You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Our four gospels often tell the same stories, but sometimes the details are different. One change Matthew makes to this story probably first set down by Mark is quite dramatic. As Mark tells it, a synagogue leader comes to Jesus in a panic, saying, “‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” But in Matthew’s version the distraught father says, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” Dying or already dead? Did Matthew hear a different version of the story, or is he intensifying the miracle he is relating?
In both versions, Jesus gets to the house, after being diverted by the woman with the hemorrhage, and in both versions he sees life: When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute-players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread throughout that district.
This father suspected that his daughter's story was not yet over, and Jesus knew her life was not ended, that she was deeply asleep, perhaps in a coma. But what if she were already dead, as her father thought? Jesus raised Lazarus four days after burial; he raised a young man from his funeral bier. Did he raise this little girl or simply heal her? Is there a difference?
Here's a bigger question: Are we to pray for healing in the face of what looks like death? Sometimes… maybe more often than we do. Death is a reality of life, yes, and the power of God to heal is very real and very strong when communities exercise faith. When someone we know is gravely ill, we can ask the Spirit how to pray. If we feel a sense that physical healing can happen, invite the healing stream of God’s love into that person. I specify “physical healing,” because sometimes the healing a person receives is spiritual, preparing them for life after death.
Maybe it’s too limiting to talk only of healing through prayer – God also heals through medicine. I once read an article in the Washington Post about a young woman named April, catatonic for twenty years after having been diagnosed with a rapid and severe onset of schizophrenia. Then doctors discovered she also had lupus, a treatable autoimmune disease that was attacking her brain. As the article says, “After months of targeted treatments — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.” Researchers are finding that autoimmune and inflammatory conditions may be prevalent in patients with various psychiatric syndromes – who can be helped with simple treatment. Sander Markx, the physician treating April said, “These are the forgotten souls. We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.”
That is the business we are in as followers of Christ active in God’s mission to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness: bringing people back from places no one thought they could come back from. We are called to see life, even in the face of death. We don’t always know the outcomes of our faith – that’s why it’s called faith; we don’t get a road map or guarantees. But we walk forward anyway. Whether it’s 20 minutes or 20 years, or in the life that follows this one, Life will win.
© 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.
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
6-4-26 - Your Faith Has Made You Well
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This Sunday’s gospel story is a tale with many interruptions. It begins with Jesus inviting a tax collector to join him in ministry, which begets an interrogation from religious authorities about his holiness. As Jesus is making his defense, a synagogue leader pushes through the crowd to fall at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come to his house and heal his daughter, who has just died. Jesus agrees – and the whole crowd follows along, pressing in on Jesus and his disciples.
In this crowd is another person in desperate need of healing, but where the leader could be public about his request, this woman cannot let anyone know. For one thing, she is a woman, a person of little status in that culture. For another, she suffers perpetual bleeding. This not only makes her ill; it renders her ritually unclean – anyone touching her would also be made unclean and thus unable to go to the temple until they’d been cleansed.
So she sets out to “steal a healing,” going low in the crowd, making her way closer and closer to Jesus’ side, so she can just touch the hem of his cloak as he goes past: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
Was this woman only driven by faith – or did she, like many of us, turn to the Healer only when conventional methods failed her? Twelve years with no improvement – and as Luke tells this story, we learn she did consult physicians who were unable to help. Was Jesus the last resort or her best hope?
I love the way this woman, like the distraught father, is determined to get what she needs, and how strongly she believes in Jesus’ power to heal her. I think of her as a base runner stealing third, trying to get to her goal undetected. Her faith is so strong she knows that the merest touch of his clothes will access the power that heals. And her faith is rewarded – Jesus turns, sees her, does not scold or reject her, but says “Take heart, daughter – your faith has made you well.” And at that instant she could feel she was well. What an additional gift to be told it was her own faith that effected her healing.
This is a great mystery – Jesus says these words to more than one person in the Gospels. It suggests that God does not so much do the healing as add power and love to the faith we bring. We want to be careful not to put too much onus on the faith of the person who is sick – in the other story in this week’s gospel it is the faith of the father for his daughter that is rewarded – but it seems there does need to be faith somewhere in the system. The more we bring, the more God has to work with.
Healing has been freely offered to us, a healing stream of living water always flowing in us and around us, into which we can step at will, in faith, in fear, in trust, in doubt. We don’t always see the fullness of the healing we desire in this life. Yet we see a lot more when we do what this woman did – just reach out and take hold.
© 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 Sunday’s gospel story is a tale with many interruptions. It begins with Jesus inviting a tax collector to join him in ministry, which begets an interrogation from religious authorities about his holiness. As Jesus is making his defense, a synagogue leader pushes through the crowd to fall at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come to his house and heal his daughter, who has just died. Jesus agrees – and the whole crowd follows along, pressing in on Jesus and his disciples.
In this crowd is another person in desperate need of healing, but where the leader could be public about his request, this woman cannot let anyone know. For one thing, she is a woman, a person of little status in that culture. For another, she suffers perpetual bleeding. This not only makes her ill; it renders her ritually unclean – anyone touching her would also be made unclean and thus unable to go to the temple until they’d been cleansed.
So she sets out to “steal a healing,” going low in the crowd, making her way closer and closer to Jesus’ side, so she can just touch the hem of his cloak as he goes past: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
Was this woman only driven by faith – or did she, like many of us, turn to the Healer only when conventional methods failed her? Twelve years with no improvement – and as Luke tells this story, we learn she did consult physicians who were unable to help. Was Jesus the last resort or her best hope?
I love the way this woman, like the distraught father, is determined to get what she needs, and how strongly she believes in Jesus’ power to heal her. I think of her as a base runner stealing third, trying to get to her goal undetected. Her faith is so strong she knows that the merest touch of his clothes will access the power that heals. And her faith is rewarded – Jesus turns, sees her, does not scold or reject her, but says “Take heart, daughter – your faith has made you well.” And at that instant she could feel she was well. What an additional gift to be told it was her own faith that effected her healing.
This is a great mystery – Jesus says these words to more than one person in the Gospels. It suggests that God does not so much do the healing as add power and love to the faith we bring. We want to be careful not to put too much onus on the faith of the person who is sick – in the other story in this week’s gospel it is the faith of the father for his daughter that is rewarded – but it seems there does need to be faith somewhere in the system. The more we bring, the more God has to work with.
Healing has been freely offered to us, a healing stream of living water always flowing in us and around us, into which we can step at will, in faith, in fear, in trust, in doubt. We don’t always see the fullness of the healing we desire in this life. Yet we see a lot more when we do what this woman did – just reach out and take hold.
© 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.
6-3-26 - Now That's Faith
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In the first part of this week’s gospel passage, Jesus defends his relationships with people considered sinful, saying he had come into this world to save not the righteous, but sinners. This is a point he will make over and over again, directly and in parables. But before he has a chance to develop his argument to the religious leaders suspicious of him, he is interrupted by a religious leader who has great faith in him: While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.
Now that is a person of faith. That is a person with clear vision of who Jesus is. I once led prayer with a group of children and asked them what they would like to pray for. Allie’s hand shot up. “I want to pray for my bunny.” “Sure,” I said. “What’s wrong with her?” “She’s still dead…”
Allie and this synagogue leader were way ahead of me in faith – they knew that Jesus’ power to heal could restore life even in those who had died. Jesus doesn’t challenge the man’s assumptions – he heads off with him to his home. But he doesn’t get very far before he is interrupted again, also by someone whose faith in him was stronger than most: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”
This woman’s faith is so strong, she doesn’t even need to talk with Jesus. She reasons that just touching his clothes will transfer healing power into her, and she is right – a moment later Jesus stops in the crowd and asks, “Who touched me? I felt power go out from me.”
Do you know anyone with faith like these two, who have the conviction that Jesus’ power can accomplish the healing they so badly desire? Would you think that person nuts or faithful?
What stops us from believing so completely? Often it is because the record of prayers not answered as we wanted speaks more loudly to our spirits than the record of God’s faithfulness and love. When we focus on what God has done and can do; when we wire ourselves to expect blessing as did this frantic father and long-suffering woman, we might find ourselves believing as powerfully as they do.
We’ll look tomorrow at the outcome of their faith. Today I invite you to consider where in your life you might step out on a limb of faith. What healing or reconciliation or blessing do you desire more than anything else? Maybe something you’ve lost hope in, that seems to have died? Something you have suffered with for twelve years or longer?
Can you imagine running after Jesus and asking him to stop what he’s doing and come to your house to restore that lost love? Or to sneak up on him in a crowd and invite his power and love to flow into you? What might happen with that prayer?
