You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
I’ve never been a big fan of rallies and marches – they take a lot of time and resources to organize, divert people’s energies from more strategic action on the issue being marched for, and rarely change anyone’s mind. But on the occasions when I have participated in such events, especially ones that draw hundreds of thousands of people together to bear witness to a desire for justice and equity, I understand their power: a power based not on might or authority, but on agreement, on ordinary people coming together to become a political force. They send a message of empowerment to those who are regarded – or regard themselves – as foolish, weak, low and despised, things that are not. They can remind us of the power we have when we come together as the “insignificant." We can overcome evil. And when we come together in Jesus’ name, in the name of the One who allowed himself to become shamed, weak, low and despised, evil does not have a chance.
For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
Great words – but evil is still having a good run, is it not, when governments turn guns on their own citizens; when people of color remain more likely to be shot by police and denied opportunities afforded white people; when hunger continues to devastate some communities and countries, while much of the world throws away food as waste? We will never run out of injustices to protest – what power do we have?
I’ve shared before a definition of the devil, whom Christians regard as the source of evil in this world, as “the enemy of human nature.” Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12 that “our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Yes, we are called as those “who are not” – in the sight of the powers that be – to reduce to nothing things that are. But our weapons are spiritual and communal, not destructive.
The Good News we have been called to proclaim is this story of God’s great reversal, of God’s lifting up those who are downcast. It has always been good news to the poor and those on the margins; less so to the wealthy and powerful. And where we are wealthy and powerful, we need to consider God’s call to humility and justice.
As we embody this good news, we bring it into being, this realm of God in which peace and justice already reign. Let it be so on earth, as it is in heaven.
© 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 the Cross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Cross. Show all posts
1-28-26 - A Stumbling Block
You can listen to this reflection here. The epistle reading for Sunday is here.
If you were to invent a religion, you probably wouldn’t want to make it as unfathomable and sometimes unpalatable as Christianity. You wouldn’t insist that God is three persons and yet one. You wouldn’t assert that God became human for a time, yet remained fully God and fully man, full of divine power yet completely vulnerable. And you certainly wouldn’t orient your worship around a story about that God-man being executed by crucifixion, a death reserved for criminals and insurrectionists.
Yet, as the early church proclaimed the Life of God revealed in Jesus Christ, that story became most central. In all four gospels the narrative slows down and zooms in for closer detail when it comes to Jesus’ passion and death, which occupy more chapters than other incidents. The Gospel of John sees the cross as the place where the Son of God is glorified. Yet this emphasis on the Cross also caused trouble for the early Christ-followers – as it does for many today.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
The idea of a crucified Messiah was anathema to many of the era’s Jewish people. Many thought it blasphemous to claim that Jesus had a special relationship with God, or was God; others were appalled to think that God would send a Messiah to deliver his people from oppression, only to allow the oppressors to kill that man on a cross. The idea that God may have been about a much bigger deliverance than a military one did not compute.
And to many Greeks, so fond of logic and philosophy, the story was ridiculous. They could embrace the notion that the mind of God could be expressed in human form, in the way that a thought becomes a word, but then for that human to live a life of poverty and weakness? That was unlike any god they could conceive.
How does the crucifixion strike you? Can you see the freedom and love in this horrible tale around which we weave our faith? Many Christians turn away from this brutal story, preferring to emphasize Jesus’ wisdom as a teacher, or goodness as a moral exemplar, or power as a worker of miracles. But Jesus was also, perhaps primarily, savior, redeemer. Understanding the Cross as the place where he took upon himself the consequence of all humanity’s sin, and endured the agony not only of human cruelty, but of estrangement from God, helps us to more fully experience God's forgiveness and freedom.
Can we see in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God?” It takes special vision, the eyes of faith to make sense of this awful paradox. In fact, our minds cannot make sense of it. It Is a mystery that seeps into our hearts through contemplation and worship. Let’s open the cracks.
© 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.
If you were to invent a religion, you probably wouldn’t want to make it as unfathomable and sometimes unpalatable as Christianity. You wouldn’t insist that God is three persons and yet one. You wouldn’t assert that God became human for a time, yet remained fully God and fully man, full of divine power yet completely vulnerable. And you certainly wouldn’t orient your worship around a story about that God-man being executed by crucifixion, a death reserved for criminals and insurrectionists.
Yet, as the early church proclaimed the Life of God revealed in Jesus Christ, that story became most central. In all four gospels the narrative slows down and zooms in for closer detail when it comes to Jesus’ passion and death, which occupy more chapters than other incidents. The Gospel of John sees the cross as the place where the Son of God is glorified. Yet this emphasis on the Cross also caused trouble for the early Christ-followers – as it does for many today.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
The idea of a crucified Messiah was anathema to many of the era’s Jewish people. Many thought it blasphemous to claim that Jesus had a special relationship with God, or was God; others were appalled to think that God would send a Messiah to deliver his people from oppression, only to allow the oppressors to kill that man on a cross. The idea that God may have been about a much bigger deliverance than a military one did not compute.
And to many Greeks, so fond of logic and philosophy, the story was ridiculous. They could embrace the notion that the mind of God could be expressed in human form, in the way that a thought becomes a word, but then for that human to live a life of poverty and weakness? That was unlike any god they could conceive.
How does the crucifixion strike you? Can you see the freedom and love in this horrible tale around which we weave our faith? Many Christians turn away from this brutal story, preferring to emphasize Jesus’ wisdom as a teacher, or goodness as a moral exemplar, or power as a worker of miracles. But Jesus was also, perhaps primarily, savior, redeemer. Understanding the Cross as the place where he took upon himself the consequence of all humanity’s sin, and endured the agony not only of human cruelty, but of estrangement from God, helps us to more fully experience God's forgiveness and freedom.
Can we see in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God?” It takes special vision, the eyes of faith to make sense of this awful paradox. In fact, our minds cannot make sense of it. It Is a mystery that seeps into our hearts through contemplation and worship. Let’s open the cracks.
© 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.
1-27-26 - The Wisdom of the World
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
It’s the kind of paragraph for which Paul is famous, and which church lectors struggle to render with clarity: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
If Paul were speaking to us in person, I think he’d use air quotes and vocal inflection to convey sarcasm. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t think much of the “wisdom of the world,” at least not in comparison with the wisdom of God – which, he notes, can look a lot like foolishness to those who think they are wise. Paul skewers those who would dismiss or overlook the inconvenience or the scandal of the Cross.
All through the bible we find a distinction between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of humankind. “For my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8) “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” Jesus says to Peter (Matt 16:23). Paul is on solid ground in deeming the wisdom of the world to be a flimsy foundation on which to rest our faith.
It is good for us periodically to examine what our beliefs are resting on. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and Christian claims about his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection are so counter-cultural, there is a constant temptation to explain away, or synthesize core doctrines with more palatable philosophies. Many Christians in the mainline denominations believe the scriptures to be literature with helpful metaphors, not the inspired Word of God. Some have come to regard the crucifixion as a disturbingly dark idea and are reinterpreting sacrificial understandings of the Cross. And, of course, many Christians choose to ignore altogether Christ’s teachings on wealth and poverty, self-righteousness and mercy. We all need to return to the Gospels at times, asking the Spirit to guide our interpretation.
But how do we distinguish the wisdom of God from the wisdom of the world? Paul was sure he knew which was which. There is no easy answer – but there are processes:
It’s the kind of paragraph for which Paul is famous, and which church lectors struggle to render with clarity: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
If Paul were speaking to us in person, I think he’d use air quotes and vocal inflection to convey sarcasm. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t think much of the “wisdom of the world,” at least not in comparison with the wisdom of God – which, he notes, can look a lot like foolishness to those who think they are wise. Paul skewers those who would dismiss or overlook the inconvenience or the scandal of the Cross.
All through the bible we find a distinction between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of humankind. “For my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8) “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” Jesus says to Peter (Matt 16:23). Paul is on solid ground in deeming the wisdom of the world to be a flimsy foundation on which to rest our faith.
