After he was crucified, Jesus disciples hid and huddled in fear.

But within weeks these same men were boldly proclaiming that Jesus was the resurrected Messiah.

What turned their fear into faith? And can it do the same for you?

Today on Truth for Life Weekend, we're continuing a series called Journey to the Cross.

Alistair Bag is teaching from chapter 20 in the Gospel of John.

And early on the first day of the week while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

And running to Simon Peter and the other disciple said they've taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him.

By any standards the disciples were in a complete shambles.

One of them, the betrayer, Judas Iscariot by name, was already dead, a suicide.

The unofficial spokesman of the group, Simon Peter, the one who had declared to Jesus that although everybody may run away and hide,

although everyone may desert Christ, that he never would, he had crumbled before the questionings of a young girl just hours before.

And so to go and look for them is to discover a dejected and paralyzed company.

On the way up to Jerusalem, Jesus had made it clear to them that he needed to suffer and die in Jerusalem and that on the third day he would be raised from the dead.

But they just didn't get it.

Whatever hopes and dreams they might have shared had been dashed and broken by the events that had so recently taken place.

And when they had finally removed themselves from the scene, they had looked at one another and said, well it was fun while it lasted but it's over now.

And in a Palestinian tomb, this great story of salvation had apparently come to a grinding conclusion.

You see these men had no concept of a Messiah who would die.

Nor did they have a concept of a Messiah who would rise from the dead.

Their Jewish background was such that the story that they had understood was one in which the Messiah when he appeared would remain forever.

So how could it possibly be then that Jesus was the Messiah when he so clearly wasn't remaining forever?

He was gone.

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