© 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.
In the first part of this week’s gospel passage, Jesus defends his relationships with people considered sinful, saying he had come into this world to save not the righteous, but sinners. This is a point he will make over and over again, directly and in parables. But before he has a chance to develop his argument to the religious leaders suspicious of him, he is interrupted by a religious leader who has great faith in him: While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.
Now that is a person of faith. That is a person with clear vision of who Jesus is. I once led prayer with a group of children and asked them what they would like to pray for. Allie’s hand shot up. “I want to pray for my bunny.” “Sure,” I said. “What’s wrong with her?” “She’s still dead…”
Allie and this synagogue leader were way ahead of me in faith – they knew that Jesus’ power to heal could restore life even in those who had died. Jesus doesn’t challenge the man’s assumptions – he heads off with him to his home. But he doesn’t get very far before he is interrupted again, also by someone whose faith in him was stronger than most: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”
This woman’s faith is so strong, she doesn’t even need to talk with Jesus. She reasons that just touching his clothes will transfer healing power into her, and she is right – a moment later Jesus stops in the crowd and asks, “Who touched me? I felt power go out from me.”
Do you know anyone with faith like these two, who have the conviction that Jesus’ power can accomplish the healing they so badly desire? Would you think that person nuts or faithful?
What stops us from believing so completely? Often it is because the record of prayers not answered as we wanted speaks more loudly to our spirits than the record of God’s faithfulness and love. When we focus on what God has done and can do; when we wire ourselves to expect blessing as did this frantic father and long-suffering woman, we might find ourselves believing as powerfully as they do.
We’ll look tomorrow at the outcome of their faith. Today I invite you to consider where in your life you might step out on a limb of faith. What healing or reconciliation or blessing do you desire more than anything else? Maybe something you’ve lost hope in, that seems to have died? Something you have suffered with for twelve years or longer?
Can you imagine running after Jesus and asking him to stop what he’s doing and come to your house to restore that lost love? Or to sneak up on him in a crowd and invite his power and love to flow into you? What might happen with that prayer?
© 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.
3-11-26 - In Trouble
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It’s amazing that Jesus has been held up as a role model to generations of children, given his penchant for talking back and getting in trouble. He’s the “Dennis the Menace” of world religious figures.
Of course, John’s gospel tends to emphasize his increasingly tense dealings with the religious authorities. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, which share some story traditions, Jesus always seems to be doing a miracle. In the Fourth Gospel, which is more “shaped,” the stories of Jesus’ signs are fewer, but build upon each other, involving greater and greater risk as Jesus confronts the scribes and Pharisees with evidence of divinity they’d rather not acknowledge.
It doesn’t help that Jesus seems to heal people any day of the week, even the Sabbath, leaving himself open to charges of violating the Law by "working.” This miracle with the man born blind really shakes things up: They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.
They interrogate the newly sighted man a second time; this time he says, “He is a prophet.” Not liking that answer, they call in the man’s parents to witness that he was indeed blind from birth, and that he now sees. The parents are terrified – they’ll admit he was born, and born blind; they refuse to comment on this new turn of events. “Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the temple leaders; for the leaders had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
Banishment is an extreme threat – and a measure of how threatened the Jewish leaders were by all that Jesus represented. The evidence of Jesus’ holiness and spiritual power was always before them – but to accept his claims seemed blasphemous, and would mean acknowledging his authority. These were men clinging to limited power under the thumb of the Roman occupiers; too much was at stake.
How about us? What order in our lives might be threatened by acknowledging the “God-ness” of Christ, accepting that his power is real and still at work in the world around us? Are we keeping Jesus at a safe distance, locked up in a pretty building, visiting him for an hour or so once or twice a week?
Or do we invite him into our lives, into our cluttered living rooms, into our frenetic days and never-done to-do lists? Are we willing to let him roam freely through our work and relationships and leisure activities, perusing our bank accounts and spending patterns? What if he suggests some changes to our priorities? What if he asks us to commit some time and resources to other things, other people?
There’s a lot to pray about in these questions – and a lot to offer to God, if we want to open our hands and hearts. We must issue the invitation; the Spirit of Christ seems rarely to come where not invited. And, most of the time, Jesus doesn’t even knock that many things over. He takes his time and lets us come around to his way of seeing before inviting us into new patterns of being.
Sometimes. Other times, he can be a little “Dennis” like… but, you know, like Dennis, kind of lovable.
© 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.
It’s amazing that Jesus has been held up as a role model to generations of children, given his penchant for talking back and getting in trouble. He’s the “Dennis the Menace” of world religious figures.
Of course, John’s gospel tends to emphasize his increasingly tense dealings with the religious authorities. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, which share some story traditions, Jesus always seems to be doing a miracle. In the Fourth Gospel, which is more “shaped,” the stories of Jesus’ signs are fewer, but build upon each other, involving greater and greater risk as Jesus confronts the scribes and Pharisees with evidence of divinity they’d rather not acknowledge.
It doesn’t help that Jesus seems to heal people any day of the week, even the Sabbath, leaving himself open to charges of violating the Law by "working.” This miracle with the man born blind really shakes things up: They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.
They interrogate the newly sighted man a second time; this time he says, “He is a prophet.” Not liking that answer, they call in the man’s parents to witness that he was indeed blind from birth, and that he now sees. The parents are terrified – they’ll admit he was born, and born blind; they refuse to comment on this new turn of events. “Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the temple leaders; for the leaders had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
Banishment is an extreme threat – and a measure of how threatened the Jewish leaders were by all that Jesus represented. The evidence of Jesus’ holiness and spiritual power was always before them – but to accept his claims seemed blasphemous, and would mean acknowledging his authority. These were men clinging to limited power under the thumb of the Roman occupiers; too much was at stake.
How about us? What order in our lives might be threatened by acknowledging the “God-ness” of Christ, accepting that his power is real and still at work in the world around us? Are we keeping Jesus at a safe distance, locked up in a pretty building, visiting him for an hour or so once or twice a week?
Or do we invite him into our lives, into our cluttered living rooms, into our frenetic days and never-done to-do lists? Are we willing to let him roam freely through our work and relationships and leisure activities, perusing our bank accounts and spending patterns? What if he suggests some changes to our priorities? What if he asks us to commit some time and resources to other things, other people?
There’s a lot to pray about in these questions – and a lot to offer to God, if we want to open our hands and hearts. We must issue the invitation; the Spirit of Christ seems rarely to come where not invited. And, most of the time, Jesus doesn’t even knock that many things over. He takes his time and lets us come around to his way of seeing before inviting us into new patterns of being.
Sometimes. Other times, he can be a little “Dennis” like… but, you know, like Dennis, kind of lovable.
© 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.
3-10-26 - The Unbelievable
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
How would you respond if somebody you knew to be blind could suddenly see, or someone paralyzed came dancing down the street? These days we have medical advances… but imagine if you were around when this blind man received sight he’d never had? It caused a stir, to say the least…. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he.'" Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him."
Funny how, when we’re positive something can’t happen, we can convince ourselves it hasn't. Even when the man said, “I’m the guy…” they couldn’t quite buy it. He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
Do we need to understand “how” to accept “what?” The man himself seems remarkably untroubled by how this came about – and this is before he gets the third degree from the religious authorities. Maybe it’s because he had no prior visual data to contradict his new reality. He did not have to overcome a lifetime of “that’s impossible – if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.” He had never seen anything with his eyes. Maybe that’s why children believe so much more easily than adults – less contradictory data.
We can get so locked in to our understanding of how the universe works – an understanding that the best scientists admit is incomplete – that we can’t entertain the possibility that the Creator of the whole thing has “laws” we have not yet discovered. Or have not discovered fully. That’s the “Kingdom of God” Jesus was making known, what I like to call the Energy Field, or Life of God.
Have you ever been asked to believe something that you knew to be impossible? Was it really? Or was your vision too limited? Is there something in your life now that you’re being invited to believe? A step of faith you’re being invited to take? A prayer you’re being invited to try on? Can you take a step in that direction in prayer today?
The God we worship as Christ-followers is One who ”calls into being things that were not.” (Romans 4:17). We don’t have to be limited in prayer by what we’ve already seen. We do have to open ourselves to the possibility that God’s ways are bigger than we can imagine. That’s the beginning of faith vision, seeing what we have not previously been able to see.
Imagine the sensory rush as our Spirit-vision kicks in and we truly begin to see the Energy of God at work around 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.
