You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Sometimes I see posts on social media from friends who are walking El Camino del Santiago, the pilgrimage route through France and Spain to the shrine of St. James (Sant’Iago) at Campostella. Some tell me that people who come together do not always end up walking together. Walking speeds and rhythms diverge; disagreements can crop up. For varied reasons, people often fall in with strangers on that trail, and sometimes those strangers have just the gifts they need for the spiritual journey that parallels the physical one. (Check out “The Way,” a good film starring Martin Sheen as a reluctant pilgrim on the Camino…)
That pilgrimage makes me think of this week’s gospel story, about the disciples on the road to Emmaus and the traveling companion who joined them. In our Sunday readings, it's still the Day of Resurrection. On Easter Sunday, we visit the events of that morning. The next Sunday, it’s that evening. On the third Sunday of Easter this year, we find ourselves in the late afternoon of that same day, on a road outside Jerusalem, with two of Jesus’ followers: Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?”
Why were their “their eyes were kept from recognizing him?” Sometimes we just don’t see what we don’t expect to see, especially if it is far outside the bounds of probability. These two were already under great stress from the events of the past few days – watching their Lord betrayed, arrested, tried, mocked, flogged, brutally executed… and just as they were coming to terms with that reality, Reality itself was turned upside down with the empty tomb and reports that people had seen Jesus alive, had talked with him. Could these things be? Was it a conspiracy? A hoax? Could it possibly be true?
We process things by talking about them. So these two, in the midst of great upheaval, were discussing, trying to make some sense of it all. And along comes a stranger who doesn’t even seem to know the events of which they are speaking – yet knows more than anyone they've ever met. He helps them understand, and sends them running seven miles back the way they’d come, their world transformed.
Have you ever found yourself talking about traumatic events with total strangers? Sometimes such conversations happen in hospital waiting rooms, or in the midst of disasters. Maybe you have been the stranger who helped someone else process something painful. Were you aware of the presence of Christ in such an encounter? Of Christ in you, or in another?
Today, let’s give thanks for the companions who join us along our way. Ask God to send you alongside someone who needs the gift you bring, the gift of the presence of Christ in you. Tonight, think back and see how that prayer was answered. Try it again tomorrow.
Whatever hikes I may take, I will assume that Christ is showing up beside me in the people with whom I walk. In fact, this principle may well be true on the roads I find myself walking today, actual or virtual. Where is the risen Christ joining you on the Way today?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-11-26 - Believing For Life
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for Easter Saturday is here.
This Easter week we've explored the Gospel appointed for each day. Today’s passage from Mark sums up several of Jesus’ resurrection appearances – and in each paragraph we find some variant of “… but he/they did not believe it.” John says, in the passage set for this Sunday, why he wrote his version of the Jesus story: so that his readers may come to believe in Jesus’ messianic and divine identity, and that "through believing you may have life in his name.” Paul, too, links spiritual vitality with believing in Jesus’ divinity. Even Jesus says that those who believe he is who he says he is will have eternal life. This believing stuff is not a minor detail.
Yet, if seeing Jesus risen from the dead did not quell doubt in his early followers, how will reading stories about his resurrection activities and conversations confer faith on us? What the written record does is invite us into the Great Story of God’s love for us expressed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It brings us to the threshold. It’s up to us to find out own way into the story and live it, as it was up to those disciples to say “yes” with their hearts to what their eyes and ears reported. We need to experience the Risen Christ for ourselves.
Do you feel you have experienced the reality of Christ in some way or fashion? If we expect to see him the way Mary or the Eleven or the two on the Emmaus road did, we may feel we’re lacking that experience. Visual and aural Jesus sightings are rare… possibly non-existent. Jesus said as much to his followers; he said when he left, the Father would send the Holy Spirit to them. So it is the Spirit who brings the presence of Christ to us in a way we can experience him.
When we feel the Holy Spirit in or around us – whether by a sensation, or an insight, by answer to prayer or some other way – it is the Spirit of Christ we are experiencing. When we have a holy encounter with another person, it may be that we are meeting Christ in them. As we learn to become more aware of that presence, we more readily accept that Christ is a part of us, in our lives – and thus we are led to believing more fully. His life in us leads to believing, and believing leads to more of his life in us. We become instruments for others to experience his life, and on and on it goes.
That’s what the last verse of my song “Was That You?” is about. (You can listen to the whole song here; simple iphone recording; with Denise Bassett on piano and harmonies):
So where did you last see him, where he wasn’t supposed to be?
He told us he’d be with the poor, the lost, the last, the least …
He said that we would know him in Word and bread and wine;
He promised to be with us, now – and to the end of time.
Is that you breathing peace to me when it's storming in my head?
Is that you releasing power in me, the power that raised the dead?
Is that you, loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That it’s you, always next to me.
Jesus, you, right here next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Saturday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Easter week we've explored the Gospel appointed for each day. Today’s passage from Mark sums up several of Jesus’ resurrection appearances – and in each paragraph we find some variant of “… but he/they did not believe it.” John says, in the passage set for this Sunday, why he wrote his version of the Jesus story: so that his readers may come to believe in Jesus’ messianic and divine identity, and that "through believing you may have life in his name.” Paul, too, links spiritual vitality with believing in Jesus’ divinity. Even Jesus says that those who believe he is who he says he is will have eternal life. This believing stuff is not a minor detail.
Yet, if seeing Jesus risen from the dead did not quell doubt in his early followers, how will reading stories about his resurrection activities and conversations confer faith on us? What the written record does is invite us into the Great Story of God’s love for us expressed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It brings us to the threshold. It’s up to us to find out own way into the story and live it, as it was up to those disciples to say “yes” with their hearts to what their eyes and ears reported. We need to experience the Risen Christ for ourselves.
Do you feel you have experienced the reality of Christ in some way or fashion? If we expect to see him the way Mary or the Eleven or the two on the Emmaus road did, we may feel we’re lacking that experience. Visual and aural Jesus sightings are rare… possibly non-existent. Jesus said as much to his followers; he said when he left, the Father would send the Holy Spirit to them. So it is the Spirit who brings the presence of Christ to us in a way we can experience him.
When we feel the Holy Spirit in or around us – whether by a sensation, or an insight, by answer to prayer or some other way – it is the Spirit of Christ we are experiencing. When we have a holy encounter with another person, it may be that we are meeting Christ in them. As we learn to become more aware of that presence, we more readily accept that Christ is a part of us, in our lives – and thus we are led to believing more fully. His life in us leads to believing, and believing leads to more of his life in us. We become instruments for others to experience his life, and on and on it goes.
That’s what the last verse of my song “Was That You?” is about. (You can listen to the whole song here; simple iphone recording; with Denise Bassett on piano and harmonies):
So where did you last see him, where he wasn’t supposed to be?
He told us he’d be with the poor, the lost, the last, the least …
He said that we would know him in Word and bread and wine;
He promised to be with us, now – and to the end of time.
Is that you breathing peace to me when it's storming in my head?
Is that you releasing power in me, the power that raised the dead?
Is that you, loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That it’s you, always next to me.
Jesus, you, right here next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Saturday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-10-26 - Out To Sea
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for Easter Friday is here.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we’re in a fishing boat with Peter and six other of Jesus’ disciples, two unnamed. (John takes care to mention the exact number of fish caught in the nets – someone counted them? – but can’t be bothered to find out the names of two of the crew?). These disciples must have fled Jerusalem for safer home turf in Galilee, and Peter figures he may as well do what he knows, now that everything he thought he learned since leaving his fishing boat has been turned upside-down.
As happened when Jesus first called him away from his nets (Luke 5:1-11), Peter and the crew fish all night and catch nothing. In the morning they’re ready to call it a day, but someone on the shore suggests they throw their nets over to the right. Though that’s pretty much what Jesus had done three years earlier, they don’t recognize the guy as Jesus – not until their nets become so full they’re ready to burst. Then they know who he is, though perhaps he looks different. (“Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”) Peter, who I guess has been fishing in the buff? throws on some clothes to jump into the water and get to Jesus as fast as he can. That’s love – when you can’t wait to reach the other.
Then Jesus utters my favorite words in the whole Bible: “Come and have breakfast.” He’s got a fire going and some bread, and he invites them to add fish from their catch – his catch, which he has allowed to become their catch; that’s how God’s abundance works in our lives. He blesses the bread and the fish – and thankfully does not say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” or our Sunday mornings would be a lot smellier. He shows them that feasting is a sign of God’s kingdom, and that no goodbye is really final in that realm.
Where has Jesus provided you with a feast lately? Where are you seeing abundance in a time of turmoil and scarcity? Here is the verse of “Was That You?” that goes with this story.” (Iphone recording of the song here, with thanks to Denise Bassett for piano and harmony.) Guess you’ll have to come back for a special Saturday Water Daily for the verse about Jesus’ latest appearance…
A bunch of us were fishing, just out doing what we knew.
The blues are all we’re catching, but what else we gonna do?
At dawn some guy calls from the shore, “Over there, you’ll find some fish.”
As nets start bursting from the haul, we meet our deeper wish:
Was that you, with abundance when I never see enough?
Was that you, showing what strength is, when all I know is being tough?
Was that you forgiving more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, watching out for me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Friday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we’re in a fishing boat with Peter and six other of Jesus’ disciples, two unnamed. (John takes care to mention the exact number of fish caught in the nets – someone counted them? – but can’t be bothered to find out the names of two of the crew?). These disciples must have fled Jerusalem for safer home turf in Galilee, and Peter figures he may as well do what he knows, now that everything he thought he learned since leaving his fishing boat has been turned upside-down.
As happened when Jesus first called him away from his nets (Luke 5:1-11), Peter and the crew fish all night and catch nothing. In the morning they’re ready to call it a day, but someone on the shore suggests they throw their nets over to the right. Though that’s pretty much what Jesus had done three years earlier, they don’t recognize the guy as Jesus – not until their nets become so full they’re ready to burst. Then they know who he is, though perhaps he looks different. (“Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”) Peter, who I guess has been fishing in the buff? throws on some clothes to jump into the water and get to Jesus as fast as he can. That’s love – when you can’t wait to reach the other.
Then Jesus utters my favorite words in the whole Bible: “Come and have breakfast.” He’s got a fire going and some bread, and he invites them to add fish from their catch – his catch, which he has allowed to become their catch; that’s how God’s abundance works in our lives. He blesses the bread and the fish – and thankfully does not say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” or our Sunday mornings would be a lot smellier. He shows them that feasting is a sign of God’s kingdom, and that no goodbye is really final in that realm.
Where has Jesus provided you with a feast lately? Where are you seeing abundance in a time of turmoil and scarcity? Here is the verse of “Was That You?” that goes with this story.” (Iphone recording of the song here, with thanks to Denise Bassett for piano and harmony.) Guess you’ll have to come back for a special Saturday Water Daily for the verse about Jesus’ latest appearance…
A bunch of us were fishing, just out doing what we knew.
The blues are all we’re catching, but what else we gonna do?
At dawn some guy calls from the shore, “Over there, you’ll find some fish.”
As nets start bursting from the haul, we meet our deeper wish:
Was that you, with abundance when I never see enough?
Was that you, showing what strength is, when all I know is being tough?
Was that you forgiving more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, watching out for me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Friday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-9-26 - At the Table
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading appointed for Easter Thursday is here.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today's reading continues on from the Road to Emmaus story we heard yesterday. We are back in that upper room with Jesus’s disciples, grieving unimaginable loss (“How could he have died?), processing unimaginable news (“He is risen?” “Some of the women saw him?” “Was it just a vision?”), enduring unimaginable terror (“They’re coming for us next…”). Into that swirl of emotions, Jesus appears. He doesn’t come in through a door or a window – he is just there, speaking peace, showing his wounds, explaining God’s Word and naming them witnesses of what God has done and is doing.
And, to quell their fears that they are seeing his ghost, in Luke’s version of the scene (we had John’s on Monday), Jesus invites them to touch the healed wounds in his hands and feet. “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." He asks for something to eat; they give him broiled fish. Not much of a meal for someone who’s returned from the grave, but they get the point.
Luke makes a wonderful statement: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…” The joy the risen Christ brings is our gift in the midst of disbelieving and wondering and grieving, not only after. We are invited to be people of joy in all circumstances, and especially this Eastertide. The dislocations caused by the world’s turmoil and tumults may not rise to the level of what Jesus’ followers were going through, but they do help us have insight into their situation. We too are having to process intense and competing emotions, too much information – and too little – and to cope with communal trauma if not personal. No wonder so many of us are more tired than we think we should be. (I found this piece on living with trauma very helpful on that subject.)
Jesus’ first followers didn’t know it was “Easter” either. It was just a Sunday, and they knew he had died, and learned he was risen, and was being seen. And there he was. If we can let go of our expectations of what “Easter” is or should be, and remain present to where Jesus is around us, we might find ourselves filled with joy while disbelieving and wondering.
Here’s another verse from my song “Was That You.” (Modest iphone recording of it here.) This verse didn’t make the cut in what is already too long a song, but it’s the one that goes with this resurrection appearance:
All of us were gathered, shut inside that room;
Doors were locked, windows blocked, it felt just like a tomb;
Then there he was among us, and he showed his feet and hands.
He said, “Be not afraid, my friends, I’ll help you understand.”
Was that you speaking peace to me when all I knew was fear?
Was that you, breathing your Spirit so we’d always have you near?
