Do you ever look at pictures on social media and wish you had the pretty white kitchen, the perfect bookshelves, and the pretty, perfect family to go with them? You want your tablescapes to be worthy of a magazine. You want everyone to rave about your perfectly decorated cupcakes or your spotless new car. And you beat yourself up when your efforts fall short of what you imagined.
Martha understands. Her brother Lazarus has brought home a guest, this man Jesus that everyone is talking about. She wants to give him her best. There sits Mary, not helping with the cleaning and the cooking. Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help, and instead he reprimands her for focusing on the wrong things.
Sometime later, Lazarus died. Jesus comes into town, and Martha runs out to meet him. Mary sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to his