Part 25 (1/2)
Lift Your Heart Martha took her complaint about her sister directly to Jesus. Is someone in your life causing you trouble-your daughter, mother, coworker, sister in faith, even a rival? Rather than expressing your grievance to anyone who will listen, take your complaint directly to G.o.d. Tell him everything that's bothering you. Ask him to give you understanding about how to respond to this person, even if it means that you, not she, are the one who needs to change.
Father, you know how difficult it is for me to relate to_ _. Please help me to know what you think of our difficulties. I ask you for the grace to let go of my own sense of hurt and grievance. If you want me to do anything at all to try to improve the situation, please make it clear to me. Help me to be sensitive and obedient to your guidance, I pray.
Mary of Bethany.
HER NAME MAY MEAN.
”Bitterness”
Her Character: Mary appears to have been a single woman, totally devoted to Jesus. The gospel portrays her, by way of contrast with her sister, Martha, as a woman of few words. As Jesus neared the time of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem prior to Pa.s.sover, she performed a gesture of great prophetic significance, one that offended Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus.
Her Sorrow: She wept at the tomb of her brother, Lazarus, and must have experienced great sorrow at the death of Jesus.
Her Joy: To have done something beautiful for Christ.
Key Scriptures: Matthew 26:6 - 13; Mark 14:3 - 9; Luke 10:38 - 42; John 11:1 - 12:11 Monday HER STORY.
Jerusalem was swollen with a hundred thousand wors.h.i.+pers, pilgrims who had come to celebrate the annual Pa.s.sover feast. Every one of them, it seemed, had heard tales of the rabbi Jesus.
”I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't been there,” one man exclaimed. ”I tell you, Lazarus drew his last breath a full four days before the Nazarene ever arrived.”
”My cousin saw the whole thing,” said another. ”According to her, Jesus simply shouted his name and Lazarus came out of the tomb, still bound in his grave clothes.”
”I hear the rabbi is coming to Jerusalem to be crowned king during Pa.s.sover,” said the first man.
”Better if he stayed home,” said another. ”The chief priests say the whole story is nonsense, that Jesus is a rabble-rouser who'll soon have the Romans up in arms against us all.”
The rumors spread quickly, like floodwater spilling over a river-bank. The curious kept chasing after Mary, inquiring about her brother. Had he really been dead four days? Didn't he smell when he came stumbling out of the tomb? What was it like to live in the same house with a ghost? Did he eat and sleep? Could you see straight through him? Did he simply float through the air wherever he went?
She could hardly blame them for their crazy questions. Why shouldn't they be curious about the amazing event that had taken place in Bethany just weeks earlier? How could they know that Lazarus was as normal as any other living man? After all, raising people from the dead wasn't your everyday kind of miracle. These days she felt a rush of joy run through her, like wine overflowing a cup, whenever she looked at Lazarus. Her own flesh and blood had been called out of darkness by a man who was filled with light. How she longed to see Jesus again!
But shadows framed the edges of her happiness. No amount of celebrating could erase the memory of Jesus as he wept that day outside her brother's tomb. Even as others were celebrating the most spectacular miracle imaginable, he seemed strangely quiet. What was he thinking as he gazed at them? she wondered. She wished he would tell her, that she could plumb the secrets of his heart.
When Jesus finally returned to Bethany before the Pa.s.sover, Martha served a feast in his honor. As Jesus was reclining at table with the other guests, Mary entered the room and anointed his head with a pint of expensive perfume. Its fragrance filled the whole house.
The disciple Judas Iscariot, failing to appreciate her gesture, objected strenuously: ”Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.” Though he cared nothing for the dest.i.tute, Judas was the keeper of the common purse, a man always looking for a chance to fatten his own pockets.
But rather than scolding Mary for her extravagance, Jesus praised her, saying: ”Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth, whenever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”
From her first encounter with Christ, Mary seems to have pursued one thing above all-the deepest possible relations.h.i.+p with him. She soaked up his teaching, took his promises to heart, listened for every change of inflection that would yield more clues about him. Love gave her insights that others missed. Somehow, she must have understood that Jesus would not enter Jerusalem to lasting acclaim but to death and dishonor. For a time, the light itself would appear to be smothered by the darkness. While everyone else was busy celebrating Jesus' triumph in raising Lazarus, Mary stood quietly beside him, sharing his grief.
