The Forward Day by Day Archives

It’s easy to lose sight of some of the most important—and simplest—work we are meant to do as followers of Jesus. In our churches, we can be overwhelmed by the labors of keeping things running, of merely surviving. We can become slavishly devoted to the maintenance of familiar practices. We wo....

This story always fascinates me. We assume that casting the net on the right side is a change, because Jesus specifically tells them to do it that way. Have they been fishing wrong all along? Does Jesus make the fish appear, or have the fish simply been swimming on the other side the entire time, wa....

Easter is, of course, the fulfillment of the first part of Jesus’ teaching here. On this Thursday in Easter Week, we know that Jesus has suffered and has risen from the dead on the third day. That’s what we’re celebrating! But what about the rest of his teaching? Have we done our part? Our tra....

The disciples are not expecting to meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus. It is Easter Day, and Jesus has been raised from the dead only a few hours earlier, and those weary disciples are trying to make sense of reports that seem, literally, unbelievable. And yet, there in the midst of their turmoil, sor....

The Bible is filled with great sermons, and Peter’s in the second chapter of Acts is one of the best. At the end of a very persuasive talk, the crowd is convicted. “What should we do?”

I have been there. Maybe it was a great sermon, an ar....

At graveside burial services, the officiant says these words just before casting earth upon the coffin. So just after I finish saying, “in your right hand are pleasures for evermore,” the funeral director places dirt in my hand to cast onto the coffin. It always struck me as a poignant juxtaposi....

Mary Magdalene is faithfully doing what needs to be done. Having seen Jesus die, she has gone to care for Jesus’ body. It’s perfectly understandable that she would struggle, at first, to grasp the reality that her friend and her Lord has been raised from the dead. Seeing a person who had been de....

We don’t say the Apostles’ Creed as much as we once did, and often these days, it’s spoken in modern language. We miss out on professing our belief that Jesus “descended into hell.” For all kinds of reasons, it’s not an article of faith we think about much these days, and that’s too ba....

Not long before I formally found my way into the Episcopal Church in my adulthood, I wandered into a particular Episcopal parish. The place was full of crucifixes. You couldn’t look anywhere, it seems, without seeing Jesus hanging there—in graphic detail—on the cross. I was a bit scandalized a....

Everything Jesus does is about love. He comes into our world in love. He shows us the perfect love of his Father. He teaches us that the most important thing is to love God, and the second most important thing is to love our neighbors. Jesus loves his disciples. He offers his very life for us in lov....

As we run toward Easter, Lent can seem to drag us down.

Perhaps during Lent we have been thinking a lot about our sins. Sin is anything that weighs us down, anything that separates us from God. It can be easy to dwell on our sins and get stuck there, thinkin....

In older translations, the latter part of this verse reads, “Let me never be put to confusion.” In Joseph Haydn’s Te Deum, which features this verse at the end, the choir sings in mostly the same rhythm, except when they approach the word “confusion.” At that point, each voice ent....

Flower bulbs are popular to plant in early spring. Once the plants are established, they often go through a dramatic cycle with the changes in seasons. In the spring, they sprout and flower. In the summer, after dropping their flowers and seed pods, they bask in the sunlight, collecting resources to....

We have arrived at Palm Sunday and the week when we remember Jesus’ Passion. According to Mark, two days before the Passover, Jesus is anointed with costly oil. Others question why the perfume is not sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus responds: “For you always have the poor with you, an....

Leading music in a church can be a complicated balancing act. A congregation is made up of many different people, and each person has a unique story and particular preferences. Often, the priest has a vision in mind, as does the music director. The question arises: what is the best music for worship....

When the people of Israel are exiled from their homeland, they are quite distressed and hopeless. Nothing is going the way they expected. However, God commands them to make the most of their situation. Rather than live as a defeated people, they are called to build houses and plant gardens. In other....

Today, we remember the Annunciation, the day when the angel Gabriel visited Mary. After this visitation, Mary sings out her joy.

Mary lives under structures intended to keep her as a second-class citizen. She is from a town that is not well-regarded. And as....

In this parable, we have two important characters: the Good Shepherd and the hired hand. As Jesus describes, the hired hand works only for money and nothing else. In a way, the hired hand already has let the wolf of greed come into the fold, letting his fear for his paycheck affect his willingness t....

In this passage, Jesus welcomes an outcast into the fold, and rather than accepting the pronouncements of the religious leaders of the time, he engages with the outcast. Jesus asks questions. Jesus listens.

Every Sunday, we pray for peace. But how can there ....

Jesus spends a good deal of time on a simple message: do not judge others. Often, the people around Jesus pronounce their judgments before anyone gets a chance to speak. Even the gospel narrators provide judgments against groups of people as context for their writings.