Emphasis Preaching Journal

The disciples trusted their experience of the Messiah. They say that we should behold the lamb. Perhaps you are familiar with Persephone as the maiden who had nothing to do but pick flowers. She spent life in a meadow just figuring out which ones were most beautiful. All of a sudden one day, on her way to pick a flower way across the field, the earth opens up and she is consumed. She is abducted into the underworld. Many people speak of the lives of adolescent girls this way: They figure out around the age of twelve that they can no longer be either smart or athletic and still fit the bed of marriage and femininity. So they go underground. Therapists might call "the underground," or unconscious the place where you can't act on what you know so you stop knowing it. This underground is not just about girls. Many Vietnam Vets developed mental problems because they couldn't believe what they saw. The only solution was to go "underground" and stop "knowing what they knew."

The disciples knew what they knew: They had experienced the Messiah. They weren't afraid of the truth.