losingme…

The bulk of commentary on Martha centers on her industrious nature.  It is said that she was worried and distracted by her endless to-do list even to the point of forgetting to spend time with Jesus.  She is often portrayed as someone who kept up on laundry, had organized drawers, and always made her bed.  Mary, on the other hand was the one who let everything go and just sat at the feet of the Savior.  When I look at the surface of the scriptures, and the commentary on these two sisters I end up  frustrated.  Why?  Because while my life looks like Mary, I feel like Martha.  Certainly, it’s true that my bed gets made a little less frequently than most, my drawers are constantly a work in progress and the laundry monster grows as I sit and get lost in the Lord and pondering Him; I have always felt like I never quite get it right and end up falling short of His favor.  And so, I secretly empathized with Martha because it seemed to me that Jesus favored her sister and even rebuked Martha for not being more like her.   My recent survey of Martha has taken me down a different road, one that more accurately reflects the nature of Jesus.

In Luke 10:38-42 we find the infamous passage of scripture where Martha serves Jesus as her sister sits at His feet.  I always looked at this scripture as being all about Martha’s sister and her incomparable awesomeness in her choice to sit at Jesus’ feet.  However, when I further inspected it, this time with an open heart, I found that it isn’t really about Martha’s sister at all.  Verse 38 says that “a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house.”  So this story is about what happened when one woman received Jesus into her house.  That woman is Martha.  Can you imagine it?  The promised Messiah is hanging out at your house!  What do you do?  Tell everyone and have a party?  Make mini meatballs and sweet tea?  I guess that depends on what you believe of the Messiah…

Martha set about making her honored Guest comfortable.  Her focus was on giving Him the best that she had to offer.  While Martha was busy being hostess, her sister was busy receiving everything Jesus had to offer.  Perhaps sensing she was missing out and yet without realizing the emptiness of her efforts, Martha complained to Jesus about her sister’s apparent lack of consideration in not helping.  When Jesus responded to Martha’s indignation in verse 41, you can almost feel the gentleness in His voice as He acknowledged that she was overwhelmed before instructing her in a better way. 

In John 11:1-35 we encounter her once again.  John 11:20 “Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him: but Mary sat still in the house.”  Let’s think for a minute about the condition of Martha’s heart when she went to meet Jesus.  Her brother had just died.  Her heart must have been broken.  However, when she heard that Jesus was coming to town she laid aside her grief, and ran to meet Him.  There is a desperation in her response to the news that the Savior was on His way.  Can you not feel the urgency?   I’m thinking maybe Martha learned something at that last setting which gave birth to both the desperation in her actions and the actions themselves.  She simply had to get to the place that Jesus had said was the better place, His feet.  Upon her arrival she says, verse 21 “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.  But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.”  

Some have said that she came to Him in an accusatory fashion, and I suppose that could be true; but for my part, I think it was something different.  I think she wanted to be the one who chose right this time, and I think she said what she thought was the “right” thing to say.  Here we have a woman who was trying to do the impossible, be righteous.  In fear, she was trying to “do” all the right things instead of just being who she was, where she was.  At the time, she was a woman in mourning, but she didn’t trust Jesus with her brokenness.  Instead, she told Him what she knew.  Now, it should be noted that when you feel like informing God about what you know it is a sure sign that you really don’t know anything.  How did Jesus respond to her untrusting heart?  He introduced her once again to Who He is, John 11:25-26 “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live.  And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.  Believest thou this?”

You know that saying “to know me is to love me?”  Well to know Jesus is to trust Jesus.  That’s the truth.  Martha didn’t know Jesus.  If she knew Him, it would’ve been easy for her to trust Him because He is trustworthy by nature.  Trust is the only way to unity.  Jesus is righteous.  There is no righteousness apart from Him.  So, logically if Martha didn’t trust Jesus, didn’t know Him, what righteousness could she possibly have?  Yes, I am absolutely implying that the there is no hope of righteousness for the untrusting heart.  There is only an appearance of it, that wretched counterfeit, Self Righteousness.  We justify the fits we throw with the cloak of indignation and hurt feelings.  When Martha answered His question “Believest thou this?”  Her answer revealed the true nature of her heart.  She hadn’t even heard Him.  She answered a question He did not ask.  The word “believe” that Jesus used in verses 25-26 is the root word for faith.  It also means to entrust one’s spiritual well being with someone.  So in His response to her He was essentially saying “I am the resurrection and the life; he that entrusts his spiritual well being in me though he were dead, yet shall he live.”  He was asking her if she believed that declaration, if she was willing to entrust her spiritual well being to that declaration.  What did she answer?  “Yes, I believe You are the Christ.”  She was not yet ready to acknowledge her deadness much less trust in Him to bring life to it.  Even now as I write this I begin to think that His resurrection speech was more about her own lifeless, decaying heart than the lifeless, decaying body of her brother that lie in the tomb.  

But she could not see it.  

So he gave her an object lesson– in spite of being warned by her that there would be a stench, Jesus ordered the stone be taken away.  

Then Jesus called Lazarus out and out came “he that was dead,” alive and well!  

After much thought on Martha and a good deal of revelation from God I see that I have been wrong in my judgement concerning Martha.  Like the stories of the Elder Brother and Cain I always openly judged their prideful hearts with great disdain while secretly empathizing with them.  I really believed that God loved Abel more than Cain, that the father loved the Prodigal more than the Elder Brother, and Jesus loved Mary more than Martha.  I see now that I have been wrong. 

As for Martha, I have often wondered how she ended. It could be that she chose to sit comfortably numb, dead in her sins; or perhaps she one day recalled the time when her brother’s lifeless, decomposing body awakened with life at the command of the Son of God.  Perhaps she had a revelation that no matter how long her heart had been dead to Jesus, He could call life into it the moment she allowed the Holy Spirit to take the stone away.  SDG

Psalms 46:10a  “Cease striving and know that I am God”