We have here the account of a godly family living near Jerusalem …Martha (who seemed to run the house), Lazarus her brother, and her sister Mary. We don’t read of the parents so presumably they had died with the family continuing to live in their home.
We first see them as opening their home to the Lord Jesus and presumably His disciples as well, and it was a convenient place for them to call in and rest. This particular day, Martha was bustling around getting a meal ready, but all Mary could do was to sit on a stool at Jesus’ feet listening to His every word. This bothered Martha and she went to Jesus saying, “Lord, tell Mary to come and help get the food ready! “
But Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are fussing about too much….Mary has chosen the best thing by sitting down and listening to what I have to say!” In other words, what you are doing will soon all be gone, but what Mary is doing will last as long as she lives! How often we fuss about things that don’t really matter, and forget the things that do! Let us take stock and make sure we do the things that matter first, and the other things afterwards!
The next time we see the family, food was the last thing on their minds. Lazarus was very ill, and Martha sent a message to Jesus asking Him to come and see if He could do anything for her brother. She was sure that if anyone could he[p, He could. But to her utter dismay, He didn’t come straight away, and Lazarus died. How often our prayers don’t get answered the way we want straight away! But it was through this tardiness of His, that His power could be ultimately shown, and so it is with us too. We often learn more through our prayers being unanswered (as we think), than having our every whim granted. God is not a big Santa Claus in the sky….He always does what is best for us, even though we may not like it at the time. How else can we learn His grace and sufficiency in time of need? “ My grace is sufficient for you”, He says. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
It was through this time of sorrow for the sisters, that they saw His power shown in bringing Lazarus back to life….the greatest miracle of their lives! This proved to both Martha and Mary that He really was, Who He said He was! So it is for us too! Hard times that happen to us during our life time, teach us that God is still there, and that He cares for us, and even though we may not able to make sense of what is happening around us, we can know that He is still with us as He said He would be.
Finally we see the family gathered together with others, and once more it is centred around food, and again Martha is serving and seeing to the meal. But this time Mary is the one who is concerned with giving back to the Lord something of what she has been learning at His feet. She brings out this jar of sweet smelling ointment and rubs it into His feet, weeping while she does it. The disciples watched this with mixed emotions….they had no idea why Mary was doing this, and Judas in particular scornfully said, “What a waste!!”. But the Lord knew Mary’s heart. and He knew that she understood far more than the others, and He knew the real reason for her action. She was sorrowing for the things that were going to happen to Him, and for the pain that lay ahead for all of them.
We can be thankful that He DOES know our motives when others don’t, and He can see the reason we do things for Him when others don’t understand.