It is good for us periodically to examine what our beliefs are resting on. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and Christian claims about his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection are so counter-cultural, there is a constant temptation to explain away, or synthesize core doctrines with more palatable philosophies. Many Christians in the mainline denominations believe the scriptures to be literature with helpful metaphors, not the inspired Word of God. Some have come to regard the crucifixion as a disturbingly dark idea and are reinterpreting sacrificial understandings of the Cross. And, of course, many Christians choose to ignore altogether Christ’s teachings on wealth and poverty, self-righteousness and mercy. We all need to return to the Gospels at times, asking the Spirit to guide our interpretation.
But how do we distinguish the wisdom of God from the wisdom of the world? Paul was sure he knew which was which. There is no easy answer – but there are processes:
- Hold our beliefs up to the whole Bible – where is there agreement, where is there contradiction?
- Hold our beliefs up to the whole Church, throughout time and space… do our ideas square with the Creeds, the tradition? That’s tricky, for it seems clear that the revelation of the Spirit is progressive. We have the same scriptures about slavery or women’s roles, but have come to a different understanding by the Spirit. Still, we look for gaps and overlaps.
- Ask the Spirit to let us see by the fruits of one interpretation or another which is correct – does one interpretation lead to condemnation or to life?
In all of this, we must live by the Spirit with generosity of heart, under the supreme law of grace. What we believe and how we believe matter, but in the end it’s how we follow and worship Jesus as Lord that makes known the Life of God. Recognizing how little we know can be the highest exercise of wisdom.
1-26-26 - Foolishness
You can listen to this reflection here. The epistle reading for Sunday is here.
This coming Sunday, our Gospel reading is “The Beatitudes,” Jesus’ core training session for followers. We’ll take a look at that this Friday, but for most of the week, let's explore this passage from Paul’s first letter to the church he launched in Corinth.
In this discourse, Paul asserts the primacy of the cross of Jesus Christ, arguing against teachers who held that this doctrine was either unimportant or wrong. Corinth was a commercial city through which trade from many regions passed by land and sea. Its populace was sophisticated, eager to explore every new religious fad and philosophical trend. In a climate that so prized wisdom and knowledge, it could be hard to defend a religion which venerated as divine an itinerant rabbi who had died a criminal’s death on a Roman cross. “We need a good P.R. firm,” thought some Christian leaders, seeking to reframe the central story.
Paul was having none of it: "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
He means that those who see this story as “foolish” prove by their lack of discernment that they are among those who are perishing. In contrast, those who have accepted Jesus’ death on the cross as a saving act can see the power of God evident in what looked like pathetic defeat.
That principle is manifest any time ordinary people confront political power that threatens their freedom. When people work or advocate or march for human rights and democratic principles, it can look like foolishness too. But when enough people come together on an issue, change can happen.
This coming Sunday, our Gospel reading is “The Beatitudes,” Jesus’ core training session for followers. We’ll take a look at that this Friday, but for most of the week, let's explore this passage from Paul’s first letter to the church he launched in Corinth.
In this discourse, Paul asserts the primacy of the cross of Jesus Christ, arguing against teachers who held that this doctrine was either unimportant or wrong. Corinth was a commercial city through which trade from many regions passed by land and sea. Its populace was sophisticated, eager to explore every new religious fad and philosophical trend. In a climate that so prized wisdom and knowledge, it could be hard to defend a religion which venerated as divine an itinerant rabbi who had died a criminal’s death on a Roman cross. “We need a good P.R. firm,” thought some Christian leaders, seeking to reframe the central story.
Paul was having none of it: "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
He means that those who see this story as “foolish” prove by their lack of discernment that they are among those who are perishing. In contrast, those who have accepted Jesus’ death on the cross as a saving act can see the power of God evident in what looked like pathetic defeat.
That principle is manifest any time ordinary people confront political power that threatens their freedom. When people work or advocate or march for human rights and democratic principles, it can look like foolishness too. But when enough people come together on an issue, change can happen.
- Where do you feel called to stand up for a principle – or for your faith – that others call foolish or weak?
- Where might you be called to proclaim your status as a “foolish” Christ-follower?
- What weakness might you bring God’s power into?
Paul takes the accusation of “foolishness” and runs with it, reminding his listeners that God was up to something in allowing his Son to die that shameful death, that God irrevocably broke the hold of sin and death in what looked like humiliating defeat. God is still up to something as the freedom Christ won for us is revealed in our lives.
Sometimes we need to get to the end of the story to know just how powerful God’s power really is. But here we are, living both at the end and smack dab in the middle of it, holding to this truth: “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Thanks be to God.
© 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.
Sometimes we need to get to the end of the story to know just how powerful God’s power really is. But here we are, living both at the end and smack dab in the middle of it, holding to this truth: “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Thanks be to God.
© 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.
11-21-25 - The Power In Weakness
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What’s the good of a monarch who has no power? Sure, she or he might be effective as a symbol, or as a focus of resistance, but in stories, unlike in tabloids, kings have ultimate power. We claim God does too. So what kind of God allows his son to die a horrible death, in utter defeat? A God who knows that weakness can provide the best cover for strength, vulnerability the best ground for true power.
This theme runs all through the Bible – over and over we see God triumph through the younger, the weaker – Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David. Again and again God gives victory in battle to the smaller, weaker forces – if they will follow his instructions. Gideon overthrows Jericho with just a trumpet; David vanquishes Goliath with a mere slingshot. Keep your armor and your weapons – the battle belongs to the Lord.
This principle is most powerfully displayed in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, who had no earthly power or resources beyond his God-given charisma and absolute authenticity, yet built a movement that has endured for over two millennia. The theme recurs in the church's birth, as the Book of Acts shows us a small band of apostles able to spread the Gospel and plant churches through a vast geographical area in the face of persecution and hardship. It is from this experience that St. Paul speaks the insight he received when God told him, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
This caused Paul to go on: “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”
This has helped me when I've felt daunted by some challenge or defeated in some endeavor in which I hoped to prevail; eventually I remember, “Oh yeah! When I am weak, it makes room for God’s strength. And this needs to be God’s work.”
Let’s uphold this principle now, as climate calamities becoming ever more frequent and people continue to refuse to prioritize saving the earth for our grandchildren; as poverty persists in a world of plenty; as gun violence grows ever more rampant; as political fault lines continue to deepen. What on earth can we do in the face of challenges so massive? Remember, when we are weak, God is strong.
Can God’s strength be made perfect in our weakness, God’s love revealed in our vulnerability rather than our militancy? Can we stand up to injustice without calling everything a fight? What does reconciliation look like in this time? How are we to be "ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us?"
God has given us strength, as individuals and as communities. Yet we are never so powerful as when we lay down our own strength and make ourselves vessels for God’s power and might. That takes faith, so much faith.
But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
© 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’s the good of a monarch who has no power? Sure, she or he might be effective as a symbol, or as a focus of resistance, but in stories, unlike in tabloids, kings have ultimate power. We claim God does too. So what kind of God allows his son to die a horrible death, in utter defeat? A God who knows that weakness can provide the best cover for strength, vulnerability the best ground for true power.
This theme runs all through the Bible – over and over we see God triumph through the younger, the weaker – Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David. Again and again God gives victory in battle to the smaller, weaker forces – if they will follow his instructions. Gideon overthrows Jericho with just a trumpet; David vanquishes Goliath with a mere slingshot. Keep your armor and your weapons – the battle belongs to the Lord.
This principle is most powerfully displayed in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, who had no earthly power or resources beyond his God-given charisma and absolute authenticity, yet built a movement that has endured for over two millennia. The theme recurs in the church's birth, as the Book of Acts shows us a small band of apostles able to spread the Gospel and plant churches through a vast geographical area in the face of persecution and hardship. It is from this experience that St. Paul speaks the insight he received when God told him, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
This caused Paul to go on: “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”
This has helped me when I've felt daunted by some challenge or defeated in some endeavor in which I hoped to prevail; eventually I remember, “Oh yeah! When I am weak, it makes room for God’s strength. And this needs to be God’s work.”
