Saint Martha
Recently, I was approached about an opportunity to step into a new job that I have been slowly led towards for some years. Although I had not seen a door opening with this particular place, God made other plans, and for a few months, I was discerning the position of Executive Director at the Martha Retreat Centre. The centre, which was founded by the Sisters of Saint Martha of Antigonish, is a place set aside for rest, stillness, and contemplation. You may be wondering how a centre about these things is birthed from an order committed to this hard-working, but busy and anxious saint of Luke 10. I wondered that as I took time to consider the centre’s patron saint.
As I was discerning the position, I found myself leaning into the history of Martha herself and found her impact growing within me. I have to admit that my perspective of her has not always been positive. Her sister Mary choosing “the best part” always ringing in my ears. Yet, this isn’t her whole story. As my wife wisely says about our children, “they get their whole lives to work out their faith.” Martha’s story within the narrative of Scripture is transformative and beautiful, not to mention the stories of her within the tradition. For some, she is now known as Saint Martha the Dragon Slayer! That will be for another time.
Further meditation on the life of this saint came a few weeks ago, when I was asked to preach on the fifth Sunday of Lent, also known as Passion Sunday. At that point, we had spent four weeks walking the wilderness with Christ, but then on Passion Sunday, we are meant to shift our attention to Christ’s journey to the cross. Usually, when we consider that shift of perspective, we want to look at a passage about the crucifixion, or something explicitly related to the last days of Christ. At the same time, what we know about Holy Scripture is that it all has a cruciform shape to it. The cross is never a distant memory, even within Eastertide. We never leave the cross behind, but sink further into the joy of its salvation.
Everything leads us to, helps us understand, causes us to experience, or provides for us through the cross. The cross of Christ sits at the centre of human existence. It was foreshadowed in the garden with the tree of life and revered in the supper of the lamb in the book of Revelation. From first to last, we never escape the cross. We never move beyond, only further in. It is how we live. It is vital to the perfect revelation of God and the perfect revelation of human potential. It is Christ crucified that is all in all. (end mini sermon)
So, as we arrived at Passion Sunday and I saw that our primary gospel text was the death and raising of Lazarus, I admit that my first thought was not of the crucifixion. Yet, as I meditated on it throughout the week, I caught the shift of perspective this story becomes for those who have eyes to see. Through watching Martha’s interaction with Jesus, I could see how Jesus seeks to shift our perspective on life, death, and faith within this fallen world, even before his crucifixion.
The passage itself is full of riches and begins to show us a new version of Martha, even from the first few verses. At the beginning of the chapter, we see that Jesus is told that his friend Lazarus is sick and dying, but his response is that this will not end with death but with God’s glory and his glorification. Later, he says that Lazarus has fallen asleep, and he must go to wake him. In verse 15, speaking to his disciples, he says, “and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.”
There is much to consider there, but before touching on that further, there is one other verse to hold with it, which is verse 5, which says, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” These two verses are key to understanding this story because, when we hold them together, they reveal that everything Jesus did was out of love for Martha, Mary, Lazarus, and his disciples. His delay in going to see Lazarus, choosing not to go to them right away, was purposeful, and for the sake of all.
Although it can be difficult to understand that he was capable of acting on everyone’s behalf at once, that is exactly what we’re seeing. Jesus did not only act out of a desire for the glory of God, as if what happened to others didn’t matter. Nor was he ok with letting suffering befall Lazarus because it would help his disciples. No, that isn’t what the Scriptures teach us. Instead, Jesus was and is able to act in the best interest of all parties present at the same time. In this situation, God was glorified, the glory of the Son was revealed, his disciples were encouraged in their faith, and he lovingly acted on his friend’s behalf. Consider that again. By allowing this suffering to befall Lazarus, our Lord loved Lazarus, Martha, and Mary in the way that was best for them. It was because of his love for them that he first kept his distance.
Before Christ is found in the Garden of Gethsemane. Before he is beaten, mocked, and ridiculed. Before the abandonment of his friends. Before he is crucified. Before his death, he taught that suffering is not the antithesis to God’s purposes for us, nor an absence of love. Instead, it can be, and often is, the reality of love in action.
So, what about Martha? What does this teach us about her? To see that, we are going to focus our attention on what happens before the more famous moments. Before Jesus weeps, before Lazarus is raised, there is a conversation between Jesus and his beloved friend Martha.
The words between these beloved friends are striking, and we can see in this conversation that Martha is not what we once knew. When possible, pay attention to the transformation of less obvious characters in Scripture. Nicodemus is another great example. He begins in the shadows, afraid of what people will think about him if they see him talking to Jesus. Then he argues with his colleagues against judging Jesus until he has been properly heard, and, after Jesus’ death, he brings spices for Jesus’ burial and helps prepare Jesus’ body. Nicodemus’ arch is meant to give us hope. Martha’s is the same.
The first time we see Martha is in Luke’s gospel, where she asks Jesus to scold her sister Mary for not helping her serve, but Jesus gives a loving and striking rebuke, saying that Mary has chosen “the best part.” If this were the final moment we hear of Martha, we would be left with only this picture of her. Her story would be a story of warning, but that isn’t her final scene, and the way John depicts her is as a woman being remade.
At the beginning of the chapter, John references a story that he has not yet written about. He writes that Mary is the one who anoints Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair, which happens in the next chapter, chapter 12. So, this must be a story everyone would know. Otherwise, his reference would make no sense. What I mean is, people know the specialness of Mary, and she is once again being depicted in this special way. It is true, she is a saint, and there is much about her we should seek to understand and live out, but notice verse 5 again. John has written it in a way that could then seem strange if we think of these sister saints as opposites. When explaining Jesus’ love for these siblings, John makes note of Martha first.
