Theme Discussion
Last Sunday was Easter and we celebrated that, even though he died on a cross, just a few days later Jesus was alive again in the world. Today’s scripture reading comes from the book of John, Chapter 20, verses 19-31, and it tells about what happened to the disciples after that day.
The disciples were very scared because soldiers were gathering up Jesus’ friends and followers. They were afraid that they would be arrested too. They hid together in a locked room. One day, Jesus came to them and said, “Peace be with you.” I think that’s a way of saying, “Settle down, think this through. You can’t hide in this room forever.” One of the disciples, Thomas, was missing. We aren’t told where he was but we know that he had left that room for a while and when he came back, the others told him that Jesus had been with them. Well, that just didn’t make any sense to Thomas! From everything he knew about people who died, he was sure it was impossible for them to come back for a visit. He said, “I’ll believe it when I see it!” He is known as “Doubting Thomas” because he didn’t just believe what the others said. He needed proof; he needed some way to make it make sense in his mind. He had a lot of questions.
Have you ever heard something that seemed too good to be true? Or maybe you have heard of something that just doesn’t seem to make sense to you. When this happens, you might say, “I’ll believe it when I see it!” just like Thomas did. In our story Jesus came to the room again and was so close that Thomas could not only see him but touch him as well.
Sometimes when we have doubts or questions about things, that can be solved by actually seeing with our own eyes – but sometimes we can “see” things in another way. We might say, “Oh, now I get it!” or, “Now that you’ve explained it this way, I can see what you mean.” It might even be a feeling or an idea or an experience that shows us that what we heard is true.
Jesus told Thomas, “Do you believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We can’t see Jesus in the way those people 2000 years ago would have seen him – but we can see him in other ways. We can get to understand him in the stories we read. We can see him in the good things that are happening in the world.
1. What are some things that you couldn’t believe when you first heard about them? How did you come to realize that they were true (or false)? Tell about
Something you believed when you saw it with your own eyes
Something you “saw” when you learned more and could understand
2. Is it ok to change your thinking?
3. When you hear something that seems too amazing (or crazy) to be true, what do you do? Do you just dismiss it as false? Do you look for more information? Do you just believe what you heard? Are there times when each of these responses are appropriate?
Response Activity Ideas
Seven Blind Mice - Thinking about perspective and misinformation
Listen to the story Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young:
What caused all the mice to argue? Were the first 6 mice right in their opinions or wrong? Think about the word ‘perspective’.
How did White Mouse investigate the Something differently?
How is this like today’s Bible passage? How is it different?
Think about how the ‘Mouse Moral’ could be applied to the information we get through social media and Google searches. What could ‘seeing the whole’ mean in that context?
Older kids and teens could explore this resource from Common Sense Education about ways to critically analyze the information they are getting online.
Click to print PDF
Guessing Games
Practice your describing, thinking, and questioning skills.
Play 20 questions with your family! One person chooses a mystery object without telling anyone else. They could give a starting clue like telling whether it's a person/place/thing. As a team, everyone else can ask up to 20 questions before making their guess as to what the mystery object might be. Every question can only be a yes/no question. This game can also be reversed so that everyone in the group knows the answer except one guesser.
Descriptive Similes – Played like eye-spy, but instead of sharing a colour for others to guess, the leader gives descriptive phrases (Ex: It’s rough like old pavement, tall as a house, brown like mud, but also green as new grass, stretching arms like an octopus…. A tree!)
Mystery Bag – put an item or items in a brown paper bag and see if others in your family can guess the object(s) by feel!
Wordsearch
Click to print PDF