Let’s uphold this principle now, as climate calamities becoming ever more frequent and people continue to refuse to prioritize saving the earth for our grandchildren; as poverty persists in a world of plenty; as gun violence grows ever more rampant; as political fault lines continue to deepen. What on earth can we do in the face of challenges so massive? Remember, when we are weak, God is strong.
Can God’s strength be made perfect in our weakness, God’s love revealed in our vulnerability rather than our militancy? Can we stand up to injustice without calling everything a fight? What does reconciliation look like in this time? How are we to be "ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us?"
God has given us strength, as individuals and as communities. Yet we are never so powerful as when we lay down our own strength and make ourselves vessels for God’s power and might. That takes faith, so much faith.
But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
© 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.
11-18-25 - Where's the Phone Booth?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One of my biggest challenges as a person who believes that Jesus is Lord is when people who struggle with faith actually pray and do not experience the outcome they so earnestly desire. Now, maybe this is because they only pray in the most extreme circumstances, when things are already quite dire – but we claim that nothing is impossible with God. So why, if Jesus is Lord, do things go so wrong?
And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"
Jesus got used to that mocking question, “If you are…” in his time of testing in the desert. Those three big temptations were prefaced with, “If you are the Son of God…” All through his public life, people questioned his heavenly identity because of his earthly markers – how could someone who came from Galilee be the Messiah? How could someone whose family we know be the Anointed One?
And here, on the cross, stripped of his humanity, even his clothing, Jesus looks nothing like the Anointed One. The onlookers mock him; his own followers ache for him to show himself at last, for his sake, and for theirs. "It’s time for the phone booth, Clark – we know you’re Superman. Show yourself!”* And Jesus does nothing. Nothing, that is, but forgive his executioners, pray to his heavenly Father, extend salvation to a thief dying with him. Nothing much.
I have mentioned Martin Luther’s notion of the Glorious Exchange, in which Christ takes on our threadbare beggars’ rags and gives us his royal robes to wear. Here is that moment. As his persecutors cast lots for his cloak, Jesus puts on our raggedness, our self-centeredness, our capacity for cruelty, and allows it to die with him. But no one can see that’s what’s going on. Paul wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…” The problem is, even as image he is invisible. He just looks like a poor sap who shot for more than he could pull off and is paying the ultimate price.
Are there times when you’ve joined that chorus? “Come on Jesus, I believe in your almighty power to transform all things, to make us all whole. Now would be a great time to show yourself.” That prayer haunts much of our doubt and despair. Even so, we are invited to persist in praying, in believing, in claiming, in rejoicing.
Think of a really challenging situation you are faced with right now. Invite Jesus to show up in it and reveal power and life. Is it more impossible than what Jesus did on the cross? Sure, it looked like death had won. Took a few days to find out something much deeper had happened. It might take more than three days for us to see what God is up to in our prayers. And some things we will never understand in this life. That doesn’t mean Superman is gone or defeated. It’s just that, for some strange reason, God has chosen to make us the phone booths in which Clark becomes Superman. So, give the man some space - and look out.
*I don’t want to assume everyone knows the same cultural references. So in case you don’t know the story of Superman, he is the alter ego of a mild-mannered reporter named Clark Kent who, when called upon to go into Superman mode, goes into a phone booth (also an anachronistic reference – before everyone had their own phones, there were public phones available for use, often housed in little glass booths to afford privacy...) to change into his costume. Sigh – I feel old!
© 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 of my biggest challenges as a person who believes that Jesus is Lord is when people who struggle with faith actually pray and do not experience the outcome they so earnestly desire. Now, maybe this is because they only pray in the most extreme circumstances, when things are already quite dire – but we claim that nothing is impossible with God. So why, if Jesus is Lord, do things go so wrong?
And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"
Jesus got used to that mocking question, “If you are…” in his time of testing in the desert. Those three big temptations were prefaced with, “If you are the Son of God…” All through his public life, people questioned his heavenly identity because of his earthly markers – how could someone who came from Galilee be the Messiah? How could someone whose family we know be the Anointed One?
And here, on the cross, stripped of his humanity, even his clothing, Jesus looks nothing like the Anointed One. The onlookers mock him; his own followers ache for him to show himself at last, for his sake, and for theirs. "It’s time for the phone booth, Clark – we know you’re Superman. Show yourself!”* And Jesus does nothing. Nothing, that is, but forgive his executioners, pray to his heavenly Father, extend salvation to a thief dying with him. Nothing much.
I have mentioned Martin Luther’s notion of the Glorious Exchange, in which Christ takes on our threadbare beggars’ rags and gives us his royal robes to wear. Here is that moment. As his persecutors cast lots for his cloak, Jesus puts on our raggedness, our self-centeredness, our capacity for cruelty, and allows it to die with him. But no one can see that’s what’s going on. Paul wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…” The problem is, even as image he is invisible. He just looks like a poor sap who shot for more than he could pull off and is paying the ultimate price.
Are there times when you’ve joined that chorus? “Come on Jesus, I believe in your almighty power to transform all things, to make us all whole. Now would be a great time to show yourself.” That prayer haunts much of our doubt and despair. Even so, we are invited to persist in praying, in believing, in claiming, in rejoicing.
Think of a really challenging situation you are faced with right now. Invite Jesus to show up in it and reveal power and life. Is it more impossible than what Jesus did on the cross? Sure, it looked like death had won. Took a few days to find out something much deeper had happened. It might take more than three days for us to see what God is up to in our prayers. And some things we will never understand in this life. That doesn’t mean Superman is gone or defeated. It’s just that, for some strange reason, God has chosen to make us the phone booths in which Clark becomes Superman. So, give the man some space - and look out.
*I don’t want to assume everyone knows the same cultural references. So in case you don’t know the story of Superman, he is the alter ego of a mild-mannered reporter named Clark Kent who, when called upon to go into Superman mode, goes into a phone booth (also an anachronistic reference – before everyone had their own phones, there were public phones available for use, often housed in little glass booths to afford privacy...) to change into his costume. Sigh – I feel old!
© 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.
11-17-25 - Father, Forgive Them...
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Next Sunday we celebrate Christ as King before we re-set the church clock and go back to the beginning of the story in Advent. In Canada this Sunday is labeled “The Reign of Christ,” which is less male and monarchical. But whatever we call it, the readings appointed for this last Sunday in the Pentecost season always show Jesus at his most humble, as befits one who said his kingdom was not of this world. This week's gospel shows him humiliated and degraded, dying a brutal death on a cross. It is an image we associate with Holy Week, not the week before American Thanksgiving. Yet, as the bitter divisions in our world become ever deeper, it fits all too well.
When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
In our conflicted times, we need to get into the forgiveness business seriously and often. It is not easy; it means forgiving people who may not be sorry or care about the damage they do. When we reach across barriers of difference, we will have to ask whether we are forgiving prematurely, and risk being seen as condoning the unacceptable. Forgiveness is costly.
Are people who sow violence and division covered by Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?” How on earth do we forgive willful cruelty? We start by drawing on the power of Christ available to us. It's hard to associate power with the image of a naked, beaten, helpless man nailed to a cross. Yet that is exactly what Christian belief invites us to do, to see beneath the outward image to the spiritual reality. And that reality Jesus demonstrated in a gesture of incomprehensible generosity: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."
He recognized that the Jewish leaders seeking his death and the Roman leaders carrying out the unjust sentence were so caught up in systems of human control, they couldn’t see the larger picture or their own complicity. Having the power to forgive the unforgivable will require us to step out of our human systems as well, even if our intent is to bring justice. How are we also complicit in degrading the "Other?"
Each gospel writer stresses in the story of Jesus’ crucifixion those elements he thinks matter most. Luke, champion of the poor and outcast, who so often highlights Jesus’ compassion, puts this act of forgiveness on the cross front and center. This is the kind of kingship we are to follow – forgiveness for the unforgivable, even at the point of death.
I don’t want to have to practice this, but this world keeps giving me opportunities. Maybe I’ll get better at 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.