How would you respond if somebody you knew to be blind could suddenly see, or someone paralyzed came dancing down the street? These days we have medical advances… but imagine if you were around when this blind man received sight he’d never had? It caused a stir, to say the least…. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he.'" Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him."
Funny how, when we’re positive something can’t happen, we can convince ourselves it hasn't. Even when the man said, “I’m the guy…” they couldn’t quite buy it. He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
Do we need to understand “how” to accept “what?” The man himself seems remarkably untroubled by how this came about – and this is before he gets the third degree from the religious authorities. Maybe it’s because he had no prior visual data to contradict his new reality. He did not have to overcome a lifetime of “that’s impossible – if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.” He had never seen anything with his eyes. Maybe that’s why children believe so much more easily than adults – less contradictory data.
We can get so locked in to our understanding of how the universe works – an understanding that the best scientists admit is incomplete – that we can’t entertain the possibility that the Creator of the whole thing has “laws” we have not yet discovered. Or have not discovered fully. That’s the “Kingdom of God” Jesus was making known, what I like to call the Energy Field, or Life of God.
Have you ever been asked to believe something that you knew to be impossible? Was it really? Or was your vision too limited? Is there something in your life now that you’re being invited to believe? A step of faith you’re being invited to take? A prayer you’re being invited to try on? Can you take a step in that direction in prayer today?
The God we worship as Christ-followers is One who ”calls into being things that were not.” (Romans 4:17). We don’t have to be limited in prayer by what we’ve already seen. We do have to open ourselves to the possibility that God’s ways are bigger than we can imagine. That’s the beginning of faith vision, seeing what we have not previously been able to see.
Imagine the sensory rush as our Spirit-vision kicks in and we truly begin to see the Energy of God at work around 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.
3-9-26 - The Impossible
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This week we dive deep into a story about Jesus’ giving sight to a man who was born blind, and the trouble that unleashes. We’d like to think such a healing would result only in rejoicing – but overturning the laws of nature and probability unsettles people and societies, especially those with the delusion that they are in control.
As the story begins, the man does not ask for sight – who would ask for the impossible? He’s never known what it is to see. Jesus and his disciples pass him and the disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In Jesus’ day, misfortune, illnesses, even infertility were assumed to be consequences of sin, just as prosperity and health were seen as signs of God’s blessing. Jesus rejects that kind of causality, but suggests something that to my ears is equally troubling: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
Was Jesus was saying this man was singled out for misfortune just so God could swoop in with a razzle-dazzle miracle later in his life? I don’t think so. I think he suggests that all situations of suffering, no matter their source, are opportunities for us to bring the power and love of God to bear to transform them. We might go so far as, “Don’t waste your time wondering what happened in the past – God’s power is about what happens next.”
And Jesus takes the opportunity to reveal the power of God right there. “…he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.”
There are many mysteries in this story, among them this: Why does Jesus go through this strange exercise of making a paste of mud and saliva, when he could just speak healing upon the blind man? Why does he send him to wash in the pool to somehow “release” the healing? Archeologists have discovered ruins suggesting the Pool of Siloam was spring-fed, not stagnant, which would have made it an acceptable place for ritual bathing and purification. Are there echoes here of Jesus’ words to the woman at the well about living water? Did he have the man wash at the pool so that the sacred places of Israel would be part of the healing? Did he make the mud paste to convey that ordinary things can become sacramental, vehicles of the holy for us?
Our Gospel accounts show Jesus healing in different ways – sometimes just with a word, sometimes with matter, sometimes in person, sometimes remotely, sometimes incorporating established rituals. He uses his own saliva also in restoring speech and hearing to a deaf-mute, and in another healing of a blind man. No matter how squeamish we may be about spit, this story tells us that God is not limited to one method or set of words – and that the healing power of God alive in us is mingled with the very matter of our bodies and minds. God’s healing is always mediated through a person who prays, whether with words, with a touch, or through a prayer shawl. The “stuff” of our lives can become holy as we invite God to consecrate it.
Today, let's offer a prayer of thanksgiving for our bodies, starting with our feet and moving upward – for the way your body and senses carry you, enable you to do ministry, to make God’s love and power known to others. If there is someone you know in need of healing, pray for God’s healing to be released in that person as it was in the blind man.
His story continues, “Then he went and washed and came back able to see.” It was "impossible" then - and "impossible" now. Except, the same God is at work in us. So look out...
© 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 dive deep into a story about Jesus’ giving sight to a man who was born blind, and the trouble that unleashes. We’d like to think such a healing would result only in rejoicing – but overturning the laws of nature and probability unsettles people and societies, especially those with the delusion that they are in control.
As the story begins, the man does not ask for sight – who would ask for the impossible? He’s never known what it is to see. Jesus and his disciples pass him and the disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In Jesus’ day, misfortune, illnesses, even infertility were assumed to be consequences of sin, just as prosperity and health were seen as signs of God’s blessing. Jesus rejects that kind of causality, but suggests something that to my ears is equally troubling: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
Was Jesus was saying this man was singled out for misfortune just so God could swoop in with a razzle-dazzle miracle later in his life? I don’t think so. I think he suggests that all situations of suffering, no matter their source, are opportunities for us to bring the power and love of God to bear to transform them. We might go so far as, “Don’t waste your time wondering what happened in the past – God’s power is about what happens next.”
And Jesus takes the opportunity to reveal the power of God right there. “…he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.”
There are many mysteries in this story, among them this: Why does Jesus go through this strange exercise of making a paste of mud and saliva, when he could just speak healing upon the blind man? Why does he send him to wash in the pool to somehow “release” the healing? Archeologists have discovered ruins suggesting the Pool of Siloam was spring-fed, not stagnant, which would have made it an acceptable place for ritual bathing and purification. Are there echoes here of Jesus’ words to the woman at the well about living water? Did he have the man wash at the pool so that the sacred places of Israel would be part of the healing? Did he make the mud paste to convey that ordinary things can become sacramental, vehicles of the holy for us?
Our Gospel accounts show Jesus healing in different ways – sometimes just with a word, sometimes with matter, sometimes in person, sometimes remotely, sometimes incorporating established rituals. He uses his own saliva also in restoring speech and hearing to a deaf-mute, and in another healing of a blind man. No matter how squeamish we may be about spit, this story tells us that God is not limited to one method or set of words – and that the healing power of God alive in us is mingled with the very matter of our bodies and minds. God’s healing is always mediated through a person who prays, whether with words, with a touch, or through a prayer shawl. The “stuff” of our lives can become holy as we invite God to consecrate it.
Today, let's offer a prayer of thanksgiving for our bodies, starting with our feet and moving upward – for the way your body and senses carry you, enable you to do ministry, to make God’s love and power known to others. If there is someone you know in need of healing, pray for God’s healing to be released in that person as it was in the blind man.
His story continues, “Then he went and washed and came back able to see.” It was "impossible" then - and "impossible" now. Except, the same God is at work in us. So look out...
© 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.
2-26-26 - Up-Lifted
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
As Jesus talks with Nicodemus, he stresses the importance of the spiritual view. Then, almost as an aside, he says something puzzling: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Jesus is alluding to a story recorded in Numbers 21:4-9, about a time when God sent a plague of serpents to punish the Israelites for bellyaching on their journey to freedom: They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
Putting aside our alarm at the idea of God having a murderous hissy fit in response to incessant whining, let’s focus on the remedy God proposes: To bring about healing by inviting the afflicted to contemplate a symbol of their disease. This story is one source of the universal symbol of medicine, serpents entwined on a staff. And we see here a principle often found in medicine – that healing can come from the very source of disease, as with vaccines and homeopathic remedies.
By linking this image to his own impending suffering on the cross, Jesus (or John?) suggests that the remedy for sin can be attained by reflecting upon the very image of sin, a punished, crucified man. As Paul wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Corinthians 5:21)
A central theme of John’s Gospel is that Jesus’ glory was supremely revealed on the Cross – there was the Sign of Signs that God was doing a new thing. The Cross is central to all four Gospels, but only John sees it as a place of glorification. So let’s go with him for today. Our sacred story tells us that Jesus took upon himself the sin of the whole world as he died, crucified and forsaken. Can we see in that scene of torture any redemption and release for ourselves? Healing from the sin-sickness that can pervade our souls?
Is there an area of sin in your life you would like to see die with Jesus on the cross? As you pray today, can you imagine that aspect of your life, whether an event or a proclivity, actually being eliminated, so you can be free of it? Our promise is that God has already forgiven us – the Cross covered the future as well as the past.