Was that you blessing me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, right there next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Thursday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today's reading continues on from the Road to Emmaus story we heard yesterday. We are back in that upper room with Jesus’s disciples, grieving unimaginable loss (“How could he have died?), processing unimaginable news (“He is risen?” “Some of the women saw him?” “Was it just a vision?”), enduring unimaginable terror (“They’re coming for us next…”). Into that swirl of emotions, Jesus appears. He doesn’t come in through a door or a window – he is just there, speaking peace, showing his wounds, explaining God’s Word and naming them witnesses of what God has done and is doing.
And, to quell their fears that they are seeing his ghost, in Luke’s version of the scene (we had John’s on Monday), Jesus invites them to touch the healed wounds in his hands and feet. “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." He asks for something to eat; they give him broiled fish. Not much of a meal for someone who’s returned from the grave, but they get the point.
Luke makes a wonderful statement: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…” The joy the risen Christ brings is our gift in the midst of disbelieving and wondering and grieving, not only after. We are invited to be people of joy in all circumstances, and especially this Eastertide. The dislocations caused by the world’s turmoil and tumults may not rise to the level of what Jesus’ followers were going through, but they do help us have insight into their situation. We too are having to process intense and competing emotions, too much information – and too little – and to cope with communal trauma if not personal. No wonder so many of us are more tired than we think we should be. (I found this piece on living with trauma very helpful on that subject.)
Jesus’ first followers didn’t know it was “Easter” either. It was just a Sunday, and they knew he had died, and learned he was risen, and was being seen. And there he was. If we can let go of our expectations of what “Easter” is or should be, and remain present to where Jesus is around us, we might find ourselves filled with joy while disbelieving and wondering.
Here’s another verse from my song “Was That You.” (Modest iphone recording of it here.) This verse didn’t make the cut in what is already too long a song, but it’s the one that goes with this resurrection appearance:
All of us were gathered, shut inside that room;
Doors were locked, windows blocked, it felt just like a tomb;
Then there he was among us, and he showed his feet and hands.
He said, “Be not afraid, my friends, I’ll help you understand.”
Was that you speaking peace to me when all I knew was fear?
Was that you, breathing your Spirit so we’d always have you near?
Was that you blessing me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, right there next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Thursday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-8-26 - On the Road
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for Easter Wednesday is here.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we hit the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers. We don’t know why they are going to this village seven miles from Jerusalem, but we are told their conversation is all about the events of the weekend, Jesus’ awful crucifixion and burial, and then the astonishing reports from the women who found his tomb empty and angels announcing that he had risen. How could this be?
Then something more confounding occurs: they are joined by a stranger who asks what they are talking about. Has this guy been under a rock? Is there anything else they could be discussing at this time? They fill him in, and he surprises them further by interpreting all these events in light of their scriptures and what the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” he asks.
It had not occurred to them to see the events of the past few days in terms of God’s deliverance… it just looked like God’s failure. But still they do not recognize their companion as Jesus. It is not until they sit down to supper with him, and he takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to them that their eyes are opened – and as soon as they realize who they are with, he vanishes. It is that familiar gesture, which he had done just three days earlier at the Passover feast, that reveals Jesus to them, just as his saying Mary’s name had revealed him to her.
We don’t have the advantage of lived experience with Jesus to draw upon – how do we know when he is with us? Sometimes we have an experience of our “hearts burning within us,” as these men had on the road when Jesus explained the scriptures to them. That happens to me more often in prayer or song than in bible study, but all of these are forms of worship. Sometimes we realize we’re in Jesus’ company in an intimate encounter with a friend who sees and knows and loves us. We might become aware of his presence as we serve another. And churchgoers have experience of seeing the bread taken, blessed, broken and given – we too can recognize Jesus in that action.
Could it be that Jesus is always on the road with us, always willing to illuminate scripture for us, always ready to sit at table with us? Maybe we just need to open the eyes of our hearts and name him – invoking his name is always an invitation to him to be right here.
The second verse of my song, “Was That You?" goes like this (you can listen to it here):
Met a stranger last night, just outside of town
He didn’t seem to understand why we were so cast down.
But he sure did know where God had been, and he stayed with us to eat;
When he broke the bread and blessed it, the picture came complete:
Was that you coming close when I didn’t have a friend?
Was that you giving me hope when I was facing a dead end?
Was that you blessing me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, walking next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Wednesday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we hit the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers. We don’t know why they are going to this village seven miles from Jerusalem, but we are told their conversation is all about the events of the weekend, Jesus’ awful crucifixion and burial, and then the astonishing reports from the women who found his tomb empty and angels announcing that he had risen. How could this be?
Then something more confounding occurs: they are joined by a stranger who asks what they are talking about. Has this guy been under a rock? Is there anything else they could be discussing at this time? They fill him in, and he surprises them further by interpreting all these events in light of their scriptures and what the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” he asks.
It had not occurred to them to see the events of the past few days in terms of God’s deliverance… it just looked like God’s failure. But still they do not recognize their companion as Jesus. It is not until they sit down to supper with him, and he takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to them that their eyes are opened – and as soon as they realize who they are with, he vanishes. It is that familiar gesture, which he had done just three days earlier at the Passover feast, that reveals Jesus to them, just as his saying Mary’s name had revealed him to her.
We don’t have the advantage of lived experience with Jesus to draw upon – how do we know when he is with us? Sometimes we have an experience of our “hearts burning within us,” as these men had on the road when Jesus explained the scriptures to them. That happens to me more often in prayer or song than in bible study, but all of these are forms of worship. Sometimes we realize we’re in Jesus’ company in an intimate encounter with a friend who sees and knows and loves us. We might become aware of his presence as we serve another. And churchgoers have experience of seeing the bread taken, blessed, broken and given – we too can recognize Jesus in that action.
Could it be that Jesus is always on the road with us, always willing to illuminate scripture for us, always ready to sit at table with us? Maybe we just need to open the eyes of our hearts and name him – invoking his name is always an invitation to him to be right here.
The second verse of my song, “Was That You?" goes like this (you can listen to it here):
Met a stranger last night, just outside of town
He didn’t seem to understand why we were so cast down.
But he sure did know where God had been, and he stayed with us to eat;
When he broke the bread and blessed it, the picture came complete:
Was that you coming close when I didn’t have a friend?
Was that you giving me hope when I was facing a dead end?
Was that you blessing me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, walking next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Wednesday in Easter Week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-7-26 - In the Garden
You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for Easter Tuesday is here.
This Easter week we will explore the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we go to back to Sunday morning in that garden with Mary, distraught and bereft at reports that Jesus’ body has been taken from the tomb in which she saw him laid on Friday. …She turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’
We tend to see what we expect to see. Blind is blind. Over is over. Dead is dead. And a man in a garden is likely to be a gardener, right? The man in this garden was solicitous, asking Mary why she wept. In reply, she speaks her urgent need to locate Jesus’ body, which she assumes to have been stolen. Answering the angels a few moments earlier, she articulated her deeper pain in these poignant words, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.” Someone she loved deeply, and depended on, and centered her life around has been taken from her, and she does not know how she will endure a loss of that magnitude.
That is a feeling most of us have experienced, or will, in our lifetime. Facing loss is inevitable when we love; I remember where I was sitting the moment that little insight hit me. But something happened for Mary, in this moment where she made herself vulnerable to a stranger, crying out her pain. Jesus revealed himself, though she had not at first recognized him. Once he spoke her name, she knew without any doubt that it was him, that he was alive. She wanted to touch him, and he said no. Is it possible that this resurrection body which could pass through walls could not be embraced? That is mystery, as is all of this. But he had instructions for her: “Go and tell my brothers.”
Could it be that Jesus is with us in our moments of deepest loss and despair, and we don’t know it? We can, in prayer, bring to mind some of those times and ask Jesus to show us where he was, even if we couldn’t see him or recognize him. It is a way of praying healing into those wounds.
Some years ago, I wrote a song exploring several of the encounters people had with the resurrected Jesus, in many of which they did not recognize him until he did or said something familiar. (You can listen to it here – not a great recording, but it’s all I have - with thanks to Denise Bassett for piano and harmonies. The first verse is about Mary; I will share other verses through this week. The last is about us).
Ran into a gardener, my eyes were blind with tears
Pretty hard to see straight when you’re living your worst fears.
The one I loved the most, gone without a trace -
Then he said my name, I knew that voice… my heart began to race:
Was that you standing next to me when all my hopes were done?
Was that you, alive and breathing, when it looked like death had won?
Was that you loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, standing next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Tuesday in Easter week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Easter week we will explore the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we go to back to Sunday morning in that garden with Mary, distraught and bereft at reports that Jesus’ body has been taken from the tomb in which she saw him laid on Friday. …She turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’
We tend to see what we expect to see. Blind is blind. Over is over. Dead is dead. And a man in a garden is likely to be a gardener, right? The man in this garden was solicitous, asking Mary why she wept. In reply, she speaks her urgent need to locate Jesus’ body, which she assumes to have been stolen. Answering the angels a few moments earlier, she articulated her deeper pain in these poignant words, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.” Someone she loved deeply, and depended on, and centered her life around has been taken from her, and she does not know how she will endure a loss of that magnitude.
That is a feeling most of us have experienced, or will, in our lifetime. Facing loss is inevitable when we love; I remember where I was sitting the moment that little insight hit me. But something happened for Mary, in this moment where she made herself vulnerable to a stranger, crying out her pain. Jesus revealed himself, though she had not at first recognized him. Once he spoke her name, she knew without any doubt that it was him, that he was alive. She wanted to touch him, and he said no. Is it possible that this resurrection body which could pass through walls could not be embraced? That is mystery, as is all of this. But he had instructions for her: “Go and tell my brothers.”
Could it be that Jesus is with us in our moments of deepest loss and despair, and we don’t know it? We can, in prayer, bring to mind some of those times and ask Jesus to show us where he was, even if we couldn’t see him or recognize him. It is a way of praying healing into those wounds.
Some years ago, I wrote a song exploring several of the encounters people had with the resurrected Jesus, in many of which they did not recognize him until he did or said something familiar. (You can listen to it here – not a great recording, but it’s all I have - with thanks to Denise Bassett for piano and harmonies. The first verse is about Mary; I will share other verses through this week. The last is about us).
Ran into a gardener, my eyes were blind with tears
Pretty hard to see straight when you’re living your worst fears.
The one I loved the most, gone without a trace -
Then he said my name, I knew that voice… my heart began to race:
Was that you standing next to me when all my hopes were done?
Was that you, alive and breathing, when it looked like death had won?
Was that you loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, standing next to me.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Tuesday in Easter week. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-6-26 - Peace Be With You
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Our Sunday lectionary doesn't let us linger on Easter morning; by next Sunday we’ve jumped to the evening. So today we will look at next week's Gospel, and the rest of the week explore the Gospel appointed for each day in Easter Week, various encounters Jesus’ followers had with his resurrected self.
By the time we meet Jesus’ disciples huddled in that upper room Easter night, they’ve had a very long, strange, dislocating day. It began before daybreak, when some women hurried to the tomb to do for Jesus’ body what Sabbath laws forbade them to do on Friday; a day that went from sad to joyful and bizarre as they were met at that now-empty tomb by an angel (or two) announcing that Jesus was risen. And then, there he was, right there on the road in front of the women, saying, “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee,” a travel bulletin which has always struck me as a bit prosaic from someone who’s just been to Death and back…
Yet Jesus’ disciples have not gone to Galilee but are holed up in that room – perhaps the one where they’d celebrated the Passover a few nights earlier, a lifetime ago: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
“Peace be with you.” I can imagine many emotions those men and women probably experienced that day, and none of them involve peace. Here they are, trying to process the cosmic developments they’ve witnessed, while hiding in a locked room because the threat to their lives has just intensified. And here is Jesus, just suddenly there, despite the doors shut and locked? “Peace be with you?”
But Jesus doesn’t only say, “Peace.” He can impart peace. This is the man whom they saw still a violent storm, and calm a violent man. This is the friend they watched endure ridicule and torture and betrayal and a horrible death. When Jesus says, “Peace,” he has the power to generate it. It worked on them – soon they are rejoicing.
And then he breathes upon them, imparting the Holy Spirit and authorizing them to release or to retain sins, to bind or to set free. Jesus’ mission was to set humanity free. Now he sends us to participate in that mission, and he breathes upon us his Holy Spirit. Take a deep breath in…. hold it, let it expand in you…. Feel the life of God fill you. And then exhale, breathing God’s forgiving love out upon someone (maybe yourself..). Then do it again.
Jesus invites us to rejoice too, even in the pain and disruption of global crises. Jesus is still risen! He still speaks peace to us, and as we let his presence live in us, we can feel that peace spreading through our minds and bodies and spirits. This is one way we know we have received God’s Spirit. This is one way Easter becomes real for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Our Sunday lectionary doesn't let us linger on Easter morning; by next Sunday we’ve jumped to the evening. So today we will look at next week's Gospel, and the rest of the week explore the Gospel appointed for each day in Easter Week, various encounters Jesus’ followers had with his resurrected self.
