The First One Ever: Meaning, History, and Theology
"The first one ever, oh ever to know"
- Written
- 1980
- Category
- Hymn
- Tune
- Standard Tune
- Status
- Verified
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Story
The First One Ever is Linda Wilberger Egan’s 1980 hymn and tune BALLAD, built around three Gospel stories of women who recognize and proclaim the work of Jesus. Its stanzas move from Mary at the Annunciation to the Samaritan woman and the women who carry the resurrection news.
Overview
The First One Ever is Linda Wilberger Egan’s 1980 folk-ballad hymn about women who recognize and proclaim decisive moments in the Gospel story. It is not simply a Christmas song. Its three stanzas move from Mary at the Annunciation, to the Samaritan woman’s recognition of Jesus as Messiah, and finally to the women who receive and carry the news of the resurrection.
That structure gives the hymn a distinctive theological focus: Christian witness is shown through people who listen, perceive, believe, and then communicate what they have encountered. The song places women who are already central to the biblical narratives at the center of congregational singing, making discipleship and testimony as important as incarnation or resurrection.
The hymn works especially well in services concerned with women in Scripture, discipleship, vocation, evangelism, Advent or Annunciation themes, the Samaritan woman, and Easter. Its recurring blessing language encourages worshipers to see faith not as passive assent but as a response that becomes testimony.
Historical Background
Linda Wilberger Egan wrote The First One Ever in 1980, not 1976. In an account preserved by United Methodist Discipleship Ministries, Egan explained that the song grew out of the first year of a three-year study of the Gospels. Her particular question was how Jesus related to women and how those women functioned within his ministry. This period coincided with the beginning of the Rev. Elaine Kebba’s ministry at Trinity Episcopal Church in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where Egan was director of music.
The same year, Egan became a musician for the Well Woman Project of the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Venture in Mission program. That project sought liturgical forms attentive to women’s spiritual experience. The Samaritan woman became an important symbol for the project because she listens to Jesus, engages him in theological conversation, recognizes his identity, and then tells her community about him. This context helps explain why Egan’s hymn is organized around women as perceivers and witnesses rather than around a conventional chronological life-of-Christ narrative.
The finished hymn has three stanzas. The first draws on Luke 1:26–38 and Mary’s reception of the annunciation. The second turns to John 4 and the Samaritan woman, who recognizes Jesus’ messianic identity and speaks to her city. The third uses Luke 24:1–11, where Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women receive the resurrection announcement and report it to the apostles. Egan described the song as an unfolding of three Gospel texts she had been studying.
Egan also composed the music, naming the tune BALLAD. Hymnary dates both text and tune to 1980 and identifies the meter as irregular. The tune is modal, commonly printed in E minor, and its folk-ballad idiom reflects a style familiar from the American folk revival. United Methodist commentary also notes Egan’s use of an estampie-like rhythmic idea, giving the melody forward motion appropriate to storytelling.
The earliest hymnal publication located in the consulted sources is The Hymnal 1982, issued in 1985, where the hymn appears as no. 673. It was later included in The United Methodist Hymnal in 1989, A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools in 1992, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s Book of Praise in 1997. Hymnary currently indexes four hymnal instances, indicating meaningful ecumenical transmission but not the very broad circulation of a traditional standard.
Both words and music remain copyrighted. United Methodist Discipleship Ministries gives copyright dates of 1980 and 1983, and Hymnary’s hymnal records identify the 1983 copyright on both text and tune. Under current U.S. law, works created after January 1, 1978 generally remain protected for the author’s life plus seventy years; Philippine law generally provides life plus fifty years. Accordingly, the represented text and tune are not public domain in either screening jurisdiction.
Biblical Foundations
The song’s three narrative movements are directly tied to specific Gospel passages. Luke 1:30–38 provides the Annunciation scene in which Mary receives the promise that she will bear Jesus and responds as the servant of the Lord. Luke 1:45 then supplies a concise biblical blessing on belief, reinforcing the hymn’s repeated movement from revelation to faithful response.
John 4:25–30 gives the central action behind the second stanza. The Samaritan woman speaks of the expected Messiah, Jesus identifies himself to her, and she immediately leaves her water jar to call others to come and see. Her movement from conversation to testimony makes her a particularly strong biblical model of witness.
Luke 24:5–10 provides the third stanza’s resurrection setting. The women at the tomb hear that Jesus has risen, remember his words, and report the news to the apostles. John 20:29 complements the hymn’s blessing motif by declaring blessed those who believe without seeing.
These are documented narrative foundations rather than merely devotional associations: Egan explicitly identified the hymn as an explication of the Gospel texts she had been studying.
Verse Explanation
The hymn has three stanzas, not four. Each follows the same broad pattern: a Gospel woman or group of women recognizes a decisive truth about Jesus, and the stanza then turns that recognition into a blessing on faithful response.
The first stanza centers on Mary and the announcement of Jesus’ birth. The second moves to the Samaritan woman, whose conversation with Jesus leads to recognition and public testimony. The third turns to the women at the empty tomb, who receive the resurrection message and carry it to the disciples.
The sequence expands the hymn’s horizon from incarnation to ministry to resurrection. Rather than concluding with a separate fourth verse, the three-stanza design completes a deliberate progression through three major moments in the Gospel story.
