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Here’s A Thought for April 7

Like Thomas we say: “Show me!”

“Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!“9 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:27-30)

Missouri’s most well-known nickname is; “The Show-Me State.” Although the nickname has not been officially recognized, there are several stories concerning the origin of the “Show-Me” slogan. The most well-known story gives credit to Missouri’s U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver for coining the phrase in 1899. During a speech in Philadelphia, he said: “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”

The phrase well describes the character of sinful human beings; not gullible, conventional, and unwilling to believe without adequate evidence. When Thomas gives expression to his requirement that “unless I shall see in his hands the imprint of the nails, and put my fingers into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

“Show me” –Thomas is requiring nothing more in the way of evidence than what every other disciple had already received. Thomas is simply saying that he too must see for himself — as each of them had — before he will be able to believe such an astounding claim.

The whole Thomas account raises this vital question: Why do people like you and I believe? We have not put our fingers in the nail holes in Jesus’ side and feet. We have not seen him alive from the dead. We never even saw him alive before He was crucified. Why, then, do we believe?

People say seeing is believing, but I beg to differ. The greatest faith any of us could possess is the ability to believe without seeing. Jesus said, “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”

Because we have been blessed by God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus states: “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” Our believing is the gift of saving faith from God the Holy Spirit. It is not the result of human reason or the acceptance of a religious tradition from our parents. It’s God’s Spirit working through his Means of Grace– Sacred Scripture and the blessed sacraments of baptism and communion giving us something to make our faith in the resurrected Jesus possible — even when we have never seen the risen Jesus.

Thus, God’s gift of saving faith within our hearts and minds, we can join with all of the members of God’s family as they acclaim: “Christ has died for me! Christ has risen from the dead for me! Christ will come again for me.”

As we celebrate the Octave of Easter, let’s focus our minds and hearts on Thomas making that first public confession of faith “Thomas answered Jesus: ‘My Lord and my God!’ So let’s try not to judge Thomas too harshly because I believe if we were in his place, we too would have said: “Show me!” Amen

Chopp is a clinical chaplain emeritus, MDiv, BCC, from Marshall

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