By the time we meet Jesus’ disciples huddled in that upper room Easter night, they’ve had a very long, strange, dislocating day. It began before daybreak, when some women hurried to the tomb to do for Jesus’ body what Sabbath laws forbade them to do on Friday; a day that went from sad to joyful and bizarre as they were met at that now-empty tomb by an angel (or two) announcing that Jesus was risen. And then, there he was, right there on the road in front of the women, saying, “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee,” a travel bulletin which has always struck me as a bit prosaic from someone who’s just been to Death and back…
Yet Jesus’ disciples have not gone to Galilee but are holed up in that room – perhaps the one where they’d celebrated the Passover a few nights earlier, a lifetime ago: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
“Peace be with you.” I can imagine many emotions those men and women probably experienced that day, and none of them involve peace. Here they are, trying to process the cosmic developments they’ve witnessed, while hiding in a locked room because the threat to their lives has just intensified. And here is Jesus, just suddenly there, despite the doors shut and locked? “Peace be with you?”
But Jesus doesn’t only say, “Peace.” He can impart peace. This is the man whom they saw still a violent storm, and calm a violent man. This is the friend they watched endure ridicule and torture and betrayal and a horrible death. When Jesus says, “Peace,” he has the power to generate it. It worked on them – soon they are rejoicing.
And then he breathes upon them, imparting the Holy Spirit and authorizing them to release or to retain sins, to bind or to set free. Jesus’ mission was to set humanity free. Now he sends us to participate in that mission, and he breathes upon us his Holy Spirit. Take a deep breath in…. hold it, let it expand in you…. Feel the life of God fill you. And then exhale, breathing God’s forgiving love out upon someone (maybe yourself..). Then do it again.
Jesus invites us to rejoice too, even in the pain and disruption of global crises. Jesus is still risen! He still speaks peace to us, and as we let his presence live in us, we can feel that peace spreading through our minds and bodies and spirits. This is one way we know we have received God’s Spirit. This is one way Easter becomes real for us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-4-26 - Holy Saturday: The Other Mary
You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel reading is here.
Each day this week we have heard from one of the main characters in the gospel reading appointed for the day, as I imagine they might speak. I hope this will help engage your own imagination as you walk this story with Jesus.
The Other Mary: That’s what I’m called in these accounts of Jesus’ death – “The Other Mary.” Like these gospel writers couldn’t bother to get my full name or where I’m from. I’m not Mary, Jesus’ mother; nor Mary of Bethany nor Mary of Magdala. I am Mary, mother of James. And I was there.
I watched them murder him. I watched his mother’s agony, watching him suffocating in agony. I heard the scoffers and the mockers. I saw them take his body down. I helped wrap him in a clean cloth and went along to the tomb that Joseph so generously offered for our use. There was no time to prepare his body – the sabbath was about to begin, and this is the Passover sabbath. We had to put his body somewhere safe until this sabbath is over. We will be there at dawn on Sunday with our spices and ointments to anoint him for a proper burial.
But now we must wait. Doing nothing. This is the worst sabbath I have ever endured. I love my sabbaths – the God-commanded day of rest when I can put down my cooking and cleaning and mending and tending. My only chores are feeding my family and our animals; the rest of the time I can nap, or read, or walk slowly enough to notice the new growth on the fields and trees, appreciate the birds and creatures around me. God’s greatest gift, this sabbath day each week.
But not this day, not this week. To bear this weight of pain and loss, with no tasks to distract us? To have nothing to do BUT think and talk and remember how our Lord we loved so much, who gave us so much, was tortured to death for no reason but to protect the pride and arrogance of insecure men? To have nothing to hold back the waves of feelings that threaten to drown us – terror, rage, confusion, and sorrow, sorrow so deep I don’t think we’ll ever get to the end of it. What have they done? How will we live?
So I will sit, and feel what I don’t want to feel. I will rest, like God rested on the seventh day. Was he gathering up his energy to create even more new life?
What would new life even look like, now?
Will you spend this day in Sabbath time – resting, walking, praying, not doing anything productive? That is one of the best ways to honor Jesus and prepare to celebrate the joy of Easter Day…
You are welcome to join our Great Vigil of Easter service online tonight at 8 pm; find the link here.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Saturday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
The Other Mary: That’s what I’m called in these accounts of Jesus’ death – “The Other Mary.” Like these gospel writers couldn’t bother to get my full name or where I’m from. I’m not Mary, Jesus’ mother; nor Mary of Bethany nor Mary of Magdala. I am Mary, mother of James. And I was there.
I watched them murder him. I watched his mother’s agony, watching him suffocating in agony. I heard the scoffers and the mockers. I saw them take his body down. I helped wrap him in a clean cloth and went along to the tomb that Joseph so generously offered for our use. There was no time to prepare his body – the sabbath was about to begin, and this is the Passover sabbath. We had to put his body somewhere safe until this sabbath is over. We will be there at dawn on Sunday with our spices and ointments to anoint him for a proper burial.
But now we must wait. Doing nothing. This is the worst sabbath I have ever endured. I love my sabbaths – the God-commanded day of rest when I can put down my cooking and cleaning and mending and tending. My only chores are feeding my family and our animals; the rest of the time I can nap, or read, or walk slowly enough to notice the new growth on the fields and trees, appreciate the birds and creatures around me. God’s greatest gift, this sabbath day each week.
But not this day, not this week. To bear this weight of pain and loss, with no tasks to distract us? To have nothing to do BUT think and talk and remember how our Lord we loved so much, who gave us so much, was tortured to death for no reason but to protect the pride and arrogance of insecure men? To have nothing to hold back the waves of feelings that threaten to drown us – terror, rage, confusion, and sorrow, sorrow so deep I don’t think we’ll ever get to the end of it. What have they done? How will we live?
So I will sit, and feel what I don’t want to feel. I will rest, like God rested on the seventh day. Was he gathering up his energy to create even more new life?
What would new life even look like, now?
Will you spend this day in Sabbath time – resting, walking, praying, not doing anything productive? That is one of the best ways to honor Jesus and prepare to celebrate the joy of Easter Day…
You are welcome to join our Great Vigil of Easter service online tonight at 8 pm; find the link here.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Saturday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-3-26 - Good Friday: Mary of Nazareth
You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel reading is here.
Each day this week we hear from one of the main characters in the gospel reading appointed for the day, as I imagine they might speak. I hope this will help engage your own imagination as you walk this story with Jesus.
Mary of Nazareth: They keep offering to take me away, my sister, the two Marys. They keep trying to take me home, to get me away from here, from watching him… But I can’t go. I must feel some need to finish this. He said a moment ago… “It is finished.” Or, that’s what they said he said. I couldn’t hear him. His voice was so faint…
But still I can’t leave. Not yet. It wasn’t like I could ever forget that there would be an end like this. I just didn’t ever know how or when it would be. I always knew that he was a gift with strings attached. From the beginning, what that angel, or whatever he was, said to me, “He will be great, and will be called the son of the Most High… his kingdom will never end.” And the whole way he just suddenly... was there, in me… And his birth, those crazed shepherds running, finding us, yelling about choirs of angels on the hills…
I always knew he was no ordinary child; I always knew he was never mine to keep. But this – this was not a day I ever imagined, to see my own first son, flesh of my flesh, there…naked, pinned… suffocating… In agony. And yet I can’t leave.
A little while ago he spoke again. Oh God, he barely had the strength to lift his voice. He was looking at me, he wanted me. And there was nothing I could do for him! They took me by the arm, Joanna and Mary, they led me closer. I felt I could have touched him – could have reached out and touched his feet, those feet that were once so small they fit into my hand, those toes I used to tickle, and he would laugh and laugh like an angel… And there they were, and a spike… Oh God, what have you done?
He looked at John, his faithful friend. He looked at me. “Woman, behold your son,” he said. “No, you are my son!” I wanted to cry out. “Take him down!”
Then he said to John, “Here is your mother.” I thought my heart would stop. To be given away, even for my own care? Like the time he wouldn’t see us, his brothers and me. He said those who followed him, his disciples, those were his mothers and his brothers now. And I tried to understand… he was never mine to keep.
But what was it all for? The crowds, the miracles, the healings? All those amazing stories that he told, about forgiveness and the Kingdom of God? Where is all that now? That’s what I want to know. Maybe that’s why I can’t look away – I’ve been waiting to see what he does now! God, where are you now? Your moment to intervene just passed, it seems. Are you going to finish what you started?
A soldier spoke a moment ago, a Roman. He said, “I am sure this man was the Son of God.” That’s what that angel said, so long ago, the words are seared into my memory: “The Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.” So how did this Roman know? Did God tell him too? Maybe it is all true! I believed once and said yes; can I believe again? Maybe God hasn’t finished? Maybe the story isn’t over…
Ah, now John wants to usher me away, already taking up his duties. I am staying till they take him down. They have promised to take care of the body, these women, these Marys, his friends, my friends. And some important men – Joseph, who gave us the tomb; Nicodemus, another one of the Sanhedrin. They brought the ointments and cloths – 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes, Mary said.
I will help. We can't anoint his body with oil until after the Sabbath, but I will touch his bruised skin one more time, look at his face, now just an empty space, before they put him away in that tomb in the garden. Then I will go home.
What has been your greatest loss?
Have you let God into that heartache? Let God fill that space with something that brings life? We can't rush it - but in time, our greatest pain will be overshadowed by the Life of God that cannot be quenched, even in death...
Wait for it. Wait with Mary.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Good Friday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Mary of Nazareth: They keep offering to take me away, my sister, the two Marys. They keep trying to take me home, to get me away from here, from watching him… But I can’t go. I must feel some need to finish this. He said a moment ago… “It is finished.” Or, that’s what they said he said. I couldn’t hear him. His voice was so faint…
But still I can’t leave. Not yet. It wasn’t like I could ever forget that there would be an end like this. I just didn’t ever know how or when it would be. I always knew that he was a gift with strings attached. From the beginning, what that angel, or whatever he was, said to me, “He will be great, and will be called the son of the Most High… his kingdom will never end.” And the whole way he just suddenly... was there, in me… And his birth, those crazed shepherds running, finding us, yelling about choirs of angels on the hills…
I always knew he was no ordinary child; I always knew he was never mine to keep. But this – this was not a day I ever imagined, to see my own first son, flesh of my flesh, there…naked, pinned… suffocating… In agony. And yet I can’t leave.
A little while ago he spoke again. Oh God, he barely had the strength to lift his voice. He was looking at me, he wanted me. And there was nothing I could do for him! They took me by the arm, Joanna and Mary, they led me closer. I felt I could have touched him – could have reached out and touched his feet, those feet that were once so small they fit into my hand, those toes I used to tickle, and he would laugh and laugh like an angel… And there they were, and a spike… Oh God, what have you done?
He looked at John, his faithful friend. He looked at me. “Woman, behold your son,” he said. “No, you are my son!” I wanted to cry out. “Take him down!”
Then he said to John, “Here is your mother.” I thought my heart would stop. To be given away, even for my own care? Like the time he wouldn’t see us, his brothers and me. He said those who followed him, his disciples, those were his mothers and his brothers now. And I tried to understand… he was never mine to keep.
But what was it all for? The crowds, the miracles, the healings? All those amazing stories that he told, about forgiveness and the Kingdom of God? Where is all that now? That’s what I want to know. Maybe that’s why I can’t look away – I’ve been waiting to see what he does now! God, where are you now? Your moment to intervene just passed, it seems. Are you going to finish what you started?
A soldier spoke a moment ago, a Roman. He said, “I am sure this man was the Son of God.” That’s what that angel said, so long ago, the words are seared into my memory: “The Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.” So how did this Roman know? Did God tell him too? Maybe it is all true! I believed once and said yes; can I believe again? Maybe God hasn’t finished? Maybe the story isn’t over…
Ah, now John wants to usher me away, already taking up his duties. I am staying till they take him down. They have promised to take care of the body, these women, these Marys, his friends, my friends. And some important men – Joseph, who gave us the tomb; Nicodemus, another one of the Sanhedrin. They brought the ointments and cloths – 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes, Mary said.
I will help. We can't anoint his body with oil until after the Sabbath, but I will touch his bruised skin one more time, look at his face, now just an empty space, before they put him away in that tomb in the garden. Then I will go home.
What has been your greatest loss?
Have you let God into that heartache? Let God fill that space with something that brings life? We can't rush it - but in time, our greatest pain will be overshadowed by the Life of God that cannot be quenched, even in death...
Wait for it. Wait with Mary.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Good Friday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-2-26 - Maundy Thursday: Andrew of Capernaum
You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel reading is here.
This Holy Week, Water Daily looks at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. As we hover at the fringes of this story we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Andrew of Capernaum: My brother! Jesus sure nailed it with the nickname he gave him, Petros. The rock. Never met anyone so hard-headed. And lovable, ornery, faithful, cowardly – all rolled into one ball of leap-before-you-look, speak-before-you-think energy. He’s been like that since we were kids – got me into trouble more times than I care to remember, and usually all I was doing was watching.
So tonight, when Jesus got up from the table, tied on that towel and began to wash our feet, and we’re all looking at each other, mortified – it’s Peter who said out loud what a lot of us were thinking. “Lord, you’re gonna wash my feet? Think again!” Jesus just looked at him with that mix of irritation and love he so often had for Peter, and said, “If you don’t let me wash you, you have no part with me.” But Peter doesn’t let it rest – he has to argue. With our Master! On this night of all nights! “Okay, wash all of me, then! Why stop with my feet?”
Jesus had an answer for him, of course. He always did. It was part of their game – Peter pushing as hard as he could, Jesus coming right back at him. Oh, how they loved each other. Love each other.
