Spring, Jesus are here

Jesus, teach me to trust that you're always near me. Amen!

After Jesus died, the Apostles stayed in a room to talk about it. They locked the door, but, suddenly, Jesus came in anyway! "Peace be with you," He said, and gave them the power to forgive sins. One Apostle, Thomas, wasn't there -- and didn't believe the others saw Jesus. Later, Jesus came back when Thomas was there. "Peace be with you -- and Thomas, believe in me," He said. So Thomas did!

Spring means everything starts to grow again. Birds that flew south for the winter come back to your neighborhood; snow melts, and green grass starts to come up in yards and at the side of the road.

As the weather gets warmer, there are some things you learn to trust: You can trust that with every warm day, the ice and snow on rivers and sidewalks will melt a little more; you can trust that when you walk outside, you'll probably hear birds chirping.

With Jesus, it's like spring all the time, because He's always here -- even when people think He's not, like the Apostles think in this week's Gospel (John 20:19-31).

The Apostles, Jesus' followers, believed that because Jesus had died, He'd never be around again. They huddled in a room, not knowing what to do or who would lead them. But like we trust things will grow in the spring, the Apostles needed to trust that Jesus would be with them again. After all, that's what He had promised!

More importantly, once they saw Jesus again, the Apostles needed to trust that He'd always be with them, even when they couldn't see Him as a person. We still need to remember that today, too.

If we can trust every winter that spring will come, we can trust that Jesus is watching over us -- in every season!