Next Sunday we celebrate Christ as King before we re-set the church clock and go back to the beginning of the story in Advent. In Canada this Sunday is labeled “The Reign of Christ,” which is less male and monarchical. But whatever we call it, the readings appointed for this last Sunday in the Pentecost season always show Jesus at his most humble, as befits one who said his kingdom was not of this world. This week's gospel shows him humiliated and degraded, dying a brutal death on a cross. It is an image we associate with Holy Week, not the week before American Thanksgiving. Yet, as the bitter divisions in our world become ever deeper, it fits all too well.
When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
In our conflicted times, we need to get into the forgiveness business seriously and often. It is not easy; it means forgiving people who may not be sorry or care about the damage they do. When we reach across barriers of difference, we will have to ask whether we are forgiving prematurely, and risk being seen as condoning the unacceptable. Forgiveness is costly.
Are people who sow violence and division covered by Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?” How on earth do we forgive willful cruelty? We start by drawing on the power of Christ available to us. It's hard to associate power with the image of a naked, beaten, helpless man nailed to a cross. Yet that is exactly what Christian belief invites us to do, to see beneath the outward image to the spiritual reality. And that reality Jesus demonstrated in a gesture of incomprehensible generosity: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."
He recognized that the Jewish leaders seeking his death and the Roman leaders carrying out the unjust sentence were so caught up in systems of human control, they couldn’t see the larger picture or their own complicity. Having the power to forgive the unforgivable will require us to step out of our human systems as well, even if our intent is to bring justice. How are we also complicit in degrading the "Other?"
Each gospel writer stresses in the story of Jesus’ crucifixion those elements he thinks matter most. Luke, champion of the poor and outcast, who so often highlights Jesus’ compassion, puts this act of forgiveness on the cross front and center. This is the kind of kingship we are to follow – forgiveness for the unforgivable, even at the point of death.
I don’t want to have to practice this, but this world keeps giving me opportunities. Maybe I’ll get better at 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.
9-3-25 - Counting the Cost
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What does it cost you to publicly identify as a Christ-follower? Does it cause a problem with your job? Your family? Your social circle? Do people think you’re foolish? For most Western Christians, the biggest hurdle to going deeper as disciples of Jesus is to our time and priorities.
In other parts of the world being a Christian can cost you your life or your basic relationships. I once read about a Syrian convert to Christianity who was ostracized by his Muslim family for being too “Western,” even surviving a murder attempt by an uncle, and by the Christians he met as being too “Muslim.” Even people in this country can offend their families and religious traditions when they convert, or be ridiculed and minimized.
Following Jesus was quite dangerous for his immediate disciples. Terrorized by the occupying Romans and oppressed by the temple leaders, the average citizen of Jesus’ place and time did well to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. Leaving your livelihood and family to publicly identify with an itinerant teacher who drew a fair amount of attention, much of it suspicious – this was not a recipe for a quiet life. Those who affiliated with Jesus were risking their comfort, work, family relationships – and often their lives. Hence, in his pep talk to would-be disciples, after telling them how radically they need to reorder their priorities if they’re going to follow him, Jesus gives an example:
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, `This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'”
Relationship might be a better analogy for us than architecture. What if we translated Jesus’ example: “Who of you, intending to commit to a relationship, does not first sit down and assess feelings, compatibility, chemistry, to see whether there’s enough to engage it? Otherwise, when you’ve told all your friends “This is the one!’ and then you break up, all who see it will begin to ridicule you, saying, ‘They started hot, but sure flickered out in a hurry!’"
Fact is, few people I know have a big conversion, start following Christ and keep going. Many of us come on strong, get distracted or disappointed, wander off, wander back, get complacent again, often for years or decades. Then at some point we stop wandering away – we start to move closer, into knowing and being known. Our priorities of how we spend our time, money and love shift, open up. We keep choosing, coming closer. Maybe if we’d sat down and counted the cost, we wouldn’t have done it – but now, whatever cost there is, doesn’t seem like a cost at all. More like a gift.
What are the things that pull you away from God-life? Can you offer those to God and ask the Spirit to help you re-order what counts? Do you want to make this relationship more central in your life? What would that look like?
Know that there is a price, often a hidden one…. and that the reward is worth more than your life.
© 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 does it cost you to publicly identify as a Christ-follower? Does it cause a problem with your job? Your family? Your social circle? Do people think you’re foolish? For most Western Christians, the biggest hurdle to going deeper as disciples of Jesus is to our time and priorities.
In other parts of the world being a Christian can cost you your life or your basic relationships. I once read about a Syrian convert to Christianity who was ostracized by his Muslim family for being too “Western,” even surviving a murder attempt by an uncle, and by the Christians he met as being too “Muslim.” Even people in this country can offend their families and religious traditions when they convert, or be ridiculed and minimized.
Following Jesus was quite dangerous for his immediate disciples. Terrorized by the occupying Romans and oppressed by the temple leaders, the average citizen of Jesus’ place and time did well to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. Leaving your livelihood and family to publicly identify with an itinerant teacher who drew a fair amount of attention, much of it suspicious – this was not a recipe for a quiet life. Those who affiliated with Jesus were risking their comfort, work, family relationships – and often their lives. Hence, in his pep talk to would-be disciples, after telling them how radically they need to reorder their priorities if they’re going to follow him, Jesus gives an example:
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, `This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'”
Relationship might be a better analogy for us than architecture. What if we translated Jesus’ example: “Who of you, intending to commit to a relationship, does not first sit down and assess feelings, compatibility, chemistry, to see whether there’s enough to engage it? Otherwise, when you’ve told all your friends “This is the one!’ and then you break up, all who see it will begin to ridicule you, saying, ‘They started hot, but sure flickered out in a hurry!’"
Fact is, few people I know have a big conversion, start following Christ and keep going. Many of us come on strong, get distracted or disappointed, wander off, wander back, get complacent again, often for years or decades. Then at some point we stop wandering away – we start to move closer, into knowing and being known. Our priorities of how we spend our time, money and love shift, open up. We keep choosing, coming closer. Maybe if we’d sat down and counted the cost, we wouldn’t have done it – but now, whatever cost there is, doesn’t seem like a cost at all. More like a gift.
What are the things that pull you away from God-life? Can you offer those to God and ask the Spirit to help you re-order what counts? Do you want to make this relationship more central in your life? What would that look like?
Know that there is a price, often a hidden one…. and that the reward is worth more than your life.
© 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.
10-18-24 - Ransomed
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many Christians these days challenge traditional doctrines of the Atonement, those various ways of articulating how Christ’s death on the cross effected salvation for humankind. Some reject the idea that humanity needed saving; others are put off by the notion that our God of love could be so wrathful as to require an atoning sacrifice to meet the demands of his justice, let alone the sacrifice of his own son. Ideas that Christians have prayed, confessed, preached and sung about for centuries are now in the trash bin.
This is more than I can address in a short spiritual reflection. I raise it simply because of the last thing Jesus said in his discourse to his disciples about service and humble leadership: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” If we wonder why theories of atonement developed at all, that line about giving his life as a ransom is one reason. That tells us something about how Jesus saw his mission and impending passion. It suggests that “many” are indeed in need of being rescued, saved, liberated, redeemed like an item sitting on a pawn shop shelf.
Whatever you think about sin and sinfulness, however you view your need to be forgiven and saved or not, each of us can relate to the notion of being held hostage to something. Whether we are hostage to our own schedules, to cycles of disease or addiction in family members, the materialism of our culture, the demands of social media, or our own broken patterns of relating to ourselves, to others and to God – each of us can, I believe, appreciate the notion of being ransomed from that bound condition into freedom.
Even if we accept Jesus’ gift only in that light, it is enough to make us profoundly grateful to be ransomed – meaning, someone has paid the ransom so that we can walk out of captivity into the bright sunlight of liberation.
What in your life have you been ransomed from? What do you need freeing from now?
Might you ask Jesus in prayer how his offering of himself unto death and back into new life has provided you a key for the door?
