Sometimes people ask me how I can be a degree-wielding feminist and a Christian. The answer is simple.

Christianity exists because of the faith of women. Jesus might have been a man, but he was like no other, and he knew the value of women.

It goes like this:

On the third day after his crucification, Mary Magdalene discovers his tomb is empty and she raises the alarm. The men (the Deciples), seeing only with their rational mind, look into the empty tomb, and, seeing nothing (in this case, no body), give up and go home.

They had trusted he was The One, but with his murder, hope is lost. The empty tomb means nothing. Thieves and miscreants, most likely. Jesus is dead. What does it matter?

Plus, they have their own problems. If the Romans came for Jesus, as his friends and followers, they might be next.

But Mary stays. She doesn’t give up. She cries, (I love her for her tears – probably hot and angry, like mine when the world is unfair and people steal bodies from tombs or tell someone that they are to blame for their misfortune). She is determined. She asks questions, even from unlikely people. She will not leave until she finds him.

Mary looks again into the tomb. She sees angels. Joy at such a miracle, hope, mixed in with desperation probably sweep through her body, a rush of conflicting emotions. They ask her why she’s crying. She tells them – I can’t find Jesus!

Instead of telling her to Fear Not (as they sensibly have to others) they maintain their otherworldly silence. I imagine that as the fear returns, it arrives with something else. Mary must be annoyed. These are angels for goodness sakes, surely they can explain this!! But they don’t. They just sit there, marking the spot where Jesus last lay.

So she turns, probably grinding her teeth in frustration, and sees someone else just standing there. Like a bump on a log. Doing nothing in the midst of a crisis.

So typical.

Her thoughts were probably all over the place, desperate and supremely frazzled. Why are all these people just standing/sitting around? Don’t they realize that Jesus is gone?

He, too, asks her why she’s crying. Honestly, does she need to explain? Isn’t it obvious?

Her nerves must have been absolutely frayed. And unlike angels, this man will not receive her deference. Anger is coursing through, anger and too many other emotions to name.

This guy is probably nobody, a gardner. He likely has no answers. In fact, he might have even been a party to this monstrous act, this theft of Jesus.

She is a lone woman and accusing a man of stealing a body is probably unwise, but she does it anyway. Because even if no one else will lift a finger, she will leave no stone unturned.

Did you take him? Tell me where to find him and I will take him (no one has to know, she implies).

His response is so simple.

He calls her name.

Mary.

It probably took a heartbeat. Maybe two. Because it is not possible and grief is cruel.

Anyone who has ever lost someone knows the abject finality of death. In those first days, your thoughts are like a clock ticking off each minute since your loved one was alive. This is the first hour. This is the first afternoon – this time yesterday they were still here.

You know the rest of your life will be marked by the passage of time, from minutes to hours to days and months and finally long years of separation.

She tended his body. She is painfully aware that Jesus was well and truly dead. She is under no illusions. He wasn’t in a coma, a half sleep between life and death. Mary held the body of her beloved teacher and knew the counting of the days between what was and what was lost had begun.

Now, improbably, miraculously, he called her name.

For a second she probably thought it was her mind playing tricks on her – wishful thinking common to all who grieve.

But he calls her name.

And within a heartbeat or two, she knows.

I imagine the moment she realized it was no flicker of light, no trick of the mind, no village prank, no shift in the direction of the wind.

The moment she saw and understood – for the first time really – that of all the miracles he had performed, the water to wine, casting out of demons, healing the sick – nothing would ever compare to this.

Jesus was there, standing before her. Breathing in air, calling her name, his skin no longer sallow and cold to the touch but wonderously warm and full of life.

If she leaned in, she would hear his beautiful beating heart where hours before she heard only silence.

The moment grief and fury give way to…joy is too simple a word to encompass the shedding of all doubt in the instant it takes to understand that anything is possible. Anything.

Even the coming back to life of one who was horribly, murderously gone.

Jesus tells this woman of deep faith that he is alive. To go and tell the others.

Oh, to see the look on their faces when she tells them! We know at least one of the Deciples had to see it to believe it.

Also typical.

No matter. Jesus knew they would act this way. But he does it anyway – Mary is the First Evangelist and becomes the Evangelist to the Disciples.

She teaches them:

In Jesus, death is not final. Life has no end. Hope lives.

This is why I can follow Jesus. When you look closely, you understand that he Got It. Women stay and do the hard work. We declare hope when others give up and go home.

This is entirely compatible with the belief that women are of equal importance in the world. Jesus always knew this and he broke down immense cultural barriers to prove it.

Thank you to all the amazing women preachers, pastors, and keepers of the faith who, like Mary Magdalene, share the Good News that hope lives ❤️