Not only did faith die in Jesus’ disciples, but I want you to notice that hope died also. Their faith was wrapped up in Him but their hope was no less wrapped up in Him. It’s true it was a rather limited hope. It was fashioned according to their own expectations of the future. They were first- century Jews and what they were looking for was a political Messiah who would deliver them from the power of the Romans. Nevertheless, it was a hope, and the hope was wrapped up in Jesus Christ, and when He died, their hope died.
Now if Thomas is a great example of the death of faith, the Emmaus disciples, whom I identify as Cleopas and his wife Mary, are great examples of the death of hope. They had been in Jerusalem during the days of the Passover and had hoped that Jesus was the Messiah who would usher in His kingdom. They had heard that certain women whom they knew had gone to the tomb and had returned saying that Jesus had risen from the dead. Yet so far were they from believing in a resurrection, so far were they from having any Christian hope whatsoever, that they didn’t even bother to go to the tomb to investigate themselves. It was done, and so they started out for their home in Emmaus.
On the way, Jesus came along and caught up to them. He said, “Why do you look so sad?” They said, “Haven’t you heard all the things that have happened in Jerusalem over this last weekend?”
And Jesus said to them, “What things?” He wanted them to tell Him. And they said, “Oh about Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet, a man mighty of God who was taken by the chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees and was turned over to the Romans and crucified.” And then notice what they say: “But we had hoped that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel” (Luke 24:21).
Now, it’s very interesting that they used that word redeemed because, of course, that is what Jesus was doing—redeeming all His people who should believe, Jews and Gentiles alike. Redemption means to buy out of slavery, and He was buying us back out of the slavery of sin. But that wasn’t the kind of redemption that they were looking for. They had been looking for a political redemption, and Jesus had died without redeeming them from the domination of Rome; and so they expressed their disappointment. They said in effect, “Our hope has died. It died with Jesus because we had hoped, you see, that He might have been the one who should have redeemed Israel.” So we see how faith and hope had died with Jesus’ crucifixion.
But you know there’s one thing that hadn’t died, and that was their love for Jesus. Love did not die. That is why in 1 Corinthians 13, at the end of that magnificent chapter on love, the Apostle Paul speaks of the three things that abide—faith, hope and love. But, he says, the greatest of these is love. And love didn’t die in the hearts of these men and women who had come to love the Lord Jesus.
This is why they talked about Him. This is why they couldn’t quite tear themselves away from the places which they had associated with Him. And just as Thomas is a great example of the death of faith, and the Emmaus disciples are a great example of the death of hope, Mary Magdalene is a great example of love.