The verse itself is considered by scholars and bible translators as a parenthetical statement. Meaning, it’s something John felt was necessary to add to the thoughts around it to make clear Jesus’ intentions and feelings. It was specifically for context. John wanted us to have the context of Jesus’ love for Martha. It seems to me that no matter how we read the story of Mary and Martha and the better part, we cannot conclude that Jesus showed preference to Mary because of her choice. His love for Mary was equalled by his love for Martha, and John wants us to know it.
Knowing that, our passage reads differently. We are being let in on a loving conversation between friends who are in grief. Martha’s words are from a loving friend, who is full of faith, not a busybody that wants control and is angry that she isn’t getting her way.
So, let’s go back to their conversation to consider this further.
We may notice right away that our passage holds to one part of our perceptions of the sisters’ personalities. When Martha hears of Jesus’ coming, she gets up to do something about it, while Mary remains seated. Here, though, Mary’s remaining is not described as the better part. Instead, Martha’s seeking of Jesus leads to revelation.
I have to admit that after her outburst, calling on Jesus to correct her sister, I expected a condescending or annoyed conversation between her and Jesus, but that is not present in Martha’s words. Instead, Martha’s words are a faithful declaration of truth. Yes, her words are full of grief—her brother has just died, but she knows who has authority over death. In Martha, we read what it sounds like when faith and grief are welded together through devastating circumstances.
This is what I saw in Martha’s story for the first time. In the circumstances of life, parts of us get moulded and sometimes hardened. The conversation between Jesus and his friend, Martha, is meant to help us see what so commonly happens when we suffer. You see, Martha comes with faith that Jesus could have kept Lazarus alive, and she was right. She also says that she knows that whatever he asks for now could happen, but what happens next tells us that she doesn’t believe it will. Because Jesus acted differently than she expected and hoped, a gap was created within her faith. Her faith is that he could have healed, and that one day he will, but that in the present, he won’t.
Notice vv 23-25. Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again, but she misses it. Jesus says, “Your brother will rise again,” and she responds with, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
Martha could not see Jesus doing anything today. There was an opportunity in the past, and there will be something in the future, but not now. Everything has gone wrong already. It’s too far gone. She knows he could, but he won’t.
Why is she so sure? Because he didn’t! He could have, but he didn’t.
And then Jesus says these words, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
There is much that could be said about this statement, but I want to point out how this is directed right at Martha’s heart, and ours. C.H. Dodd, a Welsh New Testament scholar, points out that this is actually two separate points Jesus is making in one statement about himself.1 He is the resurrection, and He is the life.
The resurrection is future tense for him and Martha. She is obviously studied and theologically adept enough to know the teaching of the last days, and she believes it, but Jesus is rewriting it for her. The resurrection on the last day is not a thing that happens to us, but a person who meets us. In the last days, Jesus Christ, the resurrection will come to us to bring us into eternal union with Him. He is our future hope. Where Martha’s faith remains intact—her faith that Lazarus will one day be resurrected—is found in Jesus himself. He is the promise, He is the hope, He is the way.
Secondly, and this is where Jesus has come to fill the gap in Martha’s faith. He is the life. That is about today. Not tomorrow, not what could have been, but today. Where her circumstances and grief had cast a shadow on her faith, and understandably so, he who is the light comes and shines upon her to reveal the truth. Jesus is speaking straight to Martha’s heart. He is telling her that he is not only for tomorrow, but he is for today. When all hope is lost, when it seems that there is no way forward, or when we have already been crushed, he is the life. He is for when our hearts can take no more and our pain has crept in, hardening and darkening part of us. Jesus Christ is the life of the world, and he is hope for today. When hope is lost, Jesus gives us life. When sorrow abounds, he draws close and gives life abundantly. (John 10:10)
What he taught, he now enacts. Life for today is available to all who follow him, even through death.
Jesus revealed to us on Good Friday that our suffering and death are not purposeless, nor do they have the final say. Now, because of him, they are but a doorway to life. Christ, the resurrection and the life, has made even death itself bring us into the goodness of life in him. There is nothing that can escape his presence, no suffering that sits outside of him, nor death that separates us from him.
As Martha learned on this day, death is in the hands of her beloved friend, so she, and we, can sing with St. Paul, “O death where is your sting!” (1 Cor. 15:55) this day, and forever.
As I have meditated on the life of this transformed woman, this beloved friend of Christ’s, I have found myself encouraged to be like Martha. Through her life, I am encouraged to follow her example. Whatever state I find myself in, however prominent the grief or pain of my heart, I know where I need to take it. Just as Martha did, I need to take it to Jesus. Martha’s encouragement to us is not to remain alone in our pain, but to bring it to Jesus.
It is only in him and with him that we can escape the darkness of the circumstances of this world. I hope you can hear Martha’s encouragement too. Don’t let shame hold you back. Don’t let pride weigh you down. Get up and walk to Jesus today, holding your broken faith. You can’t fix it, just like Martha couldn’t fix the sorrow of losing Lazarus, but she brought that pain to him. All of her confusion about why Jesus didn’t do it the way she wanted him to, she laid down at his feet, right where her sister had sat before.
Here we see Martha’s transformation. She got it. She grew. She learned. Now it’s our opportunity. Let us follow in her footsteps and lay it all down at Jesus’ feet. Let him reveal himself. Listening to his words, “I am the resurrection and the life.” He is the answer for our future hope and our joy today. Go to him. Let Martha’s example be our guide.
The Gospel of John, New International Commentary on the New Testament, by J. Ramsey Michaels.