perhaps the key word is disappointment. We expected something, but the unexpected resulted. So, we are disappointed. We feel dejection, and do not know where to turn.

Return to the two men in today’s Gospel. Dejected and disappointed, but in a flash, their eyes were opened, and they finally understood.

They had envisioned the mission of Jesus only in terms of themselves, almost something like “what’s in it for me.” In the breaking of the bread and in hearing Jesus interpret scripture, they finally understood Jesus’ message of hope.

Like the disciples of Emmaus, we desperately need restored hope. Do we believe that economic policy or political leaders can make all things well? We cannot put our entire trust into human systems. Human systems fail only to be replaced by another human system.

Divine systems continue. That is why the Church has endured. Even though humans are in charge, the Church is rooted in Jesus Christ, the same Jesus Christ who opened the eyes of the disciples of Emmaus. Only God can promise and deliver on his promises to achieve what our hearts are searching.

Does that mean that we should just kind of mope around until we go, hopefully, to heaven? Of course not. People without faith in someone beyond themselves live only for themselves and their own pleasure. People of faith thrive beyond themselves looking out for the welfare of others and especially looking for the most important other, our Savior Jesus Christ. It boils down to this. With faith in God, we can see beyond the right now. Without faith, we are condemned to the present moment.

So, today, as on all Sundays, we come to worship, and we bring with us our hopes and fears, our joys and disappointments. Our Sunday celebration of the Eucharist can resemble what happened to the disciples of Emmaus. May our hearts be opened as we recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread.