LOSS AND THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUE OF HOPE
We Had Hoped
On Resurrection Sunday, two of Jesus's disciples set out for the town of Emmaus. They leave behind a place of deep sorrow and perplexity and journey toward something familiar, a place as yet untouched by their great loss. As they walk, they talk together about the events of the previous week. A stranger comes close, walks with them, and enters into their conversation. He asks them what they are discussing. One of the disciples speaks; he tells the stranger about Jesus's arrest, trial, and crucifixion. And he says, "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel." All of the hopes they had pinned on Christ died with him. The astonishing news that the tomb is empty can't budge them; their hopes remain buried. They speak in the past tense; theirs is an entrenched hopelessness. The stranger who will later reveal himself as Jesus walks with them; he offers a patient corrective to the hopelessness he hears in their words. As he teaches them, a better hope takes root in their hearts. They urge the stranger to stay with them and, later that evening, Jesus takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to them to eat. In that instant, their eyes are opened. They say to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked?"
This narrative maps a common movement in human life. It is the movement from sorrow to hopelessness. But it traces another movement as well—the movement of a God who refuses to abandon those who are hopeless. It is this movement that I have discovered in my own life, within my own experience of sorrow. In 2011, my family and I were expecting our second child, Samuel. Around twenty weeks into the pregnancy, he was diagnosed with a relatively rare chromosomal abnormality known as Trisomy 18. We were told that it was a lethal abnormality. Approximately 70 percent of children diagnosed with Trisomy 18 die before birth. Of those who make it to birth, between 90 and 95 percent will die before their first birthday. And most of these children measure their lives in hours or days. So, for the final sixteen weeks of pregnancy, our family prepared simultaneously for a birth and a death. We were fortunate: Samuel was born late in the night on January 1, 2012, and we held him for the entirety of his nearly five-hour life. He was fragile; and he was beautiful. In the cramped space of a neonatal intensive care unit, he was baptized and anointed with oil, sealed as Christ's own forever. Together we commended his life to Christ. The entirety of his life was marked by something far greater than his limitations: it was marked by love.
When we received Sam's diagnosis, we stood still, looking sad. And when Sam died, the heavy weight of sadness stilled us again. And in the long paths of grief that have followed, our sorrow has often stopped forward movement. I have heard myself say the words the disciples said to Jesus on the way to Emmaus. I know what it is like to say, "We had hoped." My family had hoped for another child. And, in an instant, those hopes were defeated. And the ongoing experience of grief is the daily resignation of thousands of additional hopes. When I see the hopes we had for our son realized vicariously in the lives of others' children, I find myself saying those sad (and sometimes bitter) words: "We had hoped.".............................