Do you owe a debt to another person you can never repay, perhaps a hurt you caused or joy you stole? Can you accept that Jesus may even have paid that debt for you?
In what ways might we still be sitting in our captivity, even though the door has been opened – because it’s scarier to move out of our patterns of unhealth into the responsibility of freedom?
There’s a beautiful song called Be Ye Glad, with this refrain:
Be ye glad, O be ye glad; every debt that you ever had;
Has been paid up in full by the grace of the Lord; Be ye glad, be ye glad, be ye glad.
We are ransomed. Open the door and step into the Light!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Many Christians these days challenge traditional doctrines of the Atonement, those various ways of articulating how Christ’s death on the cross effected salvation for humankind. Some reject the idea that humanity needed saving; others are put off by the notion that our God of love could be so wrathful as to require an atoning sacrifice to meet the demands of his justice, let alone the sacrifice of his own son. Ideas that Christians have prayed, confessed, preached and sung about for centuries are now in the trash bin.
This is more than I can address in a short spiritual reflection. I raise it simply because of the last thing Jesus said in his discourse to his disciples about service and humble leadership: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” If we wonder why theories of atonement developed at all, that line about giving his life as a ransom is one reason. That tells us something about how Jesus saw his mission and impending passion. It suggests that “many” are indeed in need of being rescued, saved, liberated, redeemed like an item sitting on a pawn shop shelf.
Whatever you think about sin and sinfulness, however you view your need to be forgiven and saved or not, each of us can relate to the notion of being held hostage to something. Whether we are hostage to our own schedules, to cycles of disease or addiction in family members, the materialism of our culture, the demands of social media, or our own broken patterns of relating to ourselves, to others and to God – each of us can, I believe, appreciate the notion of being ransomed from that bound condition into freedom.
Even if we accept Jesus’ gift only in that light, it is enough to make us profoundly grateful to be ransomed – meaning, someone has paid the ransom so that we can walk out of captivity into the bright sunlight of liberation.
What in your life have you been ransomed from? What do you need freeing from now?
Might you ask Jesus in prayer how his offering of himself unto death and back into new life has provided you a key for the door?
Do you owe a debt to another person you can never repay, perhaps a hurt you caused or joy you stole? Can you accept that Jesus may even have paid that debt for you?
In what ways might we still be sitting in our captivity, even though the door has been opened – because it’s scarier to move out of our patterns of unhealth into the responsibility of freedom?
There’s a beautiful song called Be Ye Glad, with this refrain:
Be ye glad, O be ye glad; every debt that you ever had;
Has been paid up in full by the grace of the Lord; Be ye glad, be ye glad, be ye glad.
We are ransomed. Open the door and step into the Light!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
4-19-24 - Freely Offered
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
We are doing the “Being With” course at my churches this Lent and Eastertide. Being With is a 10-week exploration of Christian faith and practice, meeting weekly with a talk and discussion. This past week the topic was the Cross, which gets to the heart of what Jesus’ crucifixion meant and means for us. There are many ways of interpreting this event, depending on which of the four canonical gospels you’re reading and where you sit on the theological spectrum.
There are also no answers to so deep and unsettling a mystery. Did humans operating out of sin and evil kill Jesus? Did God have his own son killed? Was Jesus’ death due to politics, paranoia, personal feuds? Could it have been prevented? Was it simply the inevitable consequence of human choice, or a divine plan?
Perhaps a combination of all of these. Jesus predicted his arrest, death and resurrection often enough that it seems to have been a plan he was enacting. Yet that plan required human beings to make choices that could have gone in other ways. And any notion that Jesus was a passive victim of either human or divine operation is contested by these words attributed to Jesus as he talks about being the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Laying things down, things that we call life, is a constant effort in the life of a Christ-follower. Jesus demonstrated a self-giving love that offered everything, including his life, including separation – if even for a moment – from his Father and the Spirit. Where are we called to sacrifice our comfort or convenience or resources so someone else might have more room to live?
Like many Americans, I am more often in conversations these days about racial reckoning and reconciliation. I’ve heard someone say it’s not enough for those of us born into privilege to say we’re sorry for the historic and current injustice that limits access to the wealth and security we enjoy; we may actually need to get up and out of the chair, to make space for someone who hasn’t had our advantages. That’s a way of laying down of our lives at a high level. There are also smaller scale choices we can make – to lay down our insistence on being right, or knowing better, or having more. What comes to mind for you?
It is our privilege to make a choice to yield our privilege. Like Jesus, we have power to lay down our lives and to take them up again. In fact, when we lay them down, we truly find a richer life to take up. As we lay down those things to which we cling so tightly, we make room for God’s life to expand in us. As we give our life away, we find ourselves living that abundant life Jesus promised.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
We are doing the “Being With” course at my churches this Lent and Eastertide. Being With is a 10-week exploration of Christian faith and practice, meeting weekly with a talk and discussion. This past week the topic was the Cross, which gets to the heart of what Jesus’ crucifixion meant and means for us. There are many ways of interpreting this event, depending on which of the four canonical gospels you’re reading and where you sit on the theological spectrum.
There are also no answers to so deep and unsettling a mystery. Did humans operating out of sin and evil kill Jesus? Did God have his own son killed? Was Jesus’ death due to politics, paranoia, personal feuds? Could it have been prevented? Was it simply the inevitable consequence of human choice, or a divine plan?
Perhaps a combination of all of these. Jesus predicted his arrest, death and resurrection often enough that it seems to have been a plan he was enacting. Yet that plan required human beings to make choices that could have gone in other ways. And any notion that Jesus was a passive victim of either human or divine operation is contested by these words attributed to Jesus as he talks about being the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Laying things down, things that we call life, is a constant effort in the life of a Christ-follower. Jesus demonstrated a self-giving love that offered everything, including his life, including separation – if even for a moment – from his Father and the Spirit. Where are we called to sacrifice our comfort or convenience or resources so someone else might have more room to live?
Like many Americans, I am more often in conversations these days about racial reckoning and reconciliation. I’ve heard someone say it’s not enough for those of us born into privilege to say we’re sorry for the historic and current injustice that limits access to the wealth and security we enjoy; we may actually need to get up and out of the chair, to make space for someone who hasn’t had our advantages. That’s a way of laying down of our lives at a high level. There are also smaller scale choices we can make – to lay down our insistence on being right, or knowing better, or having more. What comes to mind for you?
It is our privilege to make a choice to yield our privilege. Like Jesus, we have power to lay down our lives and to take them up again. In fact, when we lay them down, we truly find a richer life to take up. As we lay down those things to which we cling so tightly, we make room for God’s life to expand in us. As we give our life away, we find ourselves living that abundant life Jesus promised.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
3-15-24 - God's Embrace
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
There is a prayer for mission in the Episcopal rite of Morning Prayer that begins like this: Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace.
It is a lovely thought, to take the brutal image of a man nailed to a cross beam, his arms spread wide, and call it an embrace. Or it’s a horrible thought. Or both. A child once asked me, “Why do they call it Good Friday? How can it be a good day If Jesus died?” We call it “good” because we believe that we are drawn into that saving embrace, whether or not Jesus chose the position of his arms.
And, in part, we believe that because of what he said, at the end of this passage we read on Sunday - “Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die."
By “ruler of this world” he means Satan, the personification of corrupting, life-sapping evil, whose power to tempt humanity away from the love of their Creator gained him authority over this world, this limited, created realm. Satan, not the authorities with whom Jesus so often tangled, was Jesus’ adversary. He was the one from whom humanity needed saving. His weapon of choice has always been death, and Jesus had to put death to death.
In using this language, Jesus anticipated the horror ahead and framed it in the context of his mission in this world, his Father’s mission to reclaim, restore, renew all of creation to wholeness. In being lifted up on that cross, the very picture of powerlessness, Jesus would exercise all the power that created worlds to break “death’s fearful hold.” That’s why the earth shook and the sun was blocked out when he died. Because he’d broken the power of evil and death, once and for all. For all of creation.