It was hard for Peter to submit to being cared for. Hard for all of us. When Jesus got to me, I didn’t want him to touch my feet. They’re not pretty. They were filthy, as feet were in our time. But he focused on that task like it was the only thing in the world he had to do. He got them clean, he rinsed and dried them, and I just had to sit there and receive that gift.
I think that was the hardest of all the things Jesus has asked us to do in the three years since I met him along the banks of the Jordan. Just sit and receive his gift. Powerless.
Little did I know that that’s all I would be doing for the next 24 hours – watching him give his life away for me, powerless to help him, nothing left for me but to receive his gift. And if I have trouble being this still and helpless, what on earth must my poor brother be going through?
How are you at receiving care from others?
How are you at receiving the gifts God wants to give to you?
It’s harder for most people to submit to having someone else wash their feet than it is to wash another’s (unless we’re paying for a pedicure…). Yet arguably our most important spiritual task is learning to take in the love and grace and power of God so we can share it freely with others.
Tonight, I hope you’re going to church, I hope you’ll have a chance to receive the ministry of footwashing, and to offer it. In that order - receive then give. Don’t miss this opportunity to grow in grace, to feel the holy water on your soles.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Maundy Thursday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Holy Week, Water Daily looks at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. As we hover at the fringes of this story we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Andrew of Capernaum: My brother! Jesus sure nailed it with the nickname he gave him, Petros. The rock. Never met anyone so hard-headed. And lovable, ornery, faithful, cowardly – all rolled into one ball of leap-before-you-look, speak-before-you-think energy. He’s been like that since we were kids – got me into trouble more times than I care to remember, and usually all I was doing was watching.
So tonight, when Jesus got up from the table, tied on that towel and began to wash our feet, and we’re all looking at each other, mortified – it’s Peter who said out loud what a lot of us were thinking. “Lord, you’re gonna wash my feet? Think again!” Jesus just looked at him with that mix of irritation and love he so often had for Peter, and said, “If you don’t let me wash you, you have no part with me.” But Peter doesn’t let it rest – he has to argue. With our Master! On this night of all nights! “Okay, wash all of me, then! Why stop with my feet?”
Jesus had an answer for him, of course. He always did. It was part of their game – Peter pushing as hard as he could, Jesus coming right back at him. Oh, how they loved each other. Love each other.
It was hard for Peter to submit to being cared for. Hard for all of us. When Jesus got to me, I didn’t want him to touch my feet. They’re not pretty. They were filthy, as feet were in our time. But he focused on that task like it was the only thing in the world he had to do. He got them clean, he rinsed and dried them, and I just had to sit there and receive that gift.
I think that was the hardest of all the things Jesus has asked us to do in the three years since I met him along the banks of the Jordan. Just sit and receive his gift. Powerless.
Little did I know that that’s all I would be doing for the next 24 hours – watching him give his life away for me, powerless to help him, nothing left for me but to receive his gift. And if I have trouble being this still and helpless, what on earth must my poor brother be going through?
How are you at receiving care from others?
How are you at receiving the gifts God wants to give to you?
It’s harder for most people to submit to having someone else wash their feet than it is to wash another’s (unless we’re paying for a pedicure…). Yet arguably our most important spiritual task is learning to take in the love and grace and power of God so we can share it freely with others.
Tonight, I hope you’re going to church, I hope you’ll have a chance to receive the ministry of footwashing, and to offer it. In that order - receive then give. Don’t miss this opportunity to grow in grace, to feel the holy water on your soles.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Maundy Thursday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-1-26 - Holy Wednesday : The Other Judas
You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel reading is here.
This Holy Week, Water Daily looks at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We who are also on the fringes of this story are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Judas, son of James: Why is this night SO different from any other night! The tension at the Seder table was thick enough to cut. Even after the weirdness of the footwashing, it was clear the troubles were getting to him. Jesus can bear pressure better than most, but nobody can take weeks of death threats and rumors and not be affected. Nothing he said this evening made sense, not the washing, not the words about the bread and the wine – his body, his blood? What was he talking about?
And then he said one of us would betray him. One of us? We love him! We’ve left everything to follow him. Why would one of us hand him over to the authorities? We all looked at each other, at Jesus. Then Peter signaled John to ask him who. Jesus wouldn’t give a name – he just said, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” I am so glad he didn’t say the name – because it was Judas! He handed the bread to Judas, the Iscariot. The other Judas. Or is it me who is the other Judas?
Jesus had two disciples named Judas. You know a lot about the Iscariot. Me, you only know by name, in a list of those called by Jesus to be among his twelve closest followers. I don’t even make every list – only Luke’s gospel includes me.
But I was there, day in, day out, traveling with him, helping to heal the sick, proclaim the Good News to those who would listen. I was with him in the rain, in the mud, in the sunshine, at the dinner tables. We never knew what was going to happen next. Only that he could transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope.
The other Judas was with us through it all too, totally committed. What could have happened? I saw how upset he was a few nights ago at dinner, when Mary poured all this expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet. He looked like a walking thunder cloud. Would that be enough to cause him to sell Jesus out?
Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do,” and Judas left the room. Left our company. We thought maybe he'd gone to pick up some supplies before the Sabbath began tomorrow…
I still believe Jesus can transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope. But even this?
You’ve probably been at some tense family meals in your life… you may even have known betrayal. How does it help our faith to know Jesus experienced those things?
Can we spare some sympathy for Judas Iscariot? Can we forgive those who have betrayed us?
Now’s a good time to start… we can begin by asking God to give us the grace to see that person as God sees them, with compassion. And then allow God’s grace to take hold of us, gradually or all at once. New life...
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Wednesday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Holy Week, Water Daily looks at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We who are also on the fringes of this story are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Judas, son of James: Why is this night SO different from any other night! The tension at the Seder table was thick enough to cut. Even after the weirdness of the footwashing, it was clear the troubles were getting to him. Jesus can bear pressure better than most, but nobody can take weeks of death threats and rumors and not be affected. Nothing he said this evening made sense, not the washing, not the words about the bread and the wine – his body, his blood? What was he talking about?
And then he said one of us would betray him. One of us? We love him! We’ve left everything to follow him. Why would one of us hand him over to the authorities? We all looked at each other, at Jesus. Then Peter signaled John to ask him who. Jesus wouldn’t give a name – he just said, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” I am so glad he didn’t say the name – because it was Judas! He handed the bread to Judas, the Iscariot. The other Judas. Or is it me who is the other Judas?
Jesus had two disciples named Judas. You know a lot about the Iscariot. Me, you only know by name, in a list of those called by Jesus to be among his twelve closest followers. I don’t even make every list – only Luke’s gospel includes me.
But I was there, day in, day out, traveling with him, helping to heal the sick, proclaim the Good News to those who would listen. I was with him in the rain, in the mud, in the sunshine, at the dinner tables. We never knew what was going to happen next. Only that he could transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope.
The other Judas was with us through it all too, totally committed. What could have happened? I saw how upset he was a few nights ago at dinner, when Mary poured all this expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet. He looked like a walking thunder cloud. Would that be enough to cause him to sell Jesus out?
Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do,” and Judas left the room. Left our company. We thought maybe he'd gone to pick up some supplies before the Sabbath began tomorrow…
I still believe Jesus can transform the worst circumstances into something with life and hope. But even this?
You’ve probably been at some tense family meals in your life… you may even have known betrayal. How does it help our faith to know Jesus experienced those things?
Can we spare some sympathy for Judas Iscariot? Can we forgive those who have betrayed us?
Now’s a good time to start… we can begin by asking God to give us the grace to see that person as God sees them, with compassion. And then allow God’s grace to take hold of us, gradually or all at once. New life...
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Wednesday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-31-26 - Holy Tuesday: Philip of Bethsaida
You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel reading is here.
This Holy Week, Water Daily will look at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Philip of Bethsaida: People always wanted to see Jesus; what was so different about these Greeks, that their request should cause him such sadness?
I wasn’t even sure I should bother him when they approached me. I mean, a LOT of people wanted to see Jesus – not all of them friendly – and he seemed tense and tired. So I checked in with Andrew, who's closer to the inner circle than I am. Together we went to Jesus. And his response surprised me. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." I didn't know what that meant but then he looked at us with this resigned expression on his face, and added, “I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
I couldn't pretend not to know what he was talking about – the rumors of plots against him have been flying for weeks now. It got a lot worse after the Lazarus thing. The leaders at the Temple are not happy with Jesus’ popularity, or his miracles. And now even Greeks here for Passover want to see him? This attention is not good.
Or is it “good” in a much bigger way? Jesus keeps hinting at a mission broader than we can imagine, that God is up to something huge. Could something good be accomplished by the death of one as amazing as Jesus? Whom I believe to be the Anointed One, the Messiah himself? What kind of fruit might he bear if he dies, like a grain of wheat?
Is he talking about us too? Are we all called to be grains of wheat, broken open so the life of God can break out?
“Whoever serves me must follow me,” he said. “And where I am, there will my servant be also.” Well, I am his servant. I can think of no greater purpose for my life than to serve Jesus. I will stay as close to him this week as I can, and hope against hope he’s just speaking in metaphors…
How about us? Are we willing to stay close to Jesus this week?
What do we find most unsettling about the whole story of Holy Week?
Is there a part you routinely want to avoid?
Why do you suppose that is?
I pray that we might walk closely with Jesus this week, allowing him to be real in our lives – not the suffering crucified one, but the risen Lord of heaven and earth, bearing abundant fruit through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Tuesday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Holy Week, Water Daily will look at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Philip of Bethsaida: People always wanted to see Jesus; what was so different about these Greeks, that their request should cause him such sadness?
I wasn’t even sure I should bother him when they approached me. I mean, a LOT of people wanted to see Jesus – not all of them friendly – and he seemed tense and tired. So I checked in with Andrew, who's closer to the inner circle than I am. Together we went to Jesus. And his response surprised me. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." I didn't know what that meant but then he looked at us with this resigned expression on his face, and added, “I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
I couldn't pretend not to know what he was talking about – the rumors of plots against him have been flying for weeks now. It got a lot worse after the Lazarus thing. The leaders at the Temple are not happy with Jesus’ popularity, or his miracles. And now even Greeks here for Passover want to see him? This attention is not good.
Or is it “good” in a much bigger way? Jesus keeps hinting at a mission broader than we can imagine, that God is up to something huge. Could something good be accomplished by the death of one as amazing as Jesus? Whom I believe to be the Anointed One, the Messiah himself? What kind of fruit might he bear if he dies, like a grain of wheat?
Is he talking about us too? Are we all called to be grains of wheat, broken open so the life of God can break out?
“Whoever serves me must follow me,” he said. “And where I am, there will my servant be also.” Well, I am his servant. I can think of no greater purpose for my life than to serve Jesus. I will stay as close to him this week as I can, and hope against hope he’s just speaking in metaphors…
How about us? Are we willing to stay close to Jesus this week?
What do we find most unsettling about the whole story of Holy Week?
Is there a part you routinely want to avoid?
Why do you suppose that is?
I pray that we might walk closely with Jesus this week, allowing him to be real in our lives – not the suffering crucified one, but the risen Lord of heaven and earth, bearing abundant fruit through us.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Tuesday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-30-26 - Monday in Holy Week: Lazarus of Bethany
You can listen to this reflection here. Today's gospel reading is here.
This Holy Week, Water Daily will look at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Lazarus of Bethany: So, they want to kill me – I, who have already tasted death. More than tasted – spent four days in that place where there is there is no life, no light. Came back to myself in a cold, dark, rancid place; came back to myself at the sound of his voice calling me. Stumbled toward the light beyond the rock they’d just moved to let me out, not sure where I was, or who.
If I hadn’t seen the power and love in this man who became my friend, I might say Jesus was the worst thing that could have happened to my family. His visits caused my sisters to squabble, his friendship drew unwanted attention. But I can say with my whole heart that Jesus was the best thing. He drew out the gentleness in Martha, who so often uses her intelligence and competence to control events and other people. And I’ve seen our sister Mary show a new boldness and courage since coming to know Jesus.
Like tonight, at dinner at our house – she took a whole jar of nard that must have cost her the earth, and anointed Jesus’ feet with it. Just got on her knees and anointed him and then wiped his feet with her hair. It was outrageous, and extraordinary. Didn’t make his disciples happy – don’t know if it was the extravagance or the intimacy that bothered them most. But Jesus defended her, talking about her having “bought it for the day of my burial.” He knew the end of this life was coming soon; did he know how ghastly that end would be? Did he fear it? The suffering? The dying? Did he know what would come next – really know? Or did he have to walk by faith, like all of us?
And now, because so many have come to believe in Jesus because he raised me, they want to kill me. The symbol. The forerunner. You know what? They don’t scare me. Death no longer scares me. Like my sisters, I believe Jesus is who he says he is, the Anointed of God, the Messiah we’ve been awaiting.
And I know that the next time I leave this life, it won’t be to the place of complete darkness. For he will be with me, the Light of the World will illumine even that darkness and make it holy.
I just wish he didn’t have to pass through the darkness himself…
What in Lazarus’ story – or Mary’s, or Martha’s – brings up a story in you?
A story of new life returning from dead places?
A story of extravagant sacrifice to honor Jesus or your faith?
A story of hospitality and service?
What do you want to offer Jesus today?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Monday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This Holy Week, Water Daily will look at the readings appointed for each day and reflect from the perspective of one the people on the fringes of the story. We too are on the fringes of this story – and we are invited to come into its heart this week. May these holy men and women draw us closer.
