This Easter, 2020, will be very different from Easters past. We will not be able to go to church to celebrate the resurrection of Our Lord. We won’t have brunches and ham buffets or Easter egg hunts for the kids. There are no new “Easter outfits” or large family gatherings.
This year, Easter will be quiet. And yet, it doesn’t change the fact that our time of walking with Jesus through Lent is over and the time to celebrate the Risen Lord is upon us.
Everything is Different, Yet Nothing Changes
Whether there are brunches and buffets or not, the celebration of the Risen Lord transcends anything that’s happening here in our world.
As women, we have tremendous power and influence – the right kind of power and influence which is not for personal gain. Rather our power and influence is to witness to Christ to our family and friends.
God could have sent His Son any way He thought best, and yet He chose a woman to be the vehicle.
That same woman, Mary, launched Jesus into public life even after He protested that it wasn’t His time yet. He moved at His mother’s request.
It was a woman, Claudia, who warned her husband, Pontius Pilate, to “have nothing to do with that righteous man.”
The Courage of Strong Women
When all the apostles, save John, ran away (even some denying they knew Jesus), there were women at the foot of the cross. Steadfast, strong – there until the end. They watched the horrors of the crucifixion and they mourned the death of their friend and Mary’s son. They prepared the body for burial.
But there is one whose courage and devotion was so remarkable that the Evangelist who was there indicated the detail that she was “standing.” That woman was the mother of the man on the central cross. Our Blessed Lord willed her presence there. Since he was the second Adam undoing the sin of the first, Mary would be the new Eve proclaiming the new race of the redeemed.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The New Virtues)
Women kept watch at the tomb.
It was women who came to the tomb in the early morning and saw that Jesus was not there.
And women who brought the news of the resurrection to all His followers.
Jesus appeared first to a woman, Mary Magdalene.
Women believed in His resurrection even when men didn’t.
The steadfast love of women is an infinite power for the good.
If you are ever tempted to believe the lie of the world that women are not important in bringing about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, see how the resurrection story would not have been the same without women.
May the example of those women embolden us to be more like them!
With a grateful heart to the heroic, strong, courageous, unwavering, love-filled, and faith-filled women I call my sisters in faith – Happy Easter!
Much Love-
Janet
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