This was to be the way God would draw all people back to himself. Yet we know that all people have not come within reach of that saving embrace. Some have come near and chosen not to stay; others have grown up around this tale and never knew it was a love story. And some have never heard, because we haven’t told them.
We are approaching the powerful mysteries of Holy Week, when we tiptoe closer to this awful love story than we really want to. “Did you really have to go through that to save me?” we think. I hope you will choose to walk closely the way of the cross this year, along with your faith community. (Our services on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Good Friday will be online here at 7 pm… you’re welcome to join.)
Jesus' embrace on the cross was wide enough to include people who don’t believe in him, or are hostile to him, or don’t know anything about him. It was wide enough to include those who had him killed, and those who did the killing. It was wide enough to include every enemy, every stranger. And it was wide enough for you and me, even when we allow the things of this world to claim our focus. Can we turn and receive the love God has poured out for us in Christ? Come into that saving embrace and find Life.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
There is a prayer for mission in the Episcopal rite of Morning Prayer that begins like this: Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace.
It is a lovely thought, to take the brutal image of a man nailed to a cross beam, his arms spread wide, and call it an embrace. Or it’s a horrible thought. Or both. A child once asked me, “Why do they call it Good Friday? How can it be a good day If Jesus died?” We call it “good” because we believe that we are drawn into that saving embrace, whether or not Jesus chose the position of his arms.
And, in part, we believe that because of what he said, at the end of this passage we read on Sunday - “Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die."
By “ruler of this world” he means Satan, the personification of corrupting, life-sapping evil, whose power to tempt humanity away from the love of their Creator gained him authority over this world, this limited, created realm. Satan, not the authorities with whom Jesus so often tangled, was Jesus’ adversary. He was the one from whom humanity needed saving. His weapon of choice has always been death, and Jesus had to put death to death.
In using this language, Jesus anticipated the horror ahead and framed it in the context of his mission in this world, his Father’s mission to reclaim, restore, renew all of creation to wholeness. In being lifted up on that cross, the very picture of powerlessness, Jesus would exercise all the power that created worlds to break “death’s fearful hold.” That’s why the earth shook and the sun was blocked out when he died. Because he’d broken the power of evil and death, once and for all. For all of creation.
This was to be the way God would draw all people back to himself. Yet we know that all people have not come within reach of that saving embrace. Some have come near and chosen not to stay; others have grown up around this tale and never knew it was a love story. And some have never heard, because we haven’t told them.
We are approaching the powerful mysteries of Holy Week, when we tiptoe closer to this awful love story than we really want to. “Did you really have to go through that to save me?” we think. I hope you will choose to walk closely the way of the cross this year, along with your faith community. (Our services on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Good Friday will be online here at 7 pm… you’re welcome to join.)
Jesus' embrace on the cross was wide enough to include people who don’t believe in him, or are hostile to him, or don’t know anything about him. It was wide enough to include those who had him killed, and those who did the killing. It was wide enough to include every enemy, every stranger. And it was wide enough for you and me, even when we allow the things of this world to claim our focus. Can we turn and receive the love God has poured out for us in Christ? Come into that saving embrace and find Life.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
10-4-23 - The Son
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many religious traditions revere figures who received a revelation which inspired that expression of spiritual life. Some have prophets, some gurus, some gods or goddesses, some martyrs. The Christian tradition goes further, claiming that, in addition to prophetic and angelic messengers, God sent his own son to reveal his truth and to set people free from the consequences of sin and death.
If an important person sends her daughter or son to represent her, it carries more weight than if an aide or staffer shows up. A daughter or son is more like that person, bearing her very DNA. The claim that Jesus of Nazareth was not only a good and holy man chosen by God as Messiah, but actually the incarnated son of God is a pretty big claim.
Why does it matter that we consider Jesus the fully human, fully divine Son of God? Jesus' incarnation is a gift for many reasons, an indication of how far God was willing to go to bridge the chasm to humankind. But perhaps it is in his sacrifice on the cross that the son-ship of Jesus matters most. As the sacrifice to end the whole bloody system of sacrifice, God offers the ultimate victim. As a friend once said, trying to explain the Cross – “You can’t get a bigger sacrificial victim than the Son of God.”
We can discuss another day whether Jesus had to die and how his sacrifice set us free… traditional Christian understanding says he did and it does; we must each find our way into that mystery. Today, let’s explore a smaller mystery – that in this parable, this very Son of God tells a story about a fictional son who will be beaten and killed by those charged with nurturing the harvest with which they’d been entrusted. Once again, Jesus is predicting his own death – and charging his listeners with murder. If they hadn’t already wanted to kill him, now they surely did.
In Jesus’ story, the wicked tenants seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard and kill him. Jesus was himself cast out by the temple leadership who could not swallow his claims of divinity – or his growing influence. They told themselves they were just getting rid of yet another troublemaker, not the Son of God. And yet Jesus’ son-ship remained a fact they had to deal with – even more after his death.
How does Jesus’ “son-ship” affect your faith? Do you feel closer to God through knowing Jesus, however imperfectly we may know him in this life?
These are questions worth exploring as we live into a relationship with God through the Son whom we meet in Yeshua of Nazareth. They are worth exploring in prayer – we can say simply, “Jesus, I want to know God more fully. Let me see you," and see what unfolds.
How does knowing Jesus help us draw nearer the mystery of God? Jesus told his followers that if they’d seen him, they’d seen the Father. The best way to find out is to invite the Holy Spirit to dwell with us. It is the Spirit who brings us the presence of Christ, every time.
Many religious traditions revere figures who received a revelation which inspired that expression of spiritual life. Some have prophets, some gurus, some gods or goddesses, some martyrs. The Christian tradition goes further, claiming that, in addition to prophetic and angelic messengers, God sent his own son to reveal his truth and to set people free from the consequences of sin and death.
If an important person sends her daughter or son to represent her, it carries more weight than if an aide or staffer shows up. A daughter or son is more like that person, bearing her very DNA. The claim that Jesus of Nazareth was not only a good and holy man chosen by God as Messiah, but actually the incarnated son of God is a pretty big claim.
Why does it matter that we consider Jesus the fully human, fully divine Son of God? Jesus' incarnation is a gift for many reasons, an indication of how far God was willing to go to bridge the chasm to humankind. But perhaps it is in his sacrifice on the cross that the son-ship of Jesus matters most. As the sacrifice to end the whole bloody system of sacrifice, God offers the ultimate victim. As a friend once said, trying to explain the Cross – “You can’t get a bigger sacrificial victim than the Son of God.”
We can discuss another day whether Jesus had to die and how his sacrifice set us free… traditional Christian understanding says he did and it does; we must each find our way into that mystery. Today, let’s explore a smaller mystery – that in this parable, this very Son of God tells a story about a fictional son who will be beaten and killed by those charged with nurturing the harvest with which they’d been entrusted. Once again, Jesus is predicting his own death – and charging his listeners with murder. If they hadn’t already wanted to kill him, now they surely did.
In Jesus’ story, the wicked tenants seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard and kill him. Jesus was himself cast out by the temple leadership who could not swallow his claims of divinity – or his growing influence. They told themselves they were just getting rid of yet another troublemaker, not the Son of God. And yet Jesus’ son-ship remained a fact they had to deal with – even more after his death.
How does Jesus’ “son-ship” affect your faith? Do you feel closer to God through knowing Jesus, however imperfectly we may know him in this life?
These are questions worth exploring as we live into a relationship with God through the Son whom we meet in Yeshua of Nazareth. They are worth exploring in prayer – we can say simply, “Jesus, I want to know God more fully. Let me see you," and see what unfolds.
How does knowing Jesus help us draw nearer the mystery of God? Jesus told his followers that if they’d seen him, they’d seen the Father. The best way to find out is to invite the Holy Spirit to dwell with us. It is the Spirit who brings us the presence of Christ, every time.