Theological Reflection
The hymn’s most distinctive theological emphasis is witness. Mary, the Samaritan woman, and the women at the tomb do not occupy identical roles, but each receives or recognizes something decisive about Jesus and becomes part of the transmission of that truth. Faith is therefore presented as receptive and active at the same time.
The first stanza places incarnation within vocation. Mary’s role is not reduced to biological motherhood; Luke presents her as one who hears a difficult divine promise and responds in trust. The second stanza shifts from vocation to recognition and proclamation, showing theological conversation leading to public witness. The third brings the pattern to Easter, where women become the first messengers of the resurrection to the apostolic community.
The hymn also challenges habits of reading Scripture that leave women at the edges of salvation history. Egan did not invent these witnesses; she foregrounded roles already present in the Gospel narratives but often less visible in congregational song. That makes the hymn useful for teaching how the church’s sung theology can either obscure or illuminate biblical voices.
Finally, the recurring theme of blessing connects witness with faith. The song does not celebrate being first as a competition for status. Its deeper concern is the spiritual act of perceiving God’s work, trusting it, and making it known.
Church Impact
The First One Ever has a modest but notably ecumenical hymnal history. Hymnary currently indexes four major instances: The Hymnal 1982, The United Methodist Hymnal, A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s Book of Praise. Those appearances brought Egan’s song into Episcopal, Methodist, educational, and Presbyterian settings.
Its significance is less a matter of numerical hymnal saturation than of perspective. The hymn gave congregations a compact way to sing about women as active hearers, interpreters, and witnesses in the Gospel narratives at a time when contemporary hymn writers were increasingly recovering biblical women for congregational song.
The text also resists being confined to one season. Although the opening stanza makes it usable in Advent or Christmas contexts, the Samaritan-woman and resurrection stanzas make discipleship, evangelism, Easter, and women’s witness equally important settings for the hymn.
Musical Notes
Egan composed the tune BALLAD for the text in 1980. Hymnary identifies it as an irregular-meter tune, commonly printed in E minor or described as modal, and records the same composer for both words and music. The text and tune therefore belong together as a single modern hymn conception rather than as a later pairing of independent works.
The musical language draws on the folk-ballad idiom familiar in the 1960s and 1970s. United Methodist commentary notes that Egan also employed an estampie-like dance impulse, which contributes rhythmic energy while preserving a narrative character. That combination allows the song to sound reflective without becoming static.
The first portion of each stanza functions naturally as narrative and can be carried by a soloist or small group, while the blessing-oriented latter portion invites fuller congregational participation. This contrast supports the song’s theological movement from hearing a biblical story to joining its response.
Because BALLAD and the text are both copyrighted modern works, the public-domain status of older folk idioms or medieval forms does not make this particular melody free to reproduce.
Application
- Use the hymn to study how Mary, the Samaritan woman, and the women at the tomb each respond differently to revelation about Jesus.
- Invite worshipers to ask where biblical women have been overlooked in familiar retellings of the Gospel story.
- Connect faith with witness: receiving good news about Christ carries a responsibility to speak, serve, and testify.
- Use the song beyond Christmas, especially with John 4, Easter texts, discipleship themes, and services focused on women in Scripture.
- When teaching the song, distinguish the three Gospel narratives from later devotional assumptions and keep Egan’s documented 1980 study context in view.
Discussion Questions
- Why does Egan organize the hymn around women who recognize or receive important truths about Jesus?
- How do Mary, the Samaritan woman, and the women at the tomb differ in the ways they respond to revelation?
- What changes when the hymn is treated as a discipleship and witness song rather than only as a Christmas hymn?
- How does John 4 portray the Samaritan woman as a theological conversation partner and witness?
- What can congregational song do to recover biblical perspectives that have sometimes been underrepresented in hymnody?
Teaching Tips
- Teach the hymn as a three-stanza Gospel sequence: Annunciation, Samaritan witness, and resurrection witness.
- Correct the composition date to 1980 and explain that Egan wrote both words and music after a year of Gospel study focused on Jesus’ relationships with women.
- Read Luke 1:30–38, John 4:25–30, and Luke 24:5–10 before singing so each stanza’s biblical setting is clear.
- Use a leader or soloist for the narrative portions and invite the congregation to enter strongly at the blessing-oriented response if the musical setting permits.
- Because both text and tune remain copyrighted, use an authorized hymnal or properly licensed worship resource for full reproduction.
Sources
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United Methodist Discipleship Ministries — History of Hymns: The First One Ever, Egan biography, 1980 composition account, Gospel-study context, stanza sources, tune style, and copyright
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Hymnary.org — The First One Ever text authority, 1980 authorship, irregular meter, Scripture indexing, hymnal instances, and copyright restriction
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Hymnary.org — BALLAD tune authority, Linda Wilberger Egan composer credit, 1980 date, modal or E minor setting, incipit, and copyright
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Hymnary.org — The Hymnal 1982 no. 673, Linda Wilberger Egan author and composer credits, BALLAD, 1985 publication, and 1983 copyright notice
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Hymnary.org — Linda Wilberger Egan person authority, standardized name and 1946 birth year
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World English Bible Classic — Luke 1
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World English Bible Classic — John 4
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World English Bible Classic — Luke 24
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World English Bible Classic — John 20
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U.S. Copyright Office — What Is Copyright, current term guidance for works created on or after January 1, 1978
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LawPhil — Republic Act No. 8293, Section 213, Philippine copyright term
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