Lazarus of Bethany: So, they want to kill me – I, who have already tasted death. More than tasted – spent four days in that place where there is there is no life, no light. Came back to myself in a cold, dark, rancid place; came back to myself at the sound of his voice calling me. Stumbled toward the light beyond the rock they’d just moved to let me out, not sure where I was, or who.
If I hadn’t seen the power and love in this man who became my friend, I might say Jesus was the worst thing that could have happened to my family. His visits caused my sisters to squabble, his friendship drew unwanted attention. But I can say with my whole heart that Jesus was the best thing. He drew out the gentleness in Martha, who so often uses her intelligence and competence to control events and other people. And I’ve seen our sister Mary show a new boldness and courage since coming to know Jesus.
Like tonight, at dinner at our house – she took a whole jar of nard that must have cost her the earth, and anointed Jesus’ feet with it. Just got on her knees and anointed him and then wiped his feet with her hair. It was outrageous, and extraordinary. Didn’t make his disciples happy – don’t know if it was the extravagance or the intimacy that bothered them most. But Jesus defended her, talking about her having “bought it for the day of my burial.” He knew the end of this life was coming soon; did he know how ghastly that end would be? Did he fear it? The suffering? The dying? Did he know what would come next – really know? Or did he have to walk by faith, like all of us?
And now, because so many have come to believe in Jesus because he raised me, they want to kill me. The symbol. The forerunner. You know what? They don’t scare me. Death no longer scares me. Like my sisters, I believe Jesus is who he says he is, the Anointed of God, the Messiah we’ve been awaiting.
And I know that the next time I leave this life, it won’t be to the place of complete darkness. For he will be with me, the Light of the World will illumine even that darkness and make it holy.
I just wish he didn’t have to pass through the darkness himself…
What in Lazarus’ story – or Mary’s, or Martha’s – brings up a story in you?
A story of new life returning from dead places?
A story of extravagant sacrifice to honor Jesus or your faith?
A story of hospitality and service?
What do you want to offer Jesus today?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Holy Monday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-27-26 - Hosanna!
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
It often amazes us how quickly the throng who lauded Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem could a few days later call with equal ardor for his crucifixion. Yet is it so surprising? Anyone who’s ever been a teenager knows how quickly strong and seemingly incompatible emotions can pass through us in swift succession. “I love so-and-so!” “I can’t stand so-and-so!” “I’ll die if you don’t let me go to that concert!” “I’m never leaving my room!”
Okay, but weren't those are supposed to be adults in that crowd? Well, any rational behavior we might expect from a group of adults can be neutralized by the Crowd Effect – which can quickly become Mob Rule. Something happens to human beings in crowds; normal inhibitions and rational thinking can be overcome by fervent emotion, which can quickly grow destructive. It happens at sporting events, excitement about a team turning into a murderous rampage.
And when you add a threat to people’s security, it’s not difficult to see how this crowd turned on Jesus. The temple authorities not-so-subtly suggested that Jesus’ continued activity and renown would awaken the wrath of the Romans, and all their Jewish subjects would suffer. “…It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish,” said the high priest Caiaphas. Anyone who had witnessed Roman brutality would do much to avoid a repeat occurrence.
In a way, “crucify him!” is easier to understand than the “Hosannas!” when Jesus entered Jerusalem. The chant of the crowd explicitly acknowledges Jesus’ Messiahship as the Son of David. People put their own cloaks on the road, presumably so the feet of the donkeys’ bearing the holy cargo wouldn't have to touch bare ground. Those who shouted “Hosanna!” were expressing trust in Jesus. When they saw him a few days later, in custody, beaten, seemingly powerless, perhaps their sense of trust felt betrayed, which fueled their rage.
Christians the world over will participate in the re-telling of this story on Palm Sunday, asked to join the crowd in both the hosannas and the calls for execution. I suspect many have trouble relating to both cries. We’re too familiar with the Jesus story to feel the excitement of recognizing the Messiah, and perhaps too removed from oppression to feel a strong need for a savior. To call for his death is bewildering. Where do you locate yourself among those positions?
Consider praying your way through the whole story before Sunday (Matthew 26:14- 27:66), being attentive to where you respond, who you relate to as it unfolds. Can you find in yourself that impulse to praise Jesus for who he is to you? If you feel he’s a stranger, if you’re one of the curious in the crowd, you might ask him to show you who he is.
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” they shouted, something many of us sing every week in the eucharist. If you feel Jesus has blessed you, tell him. See what that opens up.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
It often amazes us how quickly the throng who lauded Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem could a few days later call with equal ardor for his crucifixion. Yet is it so surprising? Anyone who’s ever been a teenager knows how quickly strong and seemingly incompatible emotions can pass through us in swift succession. “I love so-and-so!” “I can’t stand so-and-so!” “I’ll die if you don’t let me go to that concert!” “I’m never leaving my room!”
Okay, but weren't those are supposed to be adults in that crowd? Well, any rational behavior we might expect from a group of adults can be neutralized by the Crowd Effect – which can quickly become Mob Rule. Something happens to human beings in crowds; normal inhibitions and rational thinking can be overcome by fervent emotion, which can quickly grow destructive. It happens at sporting events, excitement about a team turning into a murderous rampage.
And when you add a threat to people’s security, it’s not difficult to see how this crowd turned on Jesus. The temple authorities not-so-subtly suggested that Jesus’ continued activity and renown would awaken the wrath of the Romans, and all their Jewish subjects would suffer. “…It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish,” said the high priest Caiaphas. Anyone who had witnessed Roman brutality would do much to avoid a repeat occurrence.
In a way, “crucify him!” is easier to understand than the “Hosannas!” when Jesus entered Jerusalem. The chant of the crowd explicitly acknowledges Jesus’ Messiahship as the Son of David. People put their own cloaks on the road, presumably so the feet of the donkeys’ bearing the holy cargo wouldn't have to touch bare ground. Those who shouted “Hosanna!” were expressing trust in Jesus. When they saw him a few days later, in custody, beaten, seemingly powerless, perhaps their sense of trust felt betrayed, which fueled their rage.
Christians the world over will participate in the re-telling of this story on Palm Sunday, asked to join the crowd in both the hosannas and the calls for execution. I suspect many have trouble relating to both cries. We’re too familiar with the Jesus story to feel the excitement of recognizing the Messiah, and perhaps too removed from oppression to feel a strong need for a savior. To call for his death is bewildering. Where do you locate yourself among those positions?
Consider praying your way through the whole story before Sunday (Matthew 26:14- 27:66), being attentive to where you respond, who you relate to as it unfolds. Can you find in yourself that impulse to praise Jesus for who he is to you? If you feel he’s a stranger, if you’re one of the curious in the crowd, you might ask him to show you who he is.
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” they shouted, something many of us sing every week in the eucharist. If you feel Jesus has blessed you, tell him. See what that opens up.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-26-26 - Who Is This?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Every once in a while I come across a news item about some reality or sports star I’ve never heard of, who has gained some notoriety, or picked up another million or so TikTok followers – and I go, “Who the heck is that?” Evidently that’s how some people on the edges of that crowd hailing Jesus with palm branches and Hosannas felt: When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?’ "The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."
Some in the crowd recognized him as the Christ, the Messiah. Many assumed that the Messiah would have a military mission, liberating them from the hated Romans as their forebears had been liberated from Egyptian domination. A greater majority probably saw Jesus as a prophet, for only a prophet sent from God could do the kind of miracles Jesus was doing and speak with the authority with which he spoke. It was a big deal to be regarded as a prophet – but to be seen as Messiah? That was less likely.
The proportions in that crowd may be similar to the way Jesus is seen in the world today. To Christians and Muslims he is a prophet. Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and other traditions, as well as some atheists and agnostics, see him as an important world religious figure of inestimable influence. I suspect some who claim the title “Christian” also view him this way, as an important moral teacher and prophet, but not divine. Baha'i see Christ as divine, though not in quite the same way as Christians do. To credal Christians, though, and to some in that crowd that day, Jesus was more than prophet. He had been revealed as Lord, Adonai, the long-awaited Deliverer.
Many people in our own day still say, when they hear of Jesus, “Who is this?” It is our privilege to introduce him, to say who we have experienced Jesus to be. We want to be sure people hear of Jesus. We don’t have to spout a party line or to tell other people’s stories – we can speak out of our own experience, and out of our tradition.
This time in our church year, when we mark Holy Week and Easter, is a particularly good time to tell our stories and make our introductions – invite people to come and experience the story for themselves on Palm Sunday, to hear the scope of God’s love for humanity at the Great Vigil of Easter, to soak up the celebration and joy on Easter Sunday.
And if our experience of Jesus is limited to what we’ve heard or read; if we’re still asking “Who is this?” ourselves, then we can ask him to make himself real to us in a new way this year, so that we can receive – and share – the gift more fully.
Wherever we find ourselves in this story, I hope we will share the ministry of that donkey – to bear Christ into the crowds, humble and patient, lifting him up for all to see, getting him to the places he needs to be in order to transform the world.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Every once in a while I come across a news item about some reality or sports star I’ve never heard of, who has gained some notoriety, or picked up another million or so TikTok followers – and I go, “Who the heck is that?” Evidently that’s how some people on the edges of that crowd hailing Jesus with palm branches and Hosannas felt: When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?’ "The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."
Some in the crowd recognized him as the Christ, the Messiah. Many assumed that the Messiah would have a military mission, liberating them from the hated Romans as their forebears had been liberated from Egyptian domination. A greater majority probably saw Jesus as a prophet, for only a prophet sent from God could do the kind of miracles Jesus was doing and speak with the authority with which he spoke. It was a big deal to be regarded as a prophet – but to be seen as Messiah? That was less likely.
The proportions in that crowd may be similar to the way Jesus is seen in the world today. To Christians and Muslims he is a prophet. Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and other traditions, as well as some atheists and agnostics, see him as an important world religious figure of inestimable influence. I suspect some who claim the title “Christian” also view him this way, as an important moral teacher and prophet, but not divine. Baha'i see Christ as divine, though not in quite the same way as Christians do. To credal Christians, though, and to some in that crowd that day, Jesus was more than prophet. He had been revealed as Lord, Adonai, the long-awaited Deliverer.
Many people in our own day still say, when they hear of Jesus, “Who is this?” It is our privilege to introduce him, to say who we have experienced Jesus to be. We want to be sure people hear of Jesus. We don’t have to spout a party line or to tell other people’s stories – we can speak out of our own experience, and out of our tradition.
This time in our church year, when we mark Holy Week and Easter, is a particularly good time to tell our stories and make our introductions – invite people to come and experience the story for themselves on Palm Sunday, to hear the scope of God’s love for humanity at the Great Vigil of Easter, to soak up the celebration and joy on Easter Sunday.
And if our experience of Jesus is limited to what we’ve heard or read; if we’re still asking “Who is this?” ourselves, then we can ask him to make himself real to us in a new way this year, so that we can receive – and share – the gift more fully.
Wherever we find ourselves in this story, I hope we will share the ministry of that donkey – to bear Christ into the crowds, humble and patient, lifting him up for all to see, getting him to the places he needs to be in order to transform the world.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-25-26 - Provision
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
As Jesus moved through his final days in this life, many details seemed to be supernaturally pre-arranged. Twice he sent out disciples to take care of needs, adding a mysterious element – “Go to x, do y, and if anyone asks you, here’s what you say…” When they needed a room in which to celebrate the Passover feast, it was very “cloak and dagger” – “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.”
And here, when the need is for a donkey, the disciples sent are also told what signs to look for: "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately.’”
How did Jesus know they would find a donkey as soon as they entered the next village? And that the donkey’s owner would respond affirmatively to the notion that “the Lord” needed the animals? That suggests he was someone who knew Jesus to be Adonai, the Lord, not just Master and Teacher.
In the Bible, we find a principle at work: God provides what God needs to accomplish God’s mission, whether it’s stables, rooms, bread and fish, donkeys – or tombs. AND we see that God relies upon human beings to collaborate in that mission if it is to bear fruit. Theoretically the man with the donkeys could have refused, or asked a fee, or the man with the guest room say, “It’s already rented.”
Can you think of a time when you’ve received provision unexpectedly as you went about God’s work?
I bet that’s a story to tell… who needs to hear it?
And how would you respond if something as precious as livestock or a car were asked of you? Think back… What have you given for God’s use? What have you held back? What do you sense God asking you to lend at this time in your life?
(Time? Family? A skill or talent? A house, or money?)
I’m not asking what you have to offer – I’m asking what you sense the Holy Spirit asking for. It could be that there isn’t anything… or it could be that we need to inquire, to offer, to make ourselves receptive to the request.
Think about it: God tied himself in with human beings a long time ago, at least in the Story we have (maybe God has a whole other story going with wolves or trees or life forms on other planets…). God created the world without help, and then created humankind to help tend the whole enterprise. And even after that little initiative ran into trouble, God continued to rely upon people – upon the movement of patriarchs, and the voices of prophets, and the hands and feet of apostles to spread God’s message and reveal God’s power. It’s an intricate relationship between us and the Holy Spirit at work in us – and it is how God will continue to reveal God’s self in the world until he has restored all things to wholeness.