Christ found Mary's extravagant act of adoration a beautiful thing, a.s.suring everyone that she would be remembered forever for the way she lavished herself upon him. Mary of Bethany was a woman unafraid of expressing her love, determined to seek the heart of G.o.d-a prophetess whose gesture speaks eloquently even from a distance of two thousand years.
Tuesday HER LIFE AND TIMES.
THE Pa.s.sOVER.
All able-bodied and ceremonially clean Jewish men, usually accompanied by their families, were required to attend Pa.s.sover in Jerusalem as well as two other major religious feasts, Pentecost and Tabernacles (Exodus 23:17), throughout the year. By New Testament times, with Jews living all around the known world, most devout men attended these feasts when possible, but that was only occasionally.
The Feast of Pa.s.sover took place in Nisan, the first month of the ancient Jewish year, our April. The most significant feast celebrated by the Jews, Pa.s.sover commemorated their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. At that time, Moses had commanded each family to kill an unblemished one-year-old male lamb. He had instructed them to take the blood from the lamb and, using a brush made of hyssop branches, spread the blood on the sides and top of the door frame of each household. When the tenth and last plague came to Egypt, the angel of death entered only those houses without blood on the doorpost and killed the firstborn son in each family. Any home with blood on the doorway was ”pa.s.sed over.”
Jewish families ate the meat of the lamb for their Pa.s.sover supper, sharing with neighbors if the family was too small to finish the lamb alone. The meal also included a salad of bitter herbs as well as unleavened bread (bread made without yeast and hence unrisen). Before Pa.s.sover, the house was thoroughly searched and cleaned to be sure no yeast was in the house to spoil the unleavened bread. This bread reminded the Jews of the haste with which they had to eat their last meal in Egypt before leaving slavery there. Psalms 113 - 118, known as the ”Egyptian Hallel” (or Praise) psalms, were sung before and after the meal.
Often during their history, the Jews neglected to celebrate the Pa.s.sover, as well as many of the other religious feasts G.o.d had inst.i.tuted. The times when the Pa.s.sover was reinstated are mentioned specifically in the Old Testament, and the ignorance of the people regarding the sacred nature of the feast is apparent. Most often, the restoration of the feast came about because of a religious revival (2 Kings 23:21 - 23; 2 Chronicles 30:1; 35:1 - 19; Ezra 6:19 - 22).
The Last Supper Jesus ate with his disciples, on the night that he was betrayed, was the annual Pa.s.sover meal. Jesus gave specific instructions to several of his disciples for preparing this important meal. While he and his disciples reclined at the table, Jesus revealed that one of his twelve disciples would betray him and that he would be crucified. With the words, ”This is my body” and ”This is my blood,” he gave new meaning and significance to the Pa.s.sover lamb. When he was crucified the next day, he himself became the Pa.s.sover Lamb, the Lamb of G.o.d who died in the place of sinners condemned to death.
Wednesday HER LEGACY IN SCRIPTURE.
Read John 11:28 - 44.
1. Do you hear verse 32 as an accusation, a statement of fact, or what? Why?
2. Put yourself in Mary's place. Your brother, who lives with you and supports you, has died. Then Jesus raises him. How do you react?
Read John 11:45 - 12:8.
3. Why do you think Mary made such an extravagant gesture, using perfume worth a year's wages?
4. Could Mary or anybody else at this dinner have predicted that Jesus might be arrested in less than a week? What makes you say that?
5. How can you express your love for Jesus? Where does money fit in, if at all?
Thursday HER PROMISE.
The Old Testament Pa.s.sover lamb was only a shadow of what was to come. As our Pa.s.sover Lamb, Jesus has completely and thoroughly accomplished our redemption from sin. Just as the little lamb died so that the firstborn in the Hebrew families would not die and would go free from Egypt, so Jesus, our Pa.s.sover Lamb, has died so that we can be freed from our slavery to sin.
Promises in Scripture John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ”Look, the Lamb of G.o.d, who takes away the sin of the world!”
-John 1:29 But thanks be to G.o.d that, though you used to be slaves to sin ... you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
-Romans 6:17 - 18 Christ, our Pa.s.sover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
- i Corinthians 5:7 - 8 370 MARY OF BETHANY.
Friday HER LEGACY OF PRAYER.
Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
-Matthew 26:10 Reflect On: Matthew 26:6 - 13.
Praise G.o.d: For giving us the ability to please him.
Offer Thanks: For all the beautiful things G.o.d has done for you.