In John 12:32 Jesus is quoted, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” We don’t have to contemplate a bruised and bloodied Jesus in order to be forgiven. We can draw near to the throne of grace because of what Jesus took on for us – and because now that cross is empty. We can honor him best by accepting his gift and walking in the forgiveness and wholeness he won 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.
As Jesus talks with Nicodemus, he stresses the importance of the spiritual view. Then, almost as an aside, he says something puzzling: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Jesus is alluding to a story recorded in Numbers 21:4-9, about a time when God sent a plague of serpents to punish the Israelites for bellyaching on their journey to freedom: They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
Putting aside our alarm at the idea of God having a murderous hissy fit in response to incessant whining, let’s focus on the remedy God proposes: To bring about healing by inviting the afflicted to contemplate a symbol of their disease. This story is one source of the universal symbol of medicine, serpents entwined on a staff. And we see here a principle often found in medicine – that healing can come from the very source of disease, as with vaccines and homeopathic remedies.
By linking this image to his own impending suffering on the cross, Jesus (or John?) suggests that the remedy for sin can be attained by reflecting upon the very image of sin, a punished, crucified man. As Paul wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Corinthians 5:21)
A central theme of John’s Gospel is that Jesus’ glory was supremely revealed on the Cross – there was the Sign of Signs that God was doing a new thing. The Cross is central to all four Gospels, but only John sees it as a place of glorification. So let’s go with him for today. Our sacred story tells us that Jesus took upon himself the sin of the whole world as he died, crucified and forsaken. Can we see in that scene of torture any redemption and release for ourselves? Healing from the sin-sickness that can pervade our souls?
Is there an area of sin in your life you would like to see die with Jesus on the cross? As you pray today, can you imagine that aspect of your life, whether an event or a proclivity, actually being eliminated, so you can be free of it? Our promise is that God has already forgiven us – the Cross covered the future as well as the past.
In John 12:32 Jesus is quoted, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” We don’t have to contemplate a bruised and bloodied Jesus in order to be forgiven. We can draw near to the throne of grace because of what Jesus took on for us – and because now that cross is empty. We can honor him best by accepting his gift and walking in the forgiveness and wholeness he won 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.
1-23-26 - The Power We Have
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When we look at the magnitude of challenges in our world, in our country, sometimes in our families and churches, it is easy to feel powerless. Yet, as apostles of Christ, his witnesses, powerless is one thing we need never feel. We carry within us power that made the universe and conquered the grave, and we are invited to use it. And how do we do that, you ask? Just do what he did: Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
If we substitute “our communities” for “Galilee” and “gathering places” for “synagogues” (that's what the word means…), we get a nice prescription for how to live the Good News: “We go through our communities, teaching in our gathering places and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Wait a minute, every disease? Every sickness? That’s what it says. We don’t hear of Jesus meeting a disease he couldn't transform into wholeness. It’s what he did, and what he taught his followers to do. And it’s how he demonstrated the Good News he proclaimed. What we call miracles were simply Jesus showing how things work in the realm or "energy" of God when it’s released into our present reality. In Jesus, both realms were present, God-life and human life. When we invoke his name and his power, both realms are present in us too, “On earth as it is in heaven.”
In the realm of God, molecules obey the command of their creator and realign if they’re out of whack. Cells that don’t function as they were intended to can reassume their purpose. Tired limbs and bodies are renewed by an infusion of power from the source of all power itself. It’s not really so complicated. It’s just that we don't understand it. We like being able to see how things work.
God’s healing power can be visible in outcomes, but rarely in the process. We pray and “give thanks by faith until our faith gives way to sight.” And sometimes when we don’t see the fruit of what we’ve prayed for, we turn away from the whole enterprise.
Instead, we are invited to persist and release the results to God, knowing there is mystery to healing and what looks like not-healings. We are invited to release God’s power and love into a given situation, and to continue to trust in that power and love even while we don’t see transformation. Why let apparent “no’s” stop us from exercising our faith?
When, where and how do you find yourself proclaiming the Good News of God’s love and power? Hmmm. If you don’t know, there’s a prayer task. Ask God to show you. Is there a situation or person you know for whom you might offer healing prayers? “For all things are possible with God…”
Following Jesus means, in part, doing what he did. So let’s get out there, in our communities, teaching in our gathering places, proclaiming the good news of God’s power and love – and yes, healing every disease and every sickness, be it global or personal. We just invoke Christ's power - the rest is up to God. But God seems to want us to do the invoking.
© 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.
When we look at the magnitude of challenges in our world, in our country, sometimes in our families and churches, it is easy to feel powerless. Yet, as apostles of Christ, his witnesses, powerless is one thing we need never feel. We carry within us power that made the universe and conquered the grave, and we are invited to use it. And how do we do that, you ask? Just do what he did: Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
If we substitute “our communities” for “Galilee” and “gathering places” for “synagogues” (that's what the word means…), we get a nice prescription for how to live the Good News: “We go through our communities, teaching in our gathering places and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Wait a minute, every disease? Every sickness? That’s what it says. We don’t hear of Jesus meeting a disease he couldn't transform into wholeness. It’s what he did, and what he taught his followers to do. And it’s how he demonstrated the Good News he proclaimed. What we call miracles were simply Jesus showing how things work in the realm or "energy" of God when it’s released into our present reality. In Jesus, both realms were present, God-life and human life. When we invoke his name and his power, both realms are present in us too, “On earth as it is in heaven.”
In the realm of God, molecules obey the command of their creator and realign if they’re out of whack. Cells that don’t function as they were intended to can reassume their purpose. Tired limbs and bodies are renewed by an infusion of power from the source of all power itself. It’s not really so complicated. It’s just that we don't understand it. We like being able to see how things work.
God’s healing power can be visible in outcomes, but rarely in the process. We pray and “give thanks by faith until our faith gives way to sight.” And sometimes when we don’t see the fruit of what we’ve prayed for, we turn away from the whole enterprise.
Instead, we are invited to persist and release the results to God, knowing there is mystery to healing and what looks like not-healings. We are invited to release God’s power and love into a given situation, and to continue to trust in that power and love even while we don’t see transformation. Why let apparent “no’s” stop us from exercising our faith?
When, where and how do you find yourself proclaiming the Good News of God’s love and power? Hmmm. If you don’t know, there’s a prayer task. Ask God to show you. Is there a situation or person you know for whom you might offer healing prayers? “For all things are possible with God…”
Following Jesus means, in part, doing what he did. So let’s get out there, in our communities, teaching in our gathering places, proclaiming the good news of God’s power and love – and yes, healing every disease and every sickness, be it global or personal. We just invoke Christ's power - the rest is up to God. But God seems to want us to do the invoking.
© 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.
10-9-25 - Miracles On the Go
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Have you heard the one about the person desperate for a parking spot – late for a meeting, stressed to the max, circling the block, praying, “Dear God, I need a parking space. Please!!!” Turns the corner – lo and behold, there’s a space, right in front of the building. Pulls in, glances skyward and waves, “Never mind – found one.”
One came back. Nine kept walking. Jesus noticed the differential – “Were not ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
All ten set out in faith – they weren't healed beforehand. “As they went, they were made clean.” That’s what it means to walk by faith – miracles happen as we go. Twelve baskets of bread and fish just kept not running out as 5000 were fed; cisterns of water became finest wine as they were drawn off.
Nine took the gift in stride. Only one turned back – back to the place of his suffering, the place of his alienation and degradation – to praise God, to thank the stranger whose word made him clean. He knew that only God could heal like this, and he wanted to connect with this man in whom God’s power was so strong.
A Water Daily reader told me she started a gratitude journal, challenging herself to note at least four things each day for which she is grateful. Over time, the notations multiplied and she set herself a new challenge: to write down each day where or in whom she saw God. Tuning our inner eyes and ears to know, “Ah… that was a God-moment;" learning to distinguish Holy Spirit nudges from our own intuition; seeing God’s love or forgiveness in another person opens our spirits to a greater awareness of just how active God is around us. It’s not occasional – it’s all the time. Soon, we come to recognize that what we call “miracles” are just the way God works, as we invite God’s power and love into our situations.
Try on either or both of those spiritual practices for two weeks, a gratitude journal and/or a “where did I perceive God” journal. They are training exercises for spiritual fitness. They build up our strength and resilience, tone our faith muscles, hone our faith senses.
When we name our gifts, we remember the Giver – and then it’s natural to come back in praise and gratitude. And then, my oh my, we find the Giver has even more for us...
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
Have you heard the one about the person desperate for a parking spot – late for a meeting, stressed to the max, circling the block, praying, “Dear God, I need a parking space. Please!!!” Turns the corner – lo and behold, there’s a space, right in front of the building. Pulls in, glances skyward and waves, “Never mind – found one.”