Which makes me wonder how much more whole things would be if we all offered our donkeys and extra rooms and special gifts as generously as the unnamed people in our stories did. What you got?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
As Jesus moved through his final days in this life, many details seemed to be supernaturally pre-arranged. Twice he sent out disciples to take care of needs, adding a mysterious element – “Go to x, do y, and if anyone asks you, here’s what you say…” When they needed a room in which to celebrate the Passover feast, it was very “cloak and dagger” – “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.”
And here, when the need is for a donkey, the disciples sent are also told what signs to look for: "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately.’”
How did Jesus know they would find a donkey as soon as they entered the next village? And that the donkey’s owner would respond affirmatively to the notion that “the Lord” needed the animals? That suggests he was someone who knew Jesus to be Adonai, the Lord, not just Master and Teacher.
In the Bible, we find a principle at work: God provides what God needs to accomplish God’s mission, whether it’s stables, rooms, bread and fish, donkeys – or tombs. AND we see that God relies upon human beings to collaborate in that mission if it is to bear fruit. Theoretically the man with the donkeys could have refused, or asked a fee, or the man with the guest room say, “It’s already rented.”
Can you think of a time when you’ve received provision unexpectedly as you went about God’s work?
I bet that’s a story to tell… who needs to hear it?
And how would you respond if something as precious as livestock or a car were asked of you? Think back… What have you given for God’s use? What have you held back? What do you sense God asking you to lend at this time in your life?
(Time? Family? A skill or talent? A house, or money?)
I’m not asking what you have to offer – I’m asking what you sense the Holy Spirit asking for. It could be that there isn’t anything… or it could be that we need to inquire, to offer, to make ourselves receptive to the request.
Think about it: God tied himself in with human beings a long time ago, at least in the Story we have (maybe God has a whole other story going with wolves or trees or life forms on other planets…). God created the world without help, and then created humankind to help tend the whole enterprise. And even after that little initiative ran into trouble, God continued to rely upon people – upon the movement of patriarchs, and the voices of prophets, and the hands and feet of apostles to spread God’s message and reveal God’s power. It’s an intricate relationship between us and the Holy Spirit at work in us – and it is how God will continue to reveal God’s self in the world until he has restored all things to wholeness.
Which makes me wonder how much more whole things would be if we all offered our donkeys and extra rooms and special gifts as generously as the unnamed people in our stories did. What you got?
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-24-26 - The Donkey(s)
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When you spend some time with a passage from the bible, you often notice things you’ve missed in the past. Like, a donkey and a colt? Which was it?
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.’”
This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.
He sat on them? That’s a stretch, to say the least! Now, we might chalk this up to Matthew’s penchant for tying every event he can to an Old Testament prophecy, no matter how far a reach (ba-dum-bum...) Mark and Luke each speak only of a colt, singular. Or maybe Matthew wants to be sure we get the connection to kingship, at the risk of absurdity. This ride of Jesus’ is not a mere victory lap – it is the entry of a king into his capital. But this is a king so humble, he not only rides upon a donkey, but even upon its foal.
We don’t always associate monarchy with humility, but they merge in so many stories of Jesus’ earthly life, from his birth in a rough-hewn shelter for animals, to his traveling company of fishermen, prostitutes and tax collectors. In fact, it’s not the humility that is hard to locate in this story – it’s the kingship. The royal gifts presented by the magi, the defensive measures of King Herod, and ultimately the crown of thorns – these disclose Jesus’ true nature, a monarch disguised as a commoner. That is why the epistle reading for Palm Sunday is always the hymn about Jesus found in Philippians 2:
When you spend some time with a passage from the bible, you often notice things you’ve missed in the past. Like, a donkey and a colt? Which was it?
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.’”
This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.
He sat on them? That’s a stretch, to say the least! Now, we might chalk this up to Matthew’s penchant for tying every event he can to an Old Testament prophecy, no matter how far a reach (ba-dum-bum...) Mark and Luke each speak only of a colt, singular. Or maybe Matthew wants to be sure we get the connection to kingship, at the risk of absurdity. This ride of Jesus’ is not a mere victory lap – it is the entry of a king into his capital. But this is a king so humble, he not only rides upon a donkey, but even upon its foal.
We don’t always associate monarchy with humility, but they merge in so many stories of Jesus’ earthly life, from his birth in a rough-hewn shelter for animals, to his traveling company of fishermen, prostitutes and tax collectors. In fact, it’s not the humility that is hard to locate in this story – it’s the kingship. The royal gifts presented by the magi, the defensive measures of King Herod, and ultimately the crown of thorns – these disclose Jesus’ true nature, a monarch disguised as a commoner. That is why the epistle reading for Palm Sunday is always the hymn about Jesus found in Philippians 2:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.
Unless we really think about where the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, came from, it can be hard to grasp just how dramatic a lowering of status he endured, consenting to be bounded in a human body, in time and space, to be subject to the care and cruelties of limited human beings. (Matthew West and Vince Gill sing a song called Leaving Heaven, which flips the perspective… )
Today in prayer let’s try exalting Jesus, even imagining him in the courts of heaven or a throne room. And then let’s imagine ourselves there with him. What feelings come up in you? Do you want to praise him? Flee from that presence? Go nearer? Go with the feelings, pray into them.
The divine reality we celebrate is that the God who made everything loved us so much, he decided to come into our earthly reality to woo us, to court us, to come and sit with us. Maybe that other colt is meant for you, for me, to ride along next to him, to the cross and beyond, into Life.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Unless we really think about where the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, came from, it can be hard to grasp just how dramatic a lowering of status he endured, consenting to be bounded in a human body, in time and space, to be subject to the care and cruelties of limited human beings. (Matthew West and Vince Gill sing a song called Leaving Heaven, which flips the perspective… )
Today in prayer let’s try exalting Jesus, even imagining him in the courts of heaven or a throne room. And then let’s imagine ourselves there with him. What feelings come up in you? Do you want to praise him? Flee from that presence? Go nearer? Go with the feelings, pray into them.
The divine reality we celebrate is that the God who made everything loved us so much, he decided to come into our earthly reality to woo us, to court us, to come and sit with us. Maybe that other colt is meant for you, for me, to ride along next to him, to the cross and beyond, into Life.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-23-26 - To Jerusalem
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
How to focus Water Daily the next two weeks? The Gospel appointed for Palm Sunday is the whole Passion story, and the following week it’s Easter. But who wants to explore the empty tomb while we’re still in Holy Week; that’s like peeking at the last page while you’re still in chapter 5. This week let's do the “other” Gospel story for next Sunday, the story of the palms for which the day is named.
Onward we go, to Jerusalem, where the week begins with Jesus entering in triumph, lauded by crowds, and goes horribly, horribly wrong, ending with his brutal execution. Jesus had been saying for some time that he must go to Jerusalem, where he will be arrested, tried and executed. Earlier, when people had warned him to avoid Jerusalem, because Herod wanted to kill him. Jesus responded, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” – (Luke 13:32-33)
The people of Israel had a funny relationship to their prophets. They revered them – and frequently sought to have them killed when they didn’t like their messages. Those messages veered between, “You’d better, or else…” or “It’s too late; you’re in trouble...” Amidst those, however, another divine theme can be heard: “I love you. I want so much for us to be together. If you might only do what you promised, honor me, honor each other…” But the people never could. How could they relate to such a fearsome God?
Philip Yancey offers an analogy to the incarnation in his book The Jesus I Never Knew – he talks about how the fish in his fish tank regarded him with terror, even though he fed them faithfully, and kept their water clean and chemically balanced. His interventions seemed to them like destruction, and they fled to their hiding places whenever he came near. “To my fish I was a deity. I was too large for them, too incomprehensible.” He thought one day, “I would have to become a fish and ‘speak’ to them in a language they could understand.”
Only, it turned out that even when God came among us in a form like ours, speaking our language, those who were deeply invested in the old ways, who had gained power by fostering people’s fear of God, weren’t any more receptive. This prophet, too, must be silenced, eliminated.
How do you think you would have regarded Jesus in his earthly time? Would you have been drawn to his miracles and messages, or put off? Would you have gone to him for healing or forgiveness? Would you have been unsettled by the threat to good order he represented, or thrilled that at last deliverance from oppression might be at hand? With what aspect of Jesus do you most easily connect? Least?
Knowing how we most naturally connect to Jesus can help us strengthen the relationship, and balance it. And there’s no wrong answer, even if we identify with the Pharisees. We know Jesus forgave them too.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
How to focus Water Daily the next two weeks? The Gospel appointed for Palm Sunday is the whole Passion story, and the following week it’s Easter. But who wants to explore the empty tomb while we’re still in Holy Week; that’s like peeking at the last page while you’re still in chapter 5. This week let's do the “other” Gospel story for next Sunday, the story of the palms for which the day is named.
Onward we go, to Jerusalem, where the week begins with Jesus entering in triumph, lauded by crowds, and goes horribly, horribly wrong, ending with his brutal execution. Jesus had been saying for some time that he must go to Jerusalem, where he will be arrested, tried and executed. Earlier, when people had warned him to avoid Jerusalem, because Herod wanted to kill him. Jesus responded, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” – (Luke 13:32-33)
The people of Israel had a funny relationship to their prophets. They revered them – and frequently sought to have them killed when they didn’t like their messages. Those messages veered between, “You’d better, or else…” or “It’s too late; you’re in trouble...” Amidst those, however, another divine theme can be heard: “I love you. I want so much for us to be together. If you might only do what you promised, honor me, honor each other…” But the people never could. How could they relate to such a fearsome God?
Philip Yancey offers an analogy to the incarnation in his book The Jesus I Never Knew – he talks about how the fish in his fish tank regarded him with terror, even though he fed them faithfully, and kept their water clean and chemically balanced. His interventions seemed to them like destruction, and they fled to their hiding places whenever he came near. “To my fish I was a deity. I was too large for them, too incomprehensible.” He thought one day, “I would have to become a fish and ‘speak’ to them in a language they could understand.”
Only, it turned out that even when God came among us in a form like ours, speaking our language, those who were deeply invested in the old ways, who had gained power by fostering people’s fear of God, weren’t any more receptive. This prophet, too, must be silenced, eliminated.
How do you think you would have regarded Jesus in his earthly time? Would you have been drawn to his miracles and messages, or put off? Would you have gone to him for healing or forgiveness? Would you have been unsettled by the threat to good order he represented, or thrilled that at last deliverance from oppression might be at hand? With what aspect of Jesus do you most easily connect? Least?
Knowing how we most naturally connect to Jesus can help us strengthen the relationship, and balance it. And there’s no wrong answer, even if we identify with the Pharisees. We know Jesus forgave them too.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Palm Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-20-26 - Life Wins
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Why did Jesus restore Lazarus to life when he was so very, very dead? Was it “for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it,” as he indicated to his disciples a few days earlier? Was it because he was so moved by Mary’s weeping that he started to weep himself? "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved." The King James Version renders that verse, “Jesus wept,” the shortest verse in the Bible.
Or was Jesus “greatly disturbed in spirit” because he knew what God was equipping him to do next, and it scared the daylights out of him? Certainly, he was in some turmoil – the most literal translation of what we get as “disturbed” suggests actual gut-wrenching. Jesus weeps – and then Jesus acts. Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone."
It can be hard for us, from this side of Easter, not to hear the echo of the women on their way to Jesus’ tomb, wondering who will roll away that stone. Stones are to keep death in, and the living out. And here comes God to overturn all of that order… just as God had said long ago s/he would.
Reviving of the dead also occurs in our reading from the Hebrew Bible this Sunday – but it is only a vision, in which dry bones, representing Israel’s defeat and dead hopes, are given sinews and flesh and have the breath, the life of God, blown back into them. Included in Ezekiel’s bizarre vision, though, is a prophetic promise: “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,’ says the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:12-14)
Scripture suggests that death is something God tolerates until s/he can do away with it – which is what we claim God did in Christ on Good Friday, and proved Easter Sunday. That is central to our belief as those who bear the name of Christ. One of our greatest faith challenges is to live that belief, that death has been neutralized, while in this life it is still so very real and so very destructive. These stories we read and learn and tell are counter-narratives to the one we live out in this physical life. So we must develop our spiritual selves as well as our physical selves – to see Life beyond death, and to see it so fully and clearly that it carries us through “the valley of the shadow of death” when that is where we find ourselves.
Why did Jesus restore Lazarus to life when he was so very, very dead? Was it “for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it,” as he indicated to his disciples a few days earlier? Was it because he was so moved by Mary’s weeping that he started to weep himself? "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved." The King James Version renders that verse, “Jesus wept,” the shortest verse in the Bible.
Or was Jesus “greatly disturbed in spirit” because he knew what God was equipping him to do next, and it scared the daylights out of him? Certainly, he was in some turmoil – the most literal translation of what we get as “disturbed” suggests actual gut-wrenching. Jesus weeps – and then Jesus acts. Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone."
It can be hard for us, from this side of Easter, not to hear the echo of the women on their way to Jesus’ tomb, wondering who will roll away that stone. Stones are to keep death in, and the living out. And here comes God to overturn all of that order… just as God had said long ago s/he would.
Reviving of the dead also occurs in our reading from the Hebrew Bible this Sunday – but it is only a vision, in which dry bones, representing Israel’s defeat and dead hopes, are given sinews and flesh and have the breath, the life of God, blown back into them. Included in Ezekiel’s bizarre vision, though, is a prophetic promise: “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,’ says the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:12-14)
Scripture suggests that death is something God tolerates until s/he can do away with it – which is what we claim God did in Christ on Good Friday, and proved Easter Sunday. That is central to our belief as those who bear the name of Christ. One of our greatest faith challenges is to live that belief, that death has been neutralized, while in this life it is still so very real and so very destructive. These stories we read and learn and tell are counter-narratives to the one we live out in this physical life. So we must develop our spiritual selves as well as our physical selves – to see Life beyond death, and to see it so fully and clearly that it carries us through “the valley of the shadow of death” when that is where we find ourselves.
