Mary Magdalene. She is mentioned in the Gospels, by name, more often than the majority of the 12 disciples. Scholars, theologians, and, especially in the last 50 years, feminists have debated who this person was. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, in Jesus Christ Superstar struggled with how to present her. Based upon relatively meager textual data, Mary has been identified, alternately or in combination, as a prostitute, a wealthy woman, a woman possessed demonically, a lover of Jesus, Jesus’ lover, the penitent woman who wept over Jesus’ impending death and who anointed him with her costly oils and perfumes, and even as the sister of Martha and Lazarus. There are just a scad of Mary’s in the Gospels, some additional unnamed women, and …

And … here’s the one thing that the Gospels all seem to agree on: Mary Magdalene was the first person that the risen Christ appeared to. Mary is the one that Jesus spoke to first ,after exiting the garden tomb into which his dead body had been laid. Not Peter. Not James. Not John. Mary. A woman. This woman.

Influential theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza imported Paul Ricoeur’s concept of a “hermenuetics of suspicion” into her feminist work in biblical and historical studies. In short, the idea is that all texts (including biblical ones) are suspect, and a reader should be curious about what agendas were and have been at work in how the stories were told, why they told in the ways they were, and why traditions have chosen certain interpretations of these stories to transmit. Why, one might ask, do the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles go to such pains to emphasize 12 male disciples/apostles? Jesus never attaches any importance to twelve, and in fact the Gospel writers themselves cannot even agree on who the twelve actually were (their lists differ)! Sure, twelve is a useful number–12 tribes of Israel, for example. Also, having the “select” of the Jesus Movement be male helps consolidate patriarchal control of this new faith.

Further, the Holy Week commemorations for centuries have certainly de-emphasized Mary Magdalene, much like our Christmas creches omit Herod. (The one exception regarding Mary is found in what was my favorite-most hymn when I was a child, “In the Garden“–which, in case you didn’t know, is all narrated in Mary Magdalene’s voice!). Instead, an “empty grave” is emphasized, and further action typically shifts quickly to Peter and the guys.

Here’s my own take on Mary: I believe that she actually saw Jesus as he was. I don’t think that she saw him in terms of water-walking and water-into-wine changing and messianism–but as Jesus… someone who said things that touched her heart, someone who didn’t look down on or talk down to her (let alone condemn her), someone who went out and did things that made a difference to those in need, someone who was scared and angry and betrayed and hopeful and loving. She never left his side throughout his crucifixion. She mourned at his graveside. Mary didn’t go into hiding and she didn’t care what people thought about her.

It might well be that, if indeed she was a prostitute, it was easier for her not to have any pretensions about herself (unlike Peter, who insisted he could never deny Jesus…or Judas, who though that his act of betrayal was for the good of the people). And she didn’t have expectations of Jesus and didn’t make demands (who among us will sit at your right hand in time to come, Jesus?) of him. She, above everyone else (including Jesus’ own mother, who at one point though her son had lost his mind!), trusted Jesus; Mary trusted him as he did the Jesus-things that he needed to be doing.

Consider this along with me: Mary created safe space for Jesus during his ministry and in his death, and she is the one who was first and even best able to attest that even death could not stop what he had begun in her new life.