One came back. Nine kept walking. Jesus noticed the differential – “Were not ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
All ten set out in faith – they weren't healed beforehand. “As they went, they were made clean.” That’s what it means to walk by faith – miracles happen as we go. Twelve baskets of bread and fish just kept not running out as 5000 were fed; cisterns of water became finest wine as they were drawn off.
Nine took the gift in stride. Only one turned back – back to the place of his suffering, the place of his alienation and degradation – to praise God, to thank the stranger whose word made him clean. He knew that only God could heal like this, and he wanted to connect with this man in whom God’s power was so strong.
A Water Daily reader told me she started a gratitude journal, challenging herself to note at least four things each day for which she is grateful. Over time, the notations multiplied and she set herself a new challenge: to write down each day where or in whom she saw God. Tuning our inner eyes and ears to know, “Ah… that was a God-moment;" learning to distinguish Holy Spirit nudges from our own intuition; seeing God’s love or forgiveness in another person opens our spirits to a greater awareness of just how active God is around us. It’s not occasional – it’s all the time. Soon, we come to recognize that what we call “miracles” are just the way God works, as we invite God’s power and love into our situations.
Try on either or both of those spiritual practices for two weeks, a gratitude journal and/or a “where did I perceive God” journal. They are training exercises for spiritual fitness. They build up our strength and resilience, tone our faith muscles, hone our faith senses.
When we name our gifts, we remember the Giver – and then it’s natural to come back in praise and gratitude. And then, my oh my, we find the Giver has even more for us...
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
10-8-25 - Gratitude
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One in ten. In an age when we measure rates of return on everything from email “opens” to dividend yields, maybe God says, “Ten percent ain’t bad…” glad that one in ten could look past the amazing wonder of this gift, to offer praise to the Giver:
And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.
As Jesus tells the story, this is not just any “one in ten” – this one is a double outcast: a leper and a Samaritan. In Gospel stories about Samaritans who “get it,” the writers always seem to point out their ethnicity, like, “Can you believe it?”
The other nine presumably couldn’t wait to get to the temple, be certified as clean, and get back to their homes, families, lives. This one turns back, praising God loudly. He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him. He is exuberant, extravagant in his praise and thanksgiving.
The messages of this story run much deeper than “Don’t forget to say thank you…,” but that is one. When we say thank you, it multiplies the gift we have received. The giver is affirmed for her generosity, and we in a sense receive the gift more fully as we make our delight known. I don’t know if anyone has tested the biochemical or neurological effects of gratitude, but I’d bet there are some.
Gratitude is the ground for joy. It turns our focus outward. When we cultivate it as a habit, it can change our interior landscape and make the people around us feel appreciated. If we’re not already intentional about it, let’s practice.
We can even throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet, like runners sliding into Home…
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
One in ten. In an age when we measure rates of return on everything from email “opens” to dividend yields, maybe God says, “Ten percent ain’t bad…” glad that one in ten could look past the amazing wonder of this gift, to offer praise to the Giver:
And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.
As Jesus tells the story, this is not just any “one in ten” – this one is a double outcast: a leper and a Samaritan. In Gospel stories about Samaritans who “get it,” the writers always seem to point out their ethnicity, like, “Can you believe it?”
The other nine presumably couldn’t wait to get to the temple, be certified as clean, and get back to their homes, families, lives. This one turns back, praising God loudly. He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him. He is exuberant, extravagant in his praise and thanksgiving.
The messages of this story run much deeper than “Don’t forget to say thank you…,” but that is one. When we say thank you, it multiplies the gift we have received. The giver is affirmed for her generosity, and we in a sense receive the gift more fully as we make our delight known. I don’t know if anyone has tested the biochemical or neurological effects of gratitude, but I’d bet there are some.
Gratitude is the ground for joy. It turns our focus outward. When we cultivate it as a habit, it can change our interior landscape and make the people around us feel appreciated. If we’re not already intentional about it, let’s practice.
- What gift of God do you want to say “thank you” for today?
- What person close to you would you like to thank? Maybe write a note or buy a gift?
- What stranger would you like to thank today? What if we all made a point of telling barristas or dry cleaners or check-out clerks or IT fixers or accountants, “I really appreciate the job you do – it makes my life better.” Think how a wave of gratitude could ripple around the world in a matter of hours. Let’s start a TikTok challenge!
We can even throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet, like runners sliding into Home…
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
10-7-25 - Transformed As We Go
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What was it was like for those ten lepers as they went along the road toward Jerusalem? They called out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
Why the priests? The religious laws concerning skin diseases required that a priest certify that the person was no longer diseased. (I’m glad that’s not part of my job description…) Jesus could heal them, but to be reinstated into the community, they had to go through those rituals.
So they went. – “And as they went, they were made clean.” Did one person happen to glance at his hand and see his skin looked different? Or notice he had feeling in his feet again? Did they look at each other in shock and wonder as their very skin became transformed, like new?
One of Sunday’s readings from the Hebrew Bible tells the great story of Naaman, a Syrian army commander who contracts leprosy. A Hebrew slave girl tells his wife that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal him, and he goes to find Elisha, who sends word that he should dip himself seven times in the Jordan. Naaman is outraged at the simplicity of this “treatment,” but his servant prevails upon him: “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, `Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan... his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”
So often we think healing is complicated and arduous; that can be our experience with surgical or chemical procedures, with protracted recoveries. Healing in the Bible seems so ridiculously simple – God or God’s representative simply says the word and it is done. Could it really be so easy?
More often than we think. When I remember to invite God to release healing in me and in those I pray with, I often see it happen quickly. What’s hard is believing – and that gets much easier the more we see it. That’s why it’s so important that we pray for healing for each other and for the world – the evidence begins to pile up.
Sure, at times illness persists or recurs – there is mystery here, and a temporal reality of decline and death. But our baseline can be the healing we do see, rather than what we don’t. We can plant that seed of faith and give thanks even before we see the healing, and then with each lessening of symptoms or improvement give thanks all the more. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn.”
Try it today: pray in faith for healing in something or someone you didn’t think it was possible. And then keep giving thanks over the next few days and weeks, making note of any change or improvement you see. We can keep our energy on what God is doing, even before we see it.
That’s how we build up our faith muscles. And one day we look up and notice we’re transformed. Sometimes it’s in this life, always in the next.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
What was it was like for those ten lepers as they went along the road toward Jerusalem? They called out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
Why the priests? The religious laws concerning skin diseases required that a priest certify that the person was no longer diseased. (I’m glad that’s not part of my job description…) Jesus could heal them, but to be reinstated into the community, they had to go through those rituals.
So they went. – “And as they went, they were made clean.” Did one person happen to glance at his hand and see his skin looked different? Or notice he had feeling in his feet again? Did they look at each other in shock and wonder as their very skin became transformed, like new?
One of Sunday’s readings from the Hebrew Bible tells the great story of Naaman, a Syrian army commander who contracts leprosy. A Hebrew slave girl tells his wife that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal him, and he goes to find Elisha, who sends word that he should dip himself seven times in the Jordan. Naaman is outraged at the simplicity of this “treatment,” but his servant prevails upon him: “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, `Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan... his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”
So often we think healing is complicated and arduous; that can be our experience with surgical or chemical procedures, with protracted recoveries. Healing in the Bible seems so ridiculously simple – God or God’s representative simply says the word and it is done. Could it really be so easy?
More often than we think. When I remember to invite God to release healing in me and in those I pray with, I often see it happen quickly. What’s hard is believing – and that gets much easier the more we see it. That’s why it’s so important that we pray for healing for each other and for the world – the evidence begins to pile up.
Sure, at times illness persists or recurs – there is mystery here, and a temporal reality of decline and death. But our baseline can be the healing we do see, rather than what we don’t. We can plant that seed of faith and give thanks even before we see the healing, and then with each lessening of symptoms or improvement give thanks all the more. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn.”
Try it today: pray in faith for healing in something or someone you didn’t think it was possible. And then keep giving thanks over the next few days and weeks, making note of any change or improvement you see. We can keep our energy on what God is doing, even before we see it.
That’s how we build up our faith muscles. And one day we look up and notice we’re transformed. Sometimes it’s in this life, always in the next.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
10-6-25 - Keeping Our Distance
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
This week’s Gospel reading finds Jesus outside the lines again – traveling to Jerusalem through a region between Galilee (home base) and Samaria (“Other-Land”): As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
Why were they keeping their distance? Because leprosy – in the Bible a catch-all term for skin diseases of various sorts – was considered very contagious. Having any such blemish made one ritually unclean, unfit for temple or community activities. (If you want to read Mosaic law about skin diseases, their treatment and the lengths to which someone who had been healed had to go to be reinstated into full community, read Leviticus 13 and 14 – and 15, if you want to get into really gross stuff....)