- What is your relationship with death? Do you fear it? Dread it? See it as natural, as a release, or an enemy?
- Does your view change when it’s the death of another you’re contemplating?
- What is your relationship with life – the kind of life that transcends death? Does it feel real?
- Where is God for you in the whole subject of death?
In another nine days or so, the Church will enter into a deep, week-long contemplation of death and life, so this is a good time to entertain these questions and take them into prayer. If it feels to you like death still has the upper hand, still wins – that’s something to talk with God about, to ask questions and see where answers might emerge. We can say, “Lord, I don’t understand death, why it’s still part of life when you’ve vanquished it – but I do understand life.”
God’s Life is already in us, and we in it. As we learn to dwell in that Life, it will carry us into the life beyond this one. We can ask daily to be filled with that Life that truly overwhelms death – and gradually that Life is what we become.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
God’s Life is already in us, and we in it. As we learn to dwell in that Life, it will carry us into the life beyond this one. We can ask daily to be filled with that Life that truly overwhelms death – and gradually that Life is what we become.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-19-26 - Lazarus, the Unbound
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The Gospels tell us almost nothing about Lazarus, yet he is the centerpiece of Jesus’ most powerful and unsettling miracle. We’re told he lived in Bethany outside Jerusalem, that he and his sisters were beloved in Jesus’ inner circle. We hear he was felled by an illness and died somewhat unexpectedly, from which we might surmise that he was not old. And that he made a journey into death and back into life – only to die again at a riper age. He has inspired numerous works of literature and art, yet in the only Biblical scene in which he appears, he enters bound in grave cloths, four days dead:
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
We are endlessly fascinated with tales of those who have physically died and somehow been revived. Proof of Heaven, Heaven is for Real, 90 Minutes in Heaven are only a few bestselling titles. But we have no record of what Lazarus experienced being revived after so long, what it would be like to undergo a reversal of decay, movement in limbs long set in rigor mortis. Yet Jesus’ command, “Unbind him, and let him go!” reverberates over the centuries, a powerful metaphor for release and new life.
Few of us have experienced being physically revived, but I suspect we have all seen life returning to people bound in one way or another, whether by poverty, addiction, crime, illness, abuse, self-destructive patterns. Yet we are more often stuck in the place of those onlookers who said, “Could not Jesus have kept this man from dying?” As our global community went through the extreme dislocation, disease and death wrought by the coronavirus pandemic; as we watch the demise of democracies and economies, homelands and habitats, those words echo all the more. I need to return again and again to what I have learned about the mysterious ways of God: that God seems rarely to be in the business of prevention. God is always in the business of resurrection. This is what Jesus demonstrated that day, what the four-day wait was about.
“Unbind him and let him go” might be said of us. May we be unbound from worldly expectations and set free to trust in this God whom we cannot see, but whose power and love we have experienced. Once, in a time of turmoil, I heard in prayer, “Trust me – and don’t take a step without me in this time.” Somehow I believe God will help us navigate these crises and be God’s agents in redemption, in the face of unimaginable loss and suffering and fear. That is our calling as people of faith.
You know who I think had the most faith of anyone in this scene? The guys who rolled away that stone, and Lazarus, who came out when Jesus called him. Few people are so open to the impossible they are willing to go with it when it comes their way. The more open we are to the impossible, the more possible it becomes every day. Choose life.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
The Gospels tell us almost nothing about Lazarus, yet he is the centerpiece of Jesus’ most powerful and unsettling miracle. We’re told he lived in Bethany outside Jerusalem, that he and his sisters were beloved in Jesus’ inner circle. We hear he was felled by an illness and died somewhat unexpectedly, from which we might surmise that he was not old. And that he made a journey into death and back into life – only to die again at a riper age. He has inspired numerous works of literature and art, yet in the only Biblical scene in which he appears, he enters bound in grave cloths, four days dead:
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
We are endlessly fascinated with tales of those who have physically died and somehow been revived. Proof of Heaven, Heaven is for Real, 90 Minutes in Heaven are only a few bestselling titles. But we have no record of what Lazarus experienced being revived after so long, what it would be like to undergo a reversal of decay, movement in limbs long set in rigor mortis. Yet Jesus’ command, “Unbind him, and let him go!” reverberates over the centuries, a powerful metaphor for release and new life.
Few of us have experienced being physically revived, but I suspect we have all seen life returning to people bound in one way or another, whether by poverty, addiction, crime, illness, abuse, self-destructive patterns. Yet we are more often stuck in the place of those onlookers who said, “Could not Jesus have kept this man from dying?” As our global community went through the extreme dislocation, disease and death wrought by the coronavirus pandemic; as we watch the demise of democracies and economies, homelands and habitats, those words echo all the more. I need to return again and again to what I have learned about the mysterious ways of God: that God seems rarely to be in the business of prevention. God is always in the business of resurrection. This is what Jesus demonstrated that day, what the four-day wait was about.
“Unbind him and let him go” might be said of us. May we be unbound from worldly expectations and set free to trust in this God whom we cannot see, but whose power and love we have experienced. Once, in a time of turmoil, I heard in prayer, “Trust me – and don’t take a step without me in this time.” Somehow I believe God will help us navigate these crises and be God’s agents in redemption, in the face of unimaginable loss and suffering and fear. That is our calling as people of faith.
You know who I think had the most faith of anyone in this scene? The guys who rolled away that stone, and Lazarus, who came out when Jesus called him. Few people are so open to the impossible they are willing to go with it when it comes their way. The more open we are to the impossible, the more possible it becomes every day. Choose life.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-18-26 - Mary, the Contemplative
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Isn’t it amazing how people can grow up in the same family and be so different from each other? As action-oriented as Martha is, her sister Mary seems geared toward reflection and a quiet devotedness. It is Mary who sits at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching instead of helping Martha cook; Mary who anoints Jesus’ head and feet with a whole jar of expensive ointment shortly before his arrest, an act of extravagant, wasteful worship – arguably, the way worship should always be.
Mary is the same in this story – she stays at home when she hears that Jesus has arrived. But as soon as Martha tells her that Jesus is asking for her, she goes to him: … [Martha] went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” When she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Mary utters the same words of gentle rebuke and profound faith as Martha did. But where Martha and Jesus engaged in theological conversation about death and life and resurrection and Jesus’ identity, with Mary it is her open display of feelings that touches Jesus’ spirit. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
In these two sisters we see different aspects of a spiritual whole. A healthy spiritual life makes room for emotions and intellect, receptivity and action. Most of us tend to emphasize one mode over another. How is it that you most readily experience holiness or the presence of God? In thoughts and actions? In silence and feelings? Some combination of these?
How do you most naturally express your spirituality?
Are your emotions available to you in your prayer and worship life?
Are you able to sit still on occasion and wait on the Lord, see what the Spirit is saying?
It’s good to know how we’re wired spiritually. Then we can look to see if we’re missing anything. Is God inviting us to play with a form of spiritual expression or reception that comes less naturally to us, but opens us to a new dimension of God-life? If you only ever read the bible (or this...) as a devotion, how about singing a hymn in your personal prayer time? If you only feel connected to God when serving dinner at the soup kitchen, how about going on a retreat alone, and seeing where God is in silence and inactivity.
Martha and Mary of Bethany are among the most fully drawn characters in the Gospels, and yet we know little about them. But they are a rich gift to us, these sisters, embodying different ways to love Jesus, and different modes of receiving his love.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Isn’t it amazing how people can grow up in the same family and be so different from each other? As action-oriented as Martha is, her sister Mary seems geared toward reflection and a quiet devotedness. It is Mary who sits at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching instead of helping Martha cook; Mary who anoints Jesus’ head and feet with a whole jar of expensive ointment shortly before his arrest, an act of extravagant, wasteful worship – arguably, the way worship should always be.
Mary is the same in this story – she stays at home when she hears that Jesus has arrived. But as soon as Martha tells her that Jesus is asking for her, she goes to him: … [Martha] went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” When she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Mary utters the same words of gentle rebuke and profound faith as Martha did. But where Martha and Jesus engaged in theological conversation about death and life and resurrection and Jesus’ identity, with Mary it is her open display of feelings that touches Jesus’ spirit. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
In these two sisters we see different aspects of a spiritual whole. A healthy spiritual life makes room for emotions and intellect, receptivity and action. Most of us tend to emphasize one mode over another. How is it that you most readily experience holiness or the presence of God? In thoughts and actions? In silence and feelings? Some combination of these?
How do you most naturally express your spirituality?
Are your emotions available to you in your prayer and worship life?
Are you able to sit still on occasion and wait on the Lord, see what the Spirit is saying?
It’s good to know how we’re wired spiritually. Then we can look to see if we’re missing anything. Is God inviting us to play with a form of spiritual expression or reception that comes less naturally to us, but opens us to a new dimension of God-life? If you only ever read the bible (or this...) as a devotion, how about singing a hymn in your personal prayer time? If you only feel connected to God when serving dinner at the soup kitchen, how about going on a retreat alone, and seeing where God is in silence and inactivity.
Martha and Mary of Bethany are among the most fully drawn characters in the Gospels, and yet we know little about them. But they are a rich gift to us, these sisters, embodying different ways to love Jesus, and different modes of receiving his love.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-17-26 - Martha, the Pragmatic
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Of all Jesus’ close friends and followers, the family we get to know best in the Gospels are three siblings, Lazarus, Martha and Mary, who live in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem. Luke gives us a glimpse into their relationships in the story of Martha’s preparations to feed Jesus and his entourage, as she expresses her frustration with her sister’s sitting with Jesus instead of helping with the meal. The way Jesus gently rebukes her and affirms Mary’s choice tells us they are close.
So it surprises everyone that Jesus does not immediately return to Judea at the news of Lazarus’ illness: When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
Martha is not one for sitting around – we see that in the story of the dinner party. She goes out to meet Jesus on the road. And the way she gently rebukes Jesus tell us they are close: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Her faith in Jesus is strong! But is she asking for Lazarus to be healed now? “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him…”
Jesus answers her straight on – and she thinks he’s being metaphorical. Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
So much is made of Peter’s confession of Christ’s messianic identity – the church even marks it with a feast day. But here is Martha, articulating as clearly or more that Jesus is the Son of God, the awaited Messiah. Where is her feast day?
And here is Jesus, talking straightforwardly with a woman about his mission and identity – so much for those who think the Jesus movement was anti-woman. Jesus treats the women around him with the fullness of respect and honor that he accords the men. In that, he was much more controversial than if he’d suppressed the women. Jesus meets Martha as she is – active, bold, not sitting around waiting. He accepts her “If you’d been here…” as honestly as he accepts her “Yes, Lord, I believe.”
How about you? Are you able to be yourself in your relationship with God in Christ? Do you tell God how you feel about things not working out, for prayers that seem unanswered? What do you think Jesus means when he says, “I am resurrection, and I am life?” What does that mean in your life, in your experience of death and loss?
We don’t all share Martha’s conviction, her ability to say, without hesitation, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God.” What each of us can share is her forthrightness, her refusal to accept without question, her taking the initiative to go out and meet Jesus as he approaches. Jesus yearns for us to know him as Martha did. Let’s go find him on the road to us, and learn just who he is.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Of all Jesus’ close friends and followers, the family we get to know best in the Gospels are three siblings, Lazarus, Martha and Mary, who live in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem. Luke gives us a glimpse into their relationships in the story of Martha’s preparations to feed Jesus and his entourage, as she expresses her frustration with her sister’s sitting with Jesus instead of helping with the meal. The way Jesus gently rebukes her and affirms Mary’s choice tells us they are close.
So it surprises everyone that Jesus does not immediately return to Judea at the news of Lazarus’ illness: When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
Martha is not one for sitting around – we see that in the story of the dinner party. She goes out to meet Jesus on the road. And the way she gently rebukes Jesus tell us they are close: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Her faith in Jesus is strong! But is she asking for Lazarus to be healed now? “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him…”
Jesus answers her straight on – and she thinks he’s being metaphorical. Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
So much is made of Peter’s confession of Christ’s messianic identity – the church even marks it with a feast day. But here is Martha, articulating as clearly or more that Jesus is the Son of God, the awaited Messiah. Where is her feast day?
And here is Jesus, talking straightforwardly with a woman about his mission and identity – so much for those who think the Jesus movement was anti-woman. Jesus treats the women around him with the fullness of respect and honor that he accords the men. In that, he was much more controversial than if he’d suppressed the women. Jesus meets Martha as she is – active, bold, not sitting around waiting. He accepts her “If you’d been here…” as honestly as he accepts her “Yes, Lord, I believe.”
How about you? Are you able to be yourself in your relationship with God in Christ? Do you tell God how you feel about things not working out, for prayers that seem unanswered? What do you think Jesus means when he says, “I am resurrection, and I am life?” What does that mean in your life, in your experience of death and loss?
