16-Apr-23 (John 20:19-31)

When I was a boy my family spent a lot of time outdoors. One day we even took a ride down a river in a canoe. During the ride, my sister though she saw an animal in the bottom of the river. The rest of us never saw it and we spent a lot of time kidding her about whether she saw it or not. That's kind of what happened in our Gospel story for today: Most of the disciples were in a room on the second floor of a house when Jesus was suddenly there with them. They were especially excited because, as you probably remember, Jesus had died and they'd all seen that as well. But here was Jesus where they could all see him...
Well, except for Thomas. Thomas wasn't there and, when he did get there he didn't really believe them because he hadn't seen it himself.
A week later, all the disciples were together and this time Thomas did see for himself. There was Jesus, even letting him touch his hands and side just to be sure he wasn't just imagining. It was amazing.
And you know what? All the disciples, after that told all kinds of people what they'd seen and what they knew about Jesus. We as Jesus' disciples in our times and places can also tell people what we've seen. We can tell them about the love of God that we've seen because of our teachers and our parents. We can tell them about what we know about Jesus that we've learned here at church. We can be like those first disciples and tell all kinds of people what we've seen and what we know.

Let's pray about that.
God, we thank you for Jesus, who came and showed us how to live in the best way. We thank you for our parents and our teachers who tell us about Jesus and show us your love. Help us to share that love with others and help us tell them what we know about you.
We pray in Jesus' name.
AMEN.