Lepers had to keep away from people, so they often lived in small groups outside villages. But these ten must have known something about Jesus, because they call him by name, they call him “Master,” and cry out, “Have mercy on us!”
Who lives on the outskirts of our communities, exiled by their own diseases, choices – or what they fear we think of them? Is anyone calling out to us, we who bear the name and ministry of Christ, crying, “Have mercy?” Someone of a different nationality or ethnicity? A stranger, or someone we find strange? Maybe someone who is poor or unhoused? Someone we know socially, whom we find annoying or troubling, and so we keep our distance?
Who comes to mind? What keeps her or him on the edges of your life? How do you feel about inviting that person closer? How are you being called to pray – for him/her? For yourself? Perhaps you feel outside a community yourself, wishing someone would hear your cry. Ask Jesus to send someone your way.
Jesus knows he can make these lepers whole, because the power of God flows through him. We, who are united with Christ and filled with his life, have been promised that same power flows through us. So we have much to offer to the people on the periphery of our vision, our life.
This week’s story is about healing, inside and out. As we journey through it, let’s start by opening our eyes to notice who’s calling to us from the edges, the margins, outside the lines. That’s so often where we find God.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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’s Gospel reading finds Jesus outside the lines again – traveling to Jerusalem through a region between Galilee (home base) and Samaria (“Other-Land”): As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
Why were they keeping their distance? Because leprosy – in the Bible a catch-all term for skin diseases of various sorts – was considered very contagious. Having any such blemish made one ritually unclean, unfit for temple or community activities. (If you want to read Mosaic law about skin diseases, their treatment and the lengths to which someone who had been healed had to go to be reinstated into full community, read Leviticus 13 and 14 – and 15, if you want to get into really gross stuff....)
Lepers had to keep away from people, so they often lived in small groups outside villages. But these ten must have known something about Jesus, because they call him by name, they call him “Master,” and cry out, “Have mercy on us!”
Who lives on the outskirts of our communities, exiled by their own diseases, choices – or what they fear we think of them? Is anyone calling out to us, we who bear the name and ministry of Christ, crying, “Have mercy?” Someone of a different nationality or ethnicity? A stranger, or someone we find strange? Maybe someone who is poor or unhoused? Someone we know socially, whom we find annoying or troubling, and so we keep our distance?
Who comes to mind? What keeps her or him on the edges of your life? How do you feel about inviting that person closer? How are you being called to pray – for him/her? For yourself? Perhaps you feel outside a community yourself, wishing someone would hear your cry. Ask Jesus to send someone your way.
Jesus knows he can make these lepers whole, because the power of God flows through him. We, who are united with Christ and filled with his life, have been promised that same power flows through us. So we have much to offer to the people on the periphery of our vision, our life.
This week’s story is about healing, inside and out. As we journey through it, let’s start by opening our eyes to notice who’s calling to us from the edges, the margins, outside the lines. That’s so often where we find God.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
9-23-25 - Coming Close
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Usually when I consider Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus, I focus on the wealth disparity, Lazarus’ hunger, the crumbs from the rich man’s table. But here's another angle: twice in a very short tale Jesus refers to the man’s sores, and the fact that the dogs would come and lick them. Despite the “ick” factor, let’s look at this aspect of the story: "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.”
Was it comforting to Lazarus to have the dogs lick his sores, or disgusting and frightening, intensifying his sense of helplessness? Did the sores become even more infected, or were they cleansed? Did the dogs exacerbate his isolation from human company, or make him feel more connected to life? Does Jesus mention the sores to indicate just how wretched this poor man was, so close to wealth and yet completely deprived of life’s necessities?
It’s just a story, Kate! A parable Jesus told to make a point. Well, yes. But every element in a parable is fair game as we try to get inside Jesus’ stories. And this detail makes Lazarus so real for us. We can see him outside a gate in Calcutta or Port-au-Prince or Toronto. The rich man who came and went by that gate did not see him, or chose to ignore him. The dogs came close, close enough to lick his sores.
I don’t know why Jesus included this detail about the dogs; likely it wasn’t meant as a positive, dogs not being regarded as precious in his day as they are in ours. But it conveys coming close – close to a hurting person and his wounds, as Jesus came close to those who were overlooked or rejected. He touched lepers whom others were afraid to come near. He sat with party girls and extortioners cast out of polite society. He even had tete-a-tetes with the rich and powerful. Jesus did not hold himself away. And when Jesus died and rose from the dead, he invited his followers to come so close as to put their hands inside his wounds.
This God whom we worship in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, this is the God who does not hold himself away. Wherever pain and loss and illness and despair are, there is Jesus, the gentle hound of heaven, saying, “You can ignore me, as though I were a dog, but I am here, and I will be here. I am not going away. My closeness might make you uncomfortable, but I am here to heal your wounds and restore you to wholeness.”
The Cathedral Church of All Saints in Halifax, where I now serve, has a statue on its front steps depicting a person in need, begging. It is a constant reminder of what we have and what we can share. Maybe as we let Jesus come close to us, we might more often choose to draw near to those who suffer, and then there will fewer people like Lazarus dying of hunger and preventable diseases.
Oh wait, I forgot again.. it’s only a story... or is it?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
Usually when I consider Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus, I focus on the wealth disparity, Lazarus’ hunger, the crumbs from the rich man’s table. But here's another angle: twice in a very short tale Jesus refers to the man’s sores, and the fact that the dogs would come and lick them. Despite the “ick” factor, let’s look at this aspect of the story: "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.”
Was it comforting to Lazarus to have the dogs lick his sores, or disgusting and frightening, intensifying his sense of helplessness? Did the sores become even more infected, or were they cleansed? Did the dogs exacerbate his isolation from human company, or make him feel more connected to life? Does Jesus mention the sores to indicate just how wretched this poor man was, so close to wealth and yet completely deprived of life’s necessities?
It’s just a story, Kate! A parable Jesus told to make a point. Well, yes. But every element in a parable is fair game as we try to get inside Jesus’ stories. And this detail makes Lazarus so real for us. We can see him outside a gate in Calcutta or Port-au-Prince or Toronto. The rich man who came and went by that gate did not see him, or chose to ignore him. The dogs came close, close enough to lick his sores.
I don’t know why Jesus included this detail about the dogs; likely it wasn’t meant as a positive, dogs not being regarded as precious in his day as they are in ours. But it conveys coming close – close to a hurting person and his wounds, as Jesus came close to those who were overlooked or rejected. He touched lepers whom others were afraid to come near. He sat with party girls and extortioners cast out of polite society. He even had tete-a-tetes with the rich and powerful. Jesus did not hold himself away. And when Jesus died and rose from the dead, he invited his followers to come so close as to put their hands inside his wounds.
This God whom we worship in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, this is the God who does not hold himself away. Wherever pain and loss and illness and despair are, there is Jesus, the gentle hound of heaven, saying, “You can ignore me, as though I were a dog, but I am here, and I will be here. I am not going away. My closeness might make you uncomfortable, but I am here to heal your wounds and restore you to wholeness.”
The Cathedral Church of All Saints in Halifax, where I now serve, has a statue on its front steps depicting a person in need, begging. It is a constant reminder of what we have and what we can share. Maybe as we let Jesus come close to us, we might more often choose to draw near to those who suffer, and then there will fewer people like Lazarus dying of hunger and preventable diseases.
Oh wait, I forgot again.. it’s only a story... or is it?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
8-22-25 - The Next Healing
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In this week’s gospel story, we see not only that Jesus could heal infirmity with a word of faith; we see him establish healing as an activity worthy of the Sabbath, God’s holy day. Healing is what God does: “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
It’s great that the crowd rejoiced at what Jesus was doing. I bet he wanted even more for them to start doing what he was doing, to believe in the power of God released into the world. He wanted them – and us – to engage in healing as a principal sign of the reign of God unleashed.
Maybe if we saw such immediate outcomes to our prayers, we would do a lot more praying. And if we engage more often in healing prayer, we might see many more immediate outcomes. God’s life is a both/and kind of place. We are invited to pray at all times and in all places. And I can testify that the more we approach infirmity with prayer, the more often and quickly we see healing.