We don’t all share Martha’s conviction, her ability to say, without hesitation, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God.” What each of us can share is her forthrightness, her refusal to accept without question, her taking the initiative to go out and meet Jesus as he approaches. Jesus yearns for us to know him as Martha did. Let’s go find him on the road to us, and learn just who he is.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-16-26 - God's Timing
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This week we undertake a really long reading and a really big mystery – Jesus’ raising of Lazarus after he’s been dead for four days. This story appears only in John’s Gospel, and there it functions as the penultimate Sign of God’s power. This miracle leads many to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. It also seals his fate with the ruling authorities, who after this actively seek his execution. A man like this must be eliminated. A story like this must be suppressed.
Only, as we know, that story rose again, very much alive. We’re still telling it 2000-plus years later. Which suggests that God’s timing is never too late. This is hard to trust in the midst of worldwide turmoil, not to mention regular life. It’s normal to believe in “too late” when that’s what we feel we’ve experienced. And when death has come, we are by definition in the “too late” zone, right?
That’s what Jesus’ disciples argue when he takes his sweet time going to Lazarus’ side after being informed that he is very ill. Jesus says, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer where he was.
A few days later, Jesus decides to go, saying Lazarus has died (what happened to “does not lead to death?"), though the whole region where Lazarus lives is now dangerous for Jesus. His disciples protest, but Jesus says something cryptic about “12 hours of daylight.” Did they wonder if he’d gone crazy? Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Four days too late, and in perilous territory. Why go at all? Jesus says God will be glorified through this in some way, but who could imagine how? Of all the times Jesus asked his followers to hang on and believe, this must have been the most challenging.
What about us? In what circumstances of our lives does it feel like God has intervened too late, or not at all? It would be a good exercise to think about that, and write down the times you remember. Can you see any benefits that came from those outcomes? There may not be… and there might.
How do you feel about those situations now? Are you still angry or grieving? Did it impair your trust in God? Can you speak that in prayer today? Certainly, the psalmists and the prophets didn’t hold back their feelings toward God, even when those were dark or troubled… It’s a relationship; it requires communication.
Are there circumstances in your life now where you feel you’re waiting on God? You might ask in prayer whether there is any action you can take or receive. Maybe there is… and maybe not.
We will be asking some big questions this week. When do we acknowledge that things we value or love have died and grieve them (people, pets, relationships, jobs, prosperity, sobriety, health…)? And when do we allow the Spirit to whisper hope of new life? That takes growing in discernment. This story reminds us that what looks like the end isn’t always… sometimes it’s the beginning of an even stranger trip.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
This week we undertake a really long reading and a really big mystery – Jesus’ raising of Lazarus after he’s been dead for four days. This story appears only in John’s Gospel, and there it functions as the penultimate Sign of God’s power. This miracle leads many to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. It also seals his fate with the ruling authorities, who after this actively seek his execution. A man like this must be eliminated. A story like this must be suppressed.
Only, as we know, that story rose again, very much alive. We’re still telling it 2000-plus years later. Which suggests that God’s timing is never too late. This is hard to trust in the midst of worldwide turmoil, not to mention regular life. It’s normal to believe in “too late” when that’s what we feel we’ve experienced. And when death has come, we are by definition in the “too late” zone, right?
That’s what Jesus’ disciples argue when he takes his sweet time going to Lazarus’ side after being informed that he is very ill. Jesus says, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer where he was.
A few days later, Jesus decides to go, saying Lazarus has died (what happened to “does not lead to death?"), though the whole region where Lazarus lives is now dangerous for Jesus. His disciples protest, but Jesus says something cryptic about “12 hours of daylight.” Did they wonder if he’d gone crazy? Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Four days too late, and in perilous territory. Why go at all? Jesus says God will be glorified through this in some way, but who could imagine how? Of all the times Jesus asked his followers to hang on and believe, this must have been the most challenging.
What about us? In what circumstances of our lives does it feel like God has intervened too late, or not at all? It would be a good exercise to think about that, and write down the times you remember. Can you see any benefits that came from those outcomes? There may not be… and there might.
How do you feel about those situations now? Are you still angry or grieving? Did it impair your trust in God? Can you speak that in prayer today? Certainly, the psalmists and the prophets didn’t hold back their feelings toward God, even when those were dark or troubled… It’s a relationship; it requires communication.
Are there circumstances in your life now where you feel you’re waiting on God? You might ask in prayer whether there is any action you can take or receive. Maybe there is… and maybe not.
We will be asking some big questions this week. When do we acknowledge that things we value or love have died and grieve them (people, pets, relationships, jobs, prosperity, sobriety, health…)? And when do we allow the Spirit to whisper hope of new life? That takes growing in discernment. This story reminds us that what looks like the end isn’t always… sometimes it’s the beginning of an even stranger trip.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-13-26 - Vision
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I once saw a beautiful documentary called “Visions of Mustang: Bringing Sight to the Forbidden Kingdom,” about a medical mission to bring eye care to the ancient kingdom of Mustang, a very remote, difficult to access part of Nepal. Extreme exposure to sun and wind and altitude means many residents there develop cataracts as well as other easily treated eye problems. The team saw 1650 patients, dispensed nearly 800 pairs of glasses and performed surgeries on many people, restoring sight to the blind and giving a first glimpse of clarity to many who never knew that’s what sight was supposed to be. It reminds me of this week’s gospel story.
Jesus was on his own kind of mission to restore sight in the forbidden kingdoms of this world, and his description of that mission is puzzling. He says to the man he healed, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains."
Did Jesus really want those who thought they had God all figured out to become blind… or that they recognize their blindness? He is particularly hard on these leaders who are so sure they see correctly. Because they’ve had the advantage of his examples and his words, he says, and have rejected both, they are stuck in sin. These self-righteous ones, who think they are “first,” will be last of all. Yet to more obvious “sinners” who come to Jesus for life, he throws open the gates to the Kingdom – the last shall be first.
What about us? Are we among those who think we’re “first?” What about the “last” who never hear about Jesus’ love, or just do not experience faith? This is a mystery to sit with – and reconcile with the whole of Jesus’ promises of life over death. The life of faith is learning to see: to see ourselves clearly, knowing our weak spots as well as our strengths; to see others clearly and without judgment; to see God clearly.
Once again, Jesus affirms relationship over “religion”: Jesus heard that they had driven [the man born blind] out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
As we meet Jesus, as we are open to meeting Jesus, we come to see him clearly too. That’s a prayer we might offer, “Okay, Jesus, let me see you, find out who you are.” We might experience him in prayer, or pick up a New Testament and read a Gospel, check out his "profile," as it were. We can spend time with people who know him, hang around him, build our trust.
Scott Hamilton, who put together the expedition depicted in the film – and numerous others – spoke at the screening I saw. He feels the reason they were successful was due to “monk power” – the 18 monks who accompanied them up to Mustang and went to remote settlements to invite people to the eye clinics. The trust engendered by those relationships made it possible for many to have their sight restored.
Jesus came in human flesh into our forbidden kingdom so that we might trust God to get close to us. As we build a community of love centred around the revelation Jesus offered, we develop the trust to draw near to him. As we open to relationship with him and let him come close, close enough to touch our eyes, we will find new sight, clearer than we could ever imagine.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
I once saw a beautiful documentary called “Visions of Mustang: Bringing Sight to the Forbidden Kingdom,” about a medical mission to bring eye care to the ancient kingdom of Mustang, a very remote, difficult to access part of Nepal. Extreme exposure to sun and wind and altitude means many residents there develop cataracts as well as other easily treated eye problems. The team saw 1650 patients, dispensed nearly 800 pairs of glasses and performed surgeries on many people, restoring sight to the blind and giving a first glimpse of clarity to many who never knew that’s what sight was supposed to be. It reminds me of this week’s gospel story.
Jesus was on his own kind of mission to restore sight in the forbidden kingdoms of this world, and his description of that mission is puzzling. He says to the man he healed, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains."
Did Jesus really want those who thought they had God all figured out to become blind… or that they recognize their blindness? He is particularly hard on these leaders who are so sure they see correctly. Because they’ve had the advantage of his examples and his words, he says, and have rejected both, they are stuck in sin. These self-righteous ones, who think they are “first,” will be last of all. Yet to more obvious “sinners” who come to Jesus for life, he throws open the gates to the Kingdom – the last shall be first.
What about us? Are we among those who think we’re “first?” What about the “last” who never hear about Jesus’ love, or just do not experience faith? This is a mystery to sit with – and reconcile with the whole of Jesus’ promises of life over death. The life of faith is learning to see: to see ourselves clearly, knowing our weak spots as well as our strengths; to see others clearly and without judgment; to see God clearly.
Once again, Jesus affirms relationship over “religion”: Jesus heard that they had driven [the man born blind] out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
As we meet Jesus, as we are open to meeting Jesus, we come to see him clearly too. That’s a prayer we might offer, “Okay, Jesus, let me see you, find out who you are.” We might experience him in prayer, or pick up a New Testament and read a Gospel, check out his "profile," as it were. We can spend time with people who know him, hang around him, build our trust.
Scott Hamilton, who put together the expedition depicted in the film – and numerous others – spoke at the screening I saw. He feels the reason they were successful was due to “monk power” – the 18 monks who accompanied them up to Mustang and went to remote settlements to invite people to the eye clinics. The trust engendered by those relationships made it possible for many to have their sight restored.
Jesus came in human flesh into our forbidden kingdom so that we might trust God to get close to us. As we build a community of love centred around the revelation Jesus offered, we develop the trust to draw near to him. As we open to relationship with him and let him come close, close enough to touch our eyes, we will find new sight, clearer than we could ever imagine.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
3-12-26 - Power In Weakness
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
A student of power dynamics could have a field day with the Christian gospels – no doubt, many have. In the next part of this week’s story we see how much power the powerless can have, and how much control people with an illusion of power can try to exert over others. The Pharisees depicted here prefigure the Inquisition by several centuries. Unsure what to make of this alleged miracle of healing, they interrogate the man healed of blindness. When he maintains his story – “this man came along, made a paste with mud, put it on my eyes, sent me to wash it off, and then I could see” – they question the man’s parents. Mom and Dad don’t contradict the story, so they haul the man himself in again.
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” (I think we call that leading the witness… ) He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
Where does this man get the boldness to answer the authorities with such wit and sarcasm? Perhaps knowing that God has healed him so mightily enables him to stand up to these ecclesiastical bullies. He gets a reaction: Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
Talk about transformation! This man who used to beg every day, the only occupation his disability allowed him, now emerges as a theologian and a lawyer, turning their logic back on them. “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Clearly, his spiritual vision functions as well as his eyesight. This man who recently held the lowest social status now speaks with authority to the authorities.
Where do we get the courage to stand against power that abuses authority and misuses logic? We surely need it now, for there are plenty such leaders in our governments and communities. We can encounter such people in our own lives, workplaces, even families. How do we speak truth to them? We draw our power from the same place the now-seeing man did: knowing we are so beloved of God, that God can move heaven and earth to make us whole. It is precisely in our awareness of our need, our weakness before God, and God’s goodness, that we find the power to stand up for justice and truth.
Remind yourself of the different ways God has strengthened and healed you over the years. Recall the ways you used to have trouble functioning, that you’ve overcome. Name your gifts, and the transformations you’ve experienced. You might also name ways in which you still feel disabled, ill equipped, out of control. Invite the Spirit of God to pour God’s love into those areas in you, and make you whole.
St. Paul reminds us that God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. Anytime we’re unsure of where we stand, we can remember that we stand in the might of the God who made all that is, seen and unseen. And, as we stand in that power and love, we find we can see more and more.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
A student of power dynamics could have a field day with the Christian gospels – no doubt, many have. In the next part of this week’s story we see how much power the powerless can have, and how much control people with an illusion of power can try to exert over others. The Pharisees depicted here prefigure the Inquisition by several centuries. Unsure what to make of this alleged miracle of healing, they interrogate the man healed of blindness. When he maintains his story – “this man came along, made a paste with mud, put it on my eyes, sent me to wash it off, and then I could see” – they question the man’s parents. Mom and Dad don’t contradict the story, so they haul the man himself in again.
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” (I think we call that leading the witness… ) He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
Where does this man get the boldness to answer the authorities with such wit and sarcasm? Perhaps knowing that God has healed him so mightily enables him to stand up to these ecclesiastical bullies. He gets a reaction: Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
Talk about transformation! This man who used to beg every day, the only occupation his disability allowed him, now emerges as a theologian and a lawyer, turning their logic back on them. “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Clearly, his spiritual vision functions as well as his eyesight. This man who recently held the lowest social status now speaks with authority to the authorities.
Where do we get the courage to stand against power that abuses authority and misuses logic? We surely need it now, for there are plenty such leaders in our governments and communities. We can encounter such people in our own lives, workplaces, even families. How do we speak truth to them? We draw our power from the same place the now-seeing man did: knowing we are so beloved of God, that God can move heaven and earth to make us whole. It is precisely in our awareness of our need, our weakness before God, and God’s goodness, that we find the power to stand up for justice and truth.
Remind yourself of the different ways God has strengthened and healed you over the years. Recall the ways you used to have trouble functioning, that you’ve overcome. Name your gifts, and the transformations you’ve experienced. You might also name ways in which you still feel disabled, ill equipped, out of control. Invite the Spirit of God to pour God’s love into those areas in you, and make you whole.
St. Paul reminds us that God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. Anytime we’re unsure of where we stand, we can remember that we stand in the might of the God who made all that is, seen and unseen. And, as we stand in that power and love, we find we can see more and more.
© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
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