Luke 24:21
“But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.”
What does Luke 24:21 mean?
Two of Jesus's followers are speaking here on the day of his resurrection, though they don't yet know he's alive. They'd watched him die just days before, and they're expressing the heartbreak of disappointed hope, that crushing feeling when something you believed in seems suddenly gone forever. Their words capture something deeply human: they had trusted that Jesus was the one who would save and restore Israel, and his execution felt like the end of that story. The mention of "the third day" hints at something important (it connects to Old Testament promises about restoration), but in this moment, they're simply marking time in their grief, almost numbly noting how long it's been since their world fell apart. If you've ever held onto hope for something only to watch it seem to die, you know exactly what they're feeling.