If I fall or get hurt, I immediately invoke the presence of Jesus to be with me, to release his healing love already in me. When I burn or ding myself, I invite God to release healing power and love in my body, thanking all the cells for their healing work – and I often see things heal faster without scarring. When I practice my faith on relatively small things, it’s stronger when I need to pray for bigger, scarier things, inviting God to release peace and power into a huge complex of anxiety or illness.
So it is today, in any and every place where the Spirit of God is present through the Body of Christ. That’s us, Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and ears and voice of love in the world now. We have been given tremendous power through our access to God in the Spirit. So when we encounter someone afflicted in body, mind or spirit, we don’t have to think, “I’m not the right person.” We can just go, “Oh yeah, I know the right person. And he’ll show up any time I invoke his name. Come, Lord Jesus.” That is the ancient prayer, “Maranatha.” Come, Lord Jesus.
Today, keep inviting God to release healing love and power in you, where you’re hurting. And keep praising. And add a third thing: ask God to show you today someone for whom you are to pray, for whom you are to invite Jesus to release healing grace. It might be a person close to you, or someone you see on the news. You don’t have to offer to pray with them, though that’s always great. You can simply say, “Come Lord Jesus – here’s someone who needs you. Be here. Release your power and love in him, in her.”
God is with us seven days a week, 24 hours a day, at all times and in all places. God cannot be contained or constrained. The more we pray, the more God’s life breaks out and restores the world. Every day.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
In this week’s gospel story, we see not only that Jesus could heal infirmity with a word of faith; we see him establish healing as an activity worthy of the Sabbath, God’s holy day. Healing is what God does: “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
It’s great that the crowd rejoiced at what Jesus was doing. I bet he wanted even more for them to start doing what he was doing, to believe in the power of God released into the world. He wanted them – and us – to engage in healing as a principal sign of the reign of God unleashed.
Maybe if we saw such immediate outcomes to our prayers, we would do a lot more praying. And if we engage more often in healing prayer, we might see many more immediate outcomes. God’s life is a both/and kind of place. We are invited to pray at all times and in all places. And I can testify that the more we approach infirmity with prayer, the more often and quickly we see healing.
If I fall or get hurt, I immediately invoke the presence of Jesus to be with me, to release his healing love already in me. When I burn or ding myself, I invite God to release healing power and love in my body, thanking all the cells for their healing work – and I often see things heal faster without scarring. When I practice my faith on relatively small things, it’s stronger when I need to pray for bigger, scarier things, inviting God to release peace and power into a huge complex of anxiety or illness.
So it is today, in any and every place where the Spirit of God is present through the Body of Christ. That’s us, Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and ears and voice of love in the world now. We have been given tremendous power through our access to God in the Spirit. So when we encounter someone afflicted in body, mind or spirit, we don’t have to think, “I’m not the right person.” We can just go, “Oh yeah, I know the right person. And he’ll show up any time I invoke his name. Come, Lord Jesus.” That is the ancient prayer, “Maranatha.” Come, Lord Jesus.
Today, keep inviting God to release healing love and power in you, where you’re hurting. And keep praising. And add a third thing: ask God to show you today someone for whom you are to pray, for whom you are to invite Jesus to release healing grace. It might be a person close to you, or someone you see on the news. You don’t have to offer to pray with them, though that’s always great. You can simply say, “Come Lord Jesus – here’s someone who needs you. Be here. Release your power and love in him, in her.”
God is with us seven days a week, 24 hours a day, at all times and in all places. God cannot be contained or constrained. The more we pray, the more God’s life breaks out and restores the world. Every day.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
8-21-25 - Honoring the Sabbath
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If someone with a chronic disability became instantly healed during a worship service in my church, I would be thrilled and amazed. Not so much the leader of the synagogue in which Jesus healed the woman crippled for eighteen years: When Jesus laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”
It’s interesting that he addresses the crowd rather than Jesus directly. Is he genuinely concerned about a spiritual matter, or trying to get back the attention that has pivoted to his famous guest preacher? Or is he so frightened by this show of power that he can only retreat into the rules and regulations on which he has built his religion? Whatever his motives, he seems spectacularly unable to see the Life unfolding right in front of him.
This is a classic case of being correct and still wildly wrong. This leader is right that the Sabbath, ordained by God as a day set apart for worship, rest and recreation, is to be honored. He is completely wrong in defining healing as dishonoring “work.” As Jesus points out, we continue to care for and feed our families and animals on the Sabbath – because the Sabbath was made to celebrate life. Anything that increases life and expands our experience of God-Life is a suitable Sabbath activity. The passage from Isaiah appointed for Sunday defines“trampling the sabbath” as “pursuing your own interests.” Giving life, health, freedom, joy, peace, love to others honors God, and therefore honors God’s holy day.
The Sabbath is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and we ignore it at our own peril – and often our ill health. When each day of the week looks the same as any other, we don’t recharge or relax in a meaningful way. The toxins of stress build up and poison our interactions with the world and those closest to us. Our ability to be creative and to see solutions to problems grows stunted. We need the Sabbath, and the world needs it – and I dare say God needs us refreshed and ready for participating in God’s mission.
Every day is a good day for healing. Every day is a good day to set the captives free. Every day is a good day to release the power of God to bring Life into the world. Where do you need to see that Life released today?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
If someone with a chronic disability became instantly healed during a worship service in my church, I would be thrilled and amazed. Not so much the leader of the synagogue in which Jesus healed the woman crippled for eighteen years: When Jesus laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”
It’s interesting that he addresses the crowd rather than Jesus directly. Is he genuinely concerned about a spiritual matter, or trying to get back the attention that has pivoted to his famous guest preacher? Or is he so frightened by this show of power that he can only retreat into the rules and regulations on which he has built his religion? Whatever his motives, he seems spectacularly unable to see the Life unfolding right in front of him.
This is a classic case of being correct and still wildly wrong. This leader is right that the Sabbath, ordained by God as a day set apart for worship, rest and recreation, is to be honored. He is completely wrong in defining healing as dishonoring “work.” As Jesus points out, we continue to care for and feed our families and animals on the Sabbath – because the Sabbath was made to celebrate life. Anything that increases life and expands our experience of God-Life is a suitable Sabbath activity. The passage from Isaiah appointed for Sunday defines“trampling the sabbath” as “pursuing your own interests.” Giving life, health, freedom, joy, peace, love to others honors God, and therefore honors God’s holy day.
The Sabbath is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and we ignore it at our own peril – and often our ill health. When each day of the week looks the same as any other, we don’t recharge or relax in a meaningful way. The toxins of stress build up and poison our interactions with the world and those closest to us. Our ability to be creative and to see solutions to problems grows stunted. We need the Sabbath, and the world needs it – and I dare say God needs us refreshed and ready for participating in God’s mission.
Every day is a good day for healing. Every day is a good day to set the captives free. Every day is a good day to release the power of God to bring Life into the world. Where do you need to see that Life released today?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
8-19-25 - You Are Set Free
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Yesterday I invited us to think about an area in life in which we feel stuck; a condition or limitation we just live with because we don’t think anything can be done – which is like saying that thing is more powerful than God. Most likely the woman in our story, bent over with a damaged spine for eighteen years, thought that was her future. The gospel writer says she was afflicted by an evil spirit. She may have been told it was the result of sin. In some Christian circles she might be told her suffering was a way of coming closer to God, an honor, a test, a blessing even.
Jesus told her, “Here’s something we can heal.” When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
It is his first instinct – “Let's take care of that.” He doesn’t deliberate and wonder if it’s “God’s will." He knows illness and disability are not God’s intention for us. We don't always see healing as immediately as in this story; often it’s more gradual. But we can trust that it is God’s will that we be whole, even when we do not see that wholeness fully manifest in this life, for bodies and minds do sustain damage. We see it more when often as we trust that wholeness is the will of our God whom we call One and Perfect. How could such a One desire less than wholeness for us?
Freedom is also God’s desire for us, and for this world. Jesus said he had come to proclaim release to the captives. Any time we’re unsure of God’s will in a given situation, we can ask where we sense the most freedom and pray toward that. This does not mean we don’t honor commitments to relationships or jobs, which can at times feel like they impinge on our personal freedom. It means we look for where God is inviting us to be free within those commitments. If our workday is confining, we plan in times for a restorative walk or rest. If church feels like a burden, we make sure there are some activities in which we are just nurtured, not working. If our movement is constricted by disability, we pray for healing and restoration.
What came up when you thought about something you’re stuck with, that God could release you from? Bring that to Jesus in prayer. Invite the power and love that made the universe to be released in you, in your body, your mind, your spirit. And expect that the living water of God is flowing and bringing new life to you wherever you need it most.
