Fifty-first Sunday.
THE ASCENSION.
FIRST READING.
"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."—John 20:29.
then said Jesus unto
them be not afraid
OUR blessed Lord Jesus did not stay with His apostles as He did before His death and rising. They did not see Him after that first day for a whole week; and they could not make Thomas, who had not been there when He came, believe that it was true that any man could come again from the grave.
He said He should never believe that it was the Lord Himself, unless he could put his fingers into the prints of the nails, and his hand into the wound in the side.
The next Sunday evening, Thomas and the other ten were all in the upper room together, when Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing."