CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 6, 2023 – God uses all manner of things to hook us; he baits the hook, we bite the bait, and he reels us in.

We have our own hooks, too. God made me a woman. He made me a woman for a reason, for his reason.

Jesus showed his love for women during his time on Earth. We don’t have go over again how he chose a woman (Mary Magdalene) to reveal his resurrection to. We don’t have to go over it again, but we will, because it’s important.

As a woman speaking up in God’s Church, I have experienced that the very fact of my being a woman is all it takes for some people to shut down and disregard me. I’ve even on occasion had people tell me to shut up, to not presume to be able to teach men, to know my place.

Oh, I know my place all right – it’s right here following behind Jesus, following his lead, just like everyone else who’s born-again, whether male or female.

In God’s Church, there is no male or female. We’re just his children. That’s our pedigree: children of God. In time and space, there’s male and female, Greek and Roman, rich and poor, Black and White, old and young. But in God’s Kingdom and in God’s economy none of those characteristics exist: We’re all the same.

It’s important to remember that Jesus chose a woman to reveal his resurrection to because the fact is that he did choose a woman. It’s also important to remember that whatever Jesus did, he did for a reason, he did because God guided him to do it. God guided Jesus to do everything he did. Now, I don’t think that Jesus chose a woman to reveal his resurrection to because he wanted to elevate women above men, as some people think – no, I don’t believe that at all. I think he chose a woman to reveal his resurrection to in order to elevate her to the stature of a man, which was unheard of in those days. He wanted to make the witness of a woman as credible and valued as that of a man.

He was also using her to test the disciples. She was the hook, and her sex was the bait.

Jesus had made a point of defending and elevating women throughout his ministry years. Where in some cases even his disciples wanted to condemn, Jesus defended. It was in fact Jesus’ defence of Mary’s anointing him with oil of nard that was the straw that broke Judas Iscariot and led directly to his betrayal of Jesus. This is how deeply entrenched the devaluation of women was, even within the disciples’ ranks. Jesus elevated Mary to the stature of a prophet, and this was too much for some of the men present. For some today, it still is

A hook is something that lures and entices. It’s meant to be bitten; you’re meant to be caught on it. It’s baited in God’s case with holy bait. If God is baiting you, whatever he’s baiting you with is holy, whatever he’s luring you with is holy, whatever he’s enticing you with is holy. His Bible is holy bait. Jesus is holy bait. All of God’s prophets are holy bait, all on their own unique hooks so that they not only lure but catch. The bait lures, the hook catches.

I am a woman. To anyone within the Kingdom, the fact of my being a woman shouldn’t matter, any more than my color or my wealth or my age or my nationality. All that should matter to someone in the Kingdom is that I’m a child of God and a follower of Jesus. That is my pedigree. Nothing else matters.

To the world, God uses the fact of my womanhood as bait.

I am the holy bait luring the unholy to God.