“For freedom, God has made us free,” Paul reminded the Galatians (5:1). We honor God when we accept that gift every time God offers it.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
Yesterday I invited us to think about an area in life in which we feel stuck; a condition or limitation we just live with because we don’t think anything can be done – which is like saying that thing is more powerful than God. Most likely the woman in our story, bent over with a damaged spine for eighteen years, thought that was her future. The gospel writer says she was afflicted by an evil spirit. She may have been told it was the result of sin. In some Christian circles she might be told her suffering was a way of coming closer to God, an honor, a test, a blessing even.
Jesus told her, “Here’s something we can heal.” When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
It is his first instinct – “Let's take care of that.” He doesn’t deliberate and wonder if it’s “God’s will." He knows illness and disability are not God’s intention for us. We don't always see healing as immediately as in this story; often it’s more gradual. But we can trust that it is God’s will that we be whole, even when we do not see that wholeness fully manifest in this life, for bodies and minds do sustain damage. We see it more when often as we trust that wholeness is the will of our God whom we call One and Perfect. How could such a One desire less than wholeness for us?
Freedom is also God’s desire for us, and for this world. Jesus said he had come to proclaim release to the captives. Any time we’re unsure of God’s will in a given situation, we can ask where we sense the most freedom and pray toward that. This does not mean we don’t honor commitments to relationships or jobs, which can at times feel like they impinge on our personal freedom. It means we look for where God is inviting us to be free within those commitments. If our workday is confining, we plan in times for a restorative walk or rest. If church feels like a burden, we make sure there are some activities in which we are just nurtured, not working. If our movement is constricted by disability, we pray for healing and restoration.
What came up when you thought about something you’re stuck with, that God could release you from? Bring that to Jesus in prayer. Invite the power and love that made the universe to be released in you, in your body, your mind, your spirit. And expect that the living water of God is flowing and bringing new life to you wherever you need it most.
“For freedom, God has made us free,” Paul reminded the Galatians (5:1). We honor God when we accept that gift every time God offers it.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
6-19-25 - Fear of God
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
As an animal lover, with a soft spot for pigs (though also for bacon and pork chops), I have to admit I abhor the next part of our story: Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.
Maybe Jesus, as a Jew, had little use for the value of swine. But why did the demons have to go into anything? Couldn’t he command them into the lake without the pigs? Couldn’t he command them back to hell and bind them? All I do know is that the news spread quickly. (And here comes an echo of another iconic bible story – Jesus’ birth, and sheep herders running off and telling the wondrous things they’d seen to everyone they met...)
As the news spread, the townspeople came running to see. They were amazed as well as frightened – but not so much at the destruction of the herd. What scared them to the core was the transformation in the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.
Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.
It was not the economic loss or property damage that frightened them – it was the damage to their sense of reality, this glimpse into the raw power of God as conducted by Jesus. It was having their convictions about what is possible overturned right before their very eyes that frightened the daylights out of them. It was having their conceptions about this man and his place in their community completely shattered. He was even wearing clothes! What happened?
The next thing we know, they’re asking Jesus to leave, “for they were seized with great fear.” Don’t we often want to separate ourselves from what we don’t understand, what frightens us? That is the root of so much prejudice and hatred, division and conflict.
Have you seen someone transformed by healing? People who know addicts in recovery sometimes get to see this kind of contrast, though not in the course of a single day. Those who work with wounded veterans and the mentally ill sometimes see such transformation. If we saw it instantaneously, it would scare us too.
When we find ourselves afraid of God’s power, we can talk to God about it. We can ask the Spirit to gently lead us into a greater awareness of what God can do and has done. If only those townspeople had taken this miracle as an invitation to expand their ideas of this God they did not know instead of sending Jesus away, so much more healing and transformation might have taken place. Let’s not make their mistake.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
As an animal lover, with a soft spot for pigs (though also for bacon and pork chops), I have to admit I abhor the next part of our story: Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.
Maybe Jesus, as a Jew, had little use for the value of swine. But why did the demons have to go into anything? Couldn’t he command them into the lake without the pigs? Couldn’t he command them back to hell and bind them? All I do know is that the news spread quickly. (And here comes an echo of another iconic bible story – Jesus’ birth, and sheep herders running off and telling the wondrous things they’d seen to everyone they met...)
As the news spread, the townspeople came running to see. They were amazed as well as frightened – but not so much at the destruction of the herd. What scared them to the core was the transformation in the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.
Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.
It was not the economic loss or property damage that frightened them – it was the damage to their sense of reality, this glimpse into the raw power of God as conducted by Jesus. It was having their convictions about what is possible overturned right before their very eyes that frightened the daylights out of them. It was having their conceptions about this man and his place in their community completely shattered. He was even wearing clothes! What happened?
The next thing we know, they’re asking Jesus to leave, “for they were seized with great fear.” Don’t we often want to separate ourselves from what we don’t understand, what frightens us? That is the root of so much prejudice and hatred, division and conflict.
Have you seen someone transformed by healing? People who know addicts in recovery sometimes get to see this kind of contrast, though not in the course of a single day. Those who work with wounded veterans and the mentally ill sometimes see such transformation. If we saw it instantaneously, it would scare us too.
When we find ourselves afraid of God’s power, we can talk to God about it. We can ask the Spirit to gently lead us into a greater awareness of what God can do and has done. If only those townspeople had taken this miracle as an invitation to expand their ideas of this God they did not know instead of sending Jesus away, so much more healing and transformation might have taken place. Let’s not make their mistake.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. 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.
6-17-25 - Living Among the Dead
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Talk about your welcome wagon – the first person to greet Jesus and his disciples as their boat docked in Gentile territory was someone considered the “local loco.”
As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)
Each time we reread Scripture a different word or phrase might snag our attention, new echoes or resonances ring their chimes. The phrase, “he did not live in a house but in the tombs” sets off in my mind the words of the angel outside Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
This man, so beset by the demons in residence in him, had long ago ceased to live in any meaningful way. Naked, but for the times he was bound and chained by his neighbors; crazed; desperately alone; no doubt terrified and constantly barraged by the voices inside him, it is no wonder he sought the quiet and isolation of the burial ground. Perhaps he longed to join his silent companions in death.
Yet there was enough life in him to get him down to the shore that morning. There was enough “self” left in his spirit for Jesus to project his strength into. He did not belong among the dead, but among the living. Jesus is always in the business of life, and as his followers that is our calling too.
I have known people so deep in depression they were nearly catatonic, hospitalized. And I have seen Jesus bring them back to life, through prayers, visits, even my refusal to accept this end for them. I have been a conduit for Jesus’ Spirit to strengthen their spirits until they were whole enough to return to the living. I can think of two or three off the top of my head. This power is real.
What “dead places” are you aware of in your surroundings, or among your relationships? Who do you know who is "living among the dead" – emotionally or otherwise – surrounded by toxic people or ideologies, or deep in death-dealing activities? How might God be inviting you to bring life into those circumstances, to call these people back into life?
In the life of the Christ-follower, every day is Easter morning. Every day we seek the living among the living.
Talk about your welcome wagon – the first person to greet Jesus and his disciples as their boat docked in Gentile territory was someone considered the “local loco.”
As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)
Each time we reread Scripture a different word or phrase might snag our attention, new echoes or resonances ring their chimes. The phrase, “he did not live in a house but in the tombs” sets off in my mind the words of the angel outside Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
This man, so beset by the demons in residence in him, had long ago ceased to live in any meaningful way. Naked, but for the times he was bound and chained by his neighbors; crazed; desperately alone; no doubt terrified and constantly barraged by the voices inside him, it is no wonder he sought the quiet and isolation of the burial ground. Perhaps he longed to join his silent companions in death.
Yet there was enough life in him to get him down to the shore that morning. There was enough “self” left in his spirit for Jesus to project his strength into. He did not belong among the dead, but among the living. Jesus is always in the business of life, and as his followers that is our calling too.
I have known people so deep in depression they were nearly catatonic, hospitalized. And I have seen Jesus bring them back to life, through prayers, visits, even my refusal to accept this end for them. I have been a conduit for Jesus’ Spirit to strengthen their spirits until they were whole enough to return to the living. I can think of two or three off the top of my head. This power is real.
What “dead places” are you aware of in your surroundings, or among your relationships? Who do you know who is "living among the dead" – emotionally or otherwise – surrounded by toxic people or ideologies, or deep in death-dealing activities? How might God be inviting you to bring life into those circumstances, to call these people back into life?
In the life of the Christ-follower, every day is Easter morning. Every day we seek the living among the living.
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