3-3-23 - God So Loved
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
If you ever had to memorize bible verses in Sunday School, chances are you can recite this one, John 3:16, favored by sports fans and poster-makers:
If you ever had to memorize bible verses in Sunday School, chances are you can recite this one, John 3:16, favored by sports fans and poster-makers:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
This verse can evoke mixed emotions. It is a marvelous expression of God’s love for the world, a love so extravagant God willingly gave up his only son to save it. And it makes an extravagant promise – eternal life for those who believe in God’s only son. How we respond to this promise has everything to do with how much we feel the world is in need of saving, and how we feel about the “perishing” part.
For most of the Christian era, it has been generally accepted that people were lost in sin, for which the legitimate penalty was death without chance of pardon; and that God had designed a remedy to meet the demands of that penalty in such a way that we could be spared it – by having his own son, the only perfect sacrifice, take on that death sentence for us. Theologians calls this “substitutionary atonement,” Jesus taking our place. Such a reading of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is supported by this passage. Jesus says, straight out, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
I cannot debate here the thorny question of whether humankind needed saving, or if God really ordained death as the punishment for sin. I will assert that a God who desires not to condemn but to save is a God worthy of our worship and trust. Condemnation lies at the heart of human sinfulness; our tendency to judge and condemn other people and ourselves is one of the most corrosive attributes human beings share. And so one of the most powerful verses in the New Testament for me is Paul’s declaration, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)
To be reminded that Jesus himself said God is not interested in condemning anyone is a crucial corrective to centuries of judgmental, condemnatory, narrowly legalistic, rule-based teaching by the church. Condemnation is a reflection of our sinful nature; gracious love is a reflection of God’s nature, and ours as creatures made and redeemed in the image of our extravagant God.
Is there any pattern or behavior in your life for which you continually condemn yourself? Are there other people, individuals or categories, whom you routinely find yourself condemning? Perhaps today we might bring those people and patterns into the light in prayer, asking God to show us how God’s love might lift from us the burden of condemnation – whether we’re the condemned or the condemner. What strategies might you devise to become more aware of the action of condemnation in your life? Where might you invite the winds of the Holy Spirit to blow you into greater freedom and acceptance, of yourself and others?
“For God so loved the world…” Might we ask to be so filled with that gracious love that we find ourselves loving the world in God’s name? When all is love, we need not speak of perishing and saving, only of Life everlasting.
This verse can evoke mixed emotions. It is a marvelous expression of God’s love for the world, a love so extravagant God willingly gave up his only son to save it. And it makes an extravagant promise – eternal life for those who believe in God’s only son. How we respond to this promise has everything to do with how much we feel the world is in need of saving, and how we feel about the “perishing” part.
For most of the Christian era, it has been generally accepted that people were lost in sin, for which the legitimate penalty was death without chance of pardon; and that God had designed a remedy to meet the demands of that penalty in such a way that we could be spared it – by having his own son, the only perfect sacrifice, take on that death sentence for us. Theologians calls this “substitutionary atonement,” Jesus taking our place. Such a reading of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is supported by this passage. Jesus says, straight out, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
I cannot debate here the thorny question of whether humankind needed saving, or if God really ordained death as the punishment for sin. I will assert that a God who desires not to condemn but to save is a God worthy of our worship and trust. Condemnation lies at the heart of human sinfulness; our tendency to judge and condemn other people and ourselves is one of the most corrosive attributes human beings share. And so one of the most powerful verses in the New Testament for me is Paul’s declaration, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)
To be reminded that Jesus himself said God is not interested in condemning anyone is a crucial corrective to centuries of judgmental, condemnatory, narrowly legalistic, rule-based teaching by the church. Condemnation is a reflection of our sinful nature; gracious love is a reflection of God’s nature, and ours as creatures made and redeemed in the image of our extravagant God.
Is there any pattern or behavior in your life for which you continually condemn yourself? Are there other people, individuals or categories, whom you routinely find yourself condemning? Perhaps today we might bring those people and patterns into the light in prayer, asking God to show us how God’s love might lift from us the burden of condemnation – whether we’re the condemned or the condemner. What strategies might you devise to become more aware of the action of condemnation in your life? Where might you invite the winds of the Holy Spirit to blow you into greater freedom and acceptance, of yourself and others?
“For God so loved the world…” Might we ask to be so filled with that gracious love that we find ourselves loving the world in God’s name? When all is love, we need not speak of perishing and saving, only of Life everlasting.
1-25-23 - A Stumbling Block?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
If you were to invent a religion, you probably wouldn’t want to make it as unfathomable and sometimes unpalatable as Christianity. You wouldn’t insist that God is three persons and yet one. You wouldn’t assert that God became human for a time, yet remained fully God and fully man, full of divine power yet completely vulnerable. And you certainly wouldn’t orient your worship around a story about that God-man being executed by crucifixion, a death reserved for criminals and insurrectionists.
Yet, as the early church proclaimed the Life of God revealed in Jesus Christ, that story became most central. In all four gospels the narrative slows and zooms in for more detail when it comes to Jesus’ passion and death, which occupy more chapters than other incidents. The Gospel of John sees the cross as the place where the Son of God is glorified. Yet this emphasis on the Cross also caused trouble for the early Christ-followers – as it does for many today.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
The idea of a crucified Messiah was anathema to many of the era’s Jewish people. Many thought it blasphemous to claim that Jesus had a special relationship with God, or was God; others were appalled to think that God would send a Messiah to deliver his people from oppression, only to allow the oppressors to kill that man on a cross. The idea that God may have been about a much bigger deliverance than a military one did not compute.
And to many Greeks, so fond of logic and philosophy, the story was ridiculous. They could embrace the notion that the mind of God could be expressed in human form, in the way that a thought becomes a word, but then for that human to live a life of poverty and weakness? That was unlike any god they could conceive.
How does the crucifixion strike you? Can you see the freedom and love in this horrible tale around which we weave our faith? Many Christians turn away from this brutal story, preferring to emphasize Jesus’ wisdom as a teacher, or goodness as a moral exemplar, or power as a worker of miracles. But Jesus was also, perhaps primarily, savior, redeemer. Understanding the Cross as the place where he took upon himself the penalty of all humanity’s sin, and endured the agony not only of human cruelty, but of estrangement from God, helps us to more fully experience God's forgiveness and freedom.*
Can we see in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God?” It takes special vision, the eyes of faith to make sense of this awful paradox. In fact, our minds cannot make sense of it; it’s a mystery that seeps into our hearts through contemplation and worship. Let’s open the cracks.
*You might read The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, I have not yet read it, but it was named Christianity Today’s Book of the Year some years ago, and is authored by the Rev. Fleming Rutledge, whom I have known since my days at Grace Church in New York. It comes highly recommended for those who want to delve more deeply into this mystery.
If you were to invent a religion, you probably wouldn’t want to make it as unfathomable and sometimes unpalatable as Christianity. You wouldn’t insist that God is three persons and yet one. You wouldn’t assert that God became human for a time, yet remained fully God and fully man, full of divine power yet completely vulnerable. And you certainly wouldn’t orient your worship around a story about that God-man being executed by crucifixion, a death reserved for criminals and insurrectionists.
Yet, as the early church proclaimed the Life of God revealed in Jesus Christ, that story became most central. In all four gospels the narrative slows and zooms in for more detail when it comes to Jesus’ passion and death, which occupy more chapters than other incidents. The Gospel of John sees the cross as the place where the Son of God is glorified. Yet this emphasis on the Cross also caused trouble for the early Christ-followers – as it does for many today.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
The idea of a crucified Messiah was anathema to many of the era’s Jewish people. Many thought it blasphemous to claim that Jesus had a special relationship with God, or was God; others were appalled to think that God would send a Messiah to deliver his people from oppression, only to allow the oppressors to kill that man on a cross. The idea that God may have been about a much bigger deliverance than a military one did not compute.
And to many Greeks, so fond of logic and philosophy, the story was ridiculous. They could embrace the notion that the mind of God could be expressed in human form, in the way that a thought becomes a word, but then for that human to live a life of poverty and weakness? That was unlike any god they could conceive.
