We were delighted to have a new member join us this morning. It was a real blessing to have him in the JAM group and his little sister is planning to join us too.

Our session on the 14th April 2024 was about Doubting Thomas and us thinking about our faith, and what we believe as Christians. The fact we believe that Jesus was God’s son and he died and rose from the dead. We believe it, but we certainly didn’t see it with our own eyes.

We started the session with 18 feely bags, all numbered with different objects in each. The children and young people identified them by feeling them and sometimes smelling the bag! they couldn’t see what was inside but often knew the item from what they knew about that object already from experience. (There were some harder to guess items, amazingly it was our new youngest member that knew one of them-a walnut, in its shell!)

Rather like the feely bags, having faith that Jesus is alive and His spirit lives in us, is not something we can see but something we experience and can know to be true.

We recapped the story from Easter morning, Mary finding the tomb empty, Peter and John running to see for themselves, and Mary staying behind and speaking to someone she thought was the gardener.

We imagined how that must have been for the disciples, their leader and friend had been brutally crucified, they had gone into hiding, afraid and confused and now his body was gone, and Mary is saying she has actually seen him!

But Jesus isn’t the same as he was; sometimes the friends don’t recognise him at first, sometimes it’s a mannerism that confirms to them that it’s Jesus. Closed doors are not a problem, Jesus seems to just appear from nowhere.

That Sunday evening, the disciples are meeting behind locked doors when Jesus appears to them, but Thomas is not with them and when they tell him they have seen Jesus, he doesn’t believe them and says “Unless I see the marks the nails made in his hands and put my hand in his wounded side, I won’t believe it’s Him”.

A week later Jesus appears to the disciples again and Jesus invites Thomas to put his fingers in the holes in his hands and in his side.  Jesus says to Thomas, “Stop doubting Thomas and believe it’s me.”  Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Jesus is not angry with Thomas. He was telling Thomas it was easy for him believe because he had seen with his own eyes, but it would be much more difficult for people to believe who haven’t seen. 

Jesus knows it’s hard for us to believe what we can’t see, but He also gives Thomas what he needs to believe, by making sure Thomas has seen him.

Jesus will help us too with our doubts, if we ask Him.

We watched a clip from Superbook which you can see on youtube at:

And finger paint video of The Easter Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFw1cTnT3Jo

We then sang along to Open the eyes of my heart, you can see & hear on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3DW_VnBmRQ

We then Prayed:

Lord Jesus we are here at JAM today, together just as the disciples were together when you joined them in that locked room. Be here with us today and bless each one of us. We know you are here with us even though we cannot see you. Sometimes we are like Thomas we want to see you to believe, Help us know your presence with us. Jesus, you said blessed are those that believe without seeing, bless us now. Lord Jesus, we pray for people we know who need to know you are with them, we bring them to you now. Help them believe that you are there with them and bless them. Just as you cared for the disciples you care about us and when we are afraid, help calm are worries. Jesus, you came through a locked door, unlock the doors of our hearts and fill us with Your peace. Amen.

Linking the story to a food, we ate fish fingers in finger rolls, as Jesus had eaten fish, when he first appeared to the disciples, after his death.

Later we had a challenge where we had to cut a piece of A4 paper (which symbolised a door) with scissors (without any breaks) and make a hole big enough to walk through—it’s true, if you doubt it, ask the children!

To end we played a Zip-Zap game in which we passed round “The Peace” this was a fast moving-game, although you stand still – we all had to think fast for this one!