How does the crucifixion strike you? Can you see the freedom and love in this horrible tale around which we weave our faith? Many Christians turn away from this brutal story, preferring to emphasize Jesus’ wisdom as a teacher, or goodness as a moral exemplar, or power as a worker of miracles. But Jesus was also, perhaps primarily, savior, redeemer. Understanding the Cross as the place where he took upon himself the penalty of all humanity’s sin, and endured the agony not only of human cruelty, but of estrangement from God, helps us to more fully experience God's forgiveness and freedom.*
Can we see in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God?” It takes special vision, the eyes of faith to make sense of this awful paradox. In fact, our minds cannot make sense of it; it’s a mystery that seeps into our hearts through contemplation and worship. Let’s open the cracks.
*You might read The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, I have not yet read it, but it was named Christianity Today’s Book of the Year some years ago, and is authored by the Rev. Fleming Rutledge, whom I have known since my days at Grace Church in New York. It comes highly recommended for those who want to delve more deeply into this mystery.
1-24-23 - The Wisdom of the World
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading is here.
It’s the kind of paragraph for which Paul is famous, and which church lectors struggle to render with clarity: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
If Paul were speaking to us in person, I think he’d use air quotes and vocal inflection to convey sarcasm. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t think much of the “wisdom of the world,” at least not in comparison with the wisdom of God – which, he notes, can look a lot like foolishness to those who think they are wise. Paul skewers those who would dismiss or overlook the inconvenience or the scandal of the Cross.
All through the bible we find a distinction between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of humankind. “For my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8) “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” Jesus says to Peter (Matt 16:23). Paul is on solid ground in regarding the wisdom of the world as a flimsy foundation on which to rest our faith.
It is good for us periodically to examine what our beliefs are resting on. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and Christian claims about his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection are so counter-cultural, there is a constant temptation to explain away, or synthesize core doctrines with more palatable philosophies. Many Episcopalians believe the scriptures to be literature with helpful metaphors, not the inspired Word of God. Many mainline Christians have come to regard the crucifixion as a disturbingly dark idea and are reinterpreting sacrificial understandings of the Cross. And, of course, many Christians choose to ignore altogether Christ’s teachings on wealth and poverty, self-righteousness and mercy. We all need to return to the Gospels at times, asking the Spirit to guide our interpretation.
But how do we distinguish the wisdom of God from the wisdom of the world? Paul was sure he knew which was which. There is no easy answer – but there are processes:
It’s the kind of paragraph for which Paul is famous, and which church lectors struggle to render with clarity: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
If Paul were speaking to us in person, I think he’d use air quotes and vocal inflection to convey sarcasm. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t think much of the “wisdom of the world,” at least not in comparison with the wisdom of God – which, he notes, can look a lot like foolishness to those who think they are wise. Paul skewers those who would dismiss or overlook the inconvenience or the scandal of the Cross.
All through the bible we find a distinction between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of humankind. “For my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8) “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” Jesus says to Peter (Matt 16:23). Paul is on solid ground in regarding the wisdom of the world as a flimsy foundation on which to rest our faith.
It is good for us periodically to examine what our beliefs are resting on. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and Christian claims about his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection are so counter-cultural, there is a constant temptation to explain away, or synthesize core doctrines with more palatable philosophies. Many Episcopalians believe the scriptures to be literature with helpful metaphors, not the inspired Word of God. Many mainline Christians have come to regard the crucifixion as a disturbingly dark idea and are reinterpreting sacrificial understandings of the Cross. And, of course, many Christians choose to ignore altogether Christ’s teachings on wealth and poverty, self-righteousness and mercy. We all need to return to the Gospels at times, asking the Spirit to guide our interpretation.
But how do we distinguish the wisdom of God from the wisdom of the world? Paul was sure he knew which was which. There is no easy answer – but there are processes:
- Hold our beliefs up to the whole Bible – where is there agreement, where is there contradiction?
- Hold our beliefs up to the whole Church, throughout time and space… do our ideas square with the Creeds, the tradition? That’s tricky, for I believe the revelation of the Spirit to be progressive. We have the same scriptures about slavery or women’s roles, but have come to a different understanding by the Spirit. Still, we look for gaps and overlaps.
- Ask the Spirit to let us see by the fruits of one interpretation or another which is correct – does one interpretation lead to condemnation and death, or to life?
In all of this, we must live by the Spirit with generosity of heart, under the supreme law of grace. What we believe and how we believe matter, but in the end it’s how we follow and worship Jesus as Lord that makes known the Life of God. Recognizing how little we know can be the highest exercise of wisdom.
1-23-23 - Foolishness
You can listen to this reflection here.
This coming Sunday, our Gospel reading is “The Beatitudes,” Jesus' core training session for followers. We’ll take a look at that this Friday, but for most of the week, I’d like us to explore Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth.
In this discourse, Paul asserts the primacy of the cross of Jesus Christ, arguing against teachers who held that this doctrine was either unimportant or wrong. Corinth was a commercial city through which trade from many regions passed by land and sea. Its populace was sophisticated, eager to explore every new religious fad and philosophical trend. In a climate that so prized wisdom and knowledge, it could be hard to defend a religion which venerated as divine an itinerant rabbi who had died a criminal’s death on a Roman cross. “We need a good P.R. firm,” thought some Christian leaders, seeking to reframe the central story.
Paul was having none of it: "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
He means that those who see this story as “foolish” prove by their lack of discernment that they are among those who are perishing. In contrast, those who have accepted Jesus’ death on the cross as a saving act can see the power of God evident in what looked like pathetic defeat.
That principle is manifest any time ordinary people confront political power that threatens their freedom. When people work or advocate or march for human rights and democratic principles, it can look like foolishness too. But when enough people come together on an issue, change can happen.
Where do you feel called to stand up for a principle – or for your faith – that others call foolish or weak?
Where might you be called to proclaim your status as a “foolish” Christ-follower?
What weakness might you bring God’s power into?
Paul takes the accusation of “foolishness” and runs with it, reminding his listeners that God was up to something in allowing his Son to die that shameful death, that God irrevocably broke the hold of sin and death in what looked like humiliating defeat. God is still up to something as the freedom Christ won for us is revealed in our lives.
Sometimes we need to get to the end of the story to know just how powerful God’s power really is. But here we are, living both at the end and smack dab in the middle of it, holding to this truth: “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Thanks be to God.
This coming Sunday, our Gospel reading is “The Beatitudes,” Jesus' core training session for followers. We’ll take a look at that this Friday, but for most of the week, I’d like us to explore Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth.
In this discourse, Paul asserts the primacy of the cross of Jesus Christ, arguing against teachers who held that this doctrine was either unimportant or wrong. Corinth was a commercial city through which trade from many regions passed by land and sea. Its populace was sophisticated, eager to explore every new religious fad and philosophical trend. In a climate that so prized wisdom and knowledge, it could be hard to defend a religion which venerated as divine an itinerant rabbi who had died a criminal’s death on a Roman cross. “We need a good P.R. firm,” thought some Christian leaders, seeking to reframe the central story.
Paul was having none of it: "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
He means that those who see this story as “foolish” prove by their lack of discernment that they are among those who are perishing. In contrast, those who have accepted Jesus’ death on the cross as a saving act can see the power of God evident in what looked like pathetic defeat.
That principle is manifest any time ordinary people confront political power that threatens their freedom. When people work or advocate or march for human rights and democratic principles, it can look like foolishness too. But when enough people come together on an issue, change can happen.
Where do you feel called to stand up for a principle – or for your faith – that others call foolish or weak?
Where might you be called to proclaim your status as a “foolish” Christ-follower?
What weakness might you bring God’s power into?
Paul takes the accusation of “foolishness” and runs with it, reminding his listeners that God was up to something in allowing his Son to die that shameful death, that God irrevocably broke the hold of sin and death in what looked like humiliating defeat. God is still up to something as the freedom Christ won for us is revealed in our lives.
Sometimes we need to get to the end of the story to know just how powerful God’s power really is. But here we are, living both at the end and smack dab in the middle of it, holding to this truth: “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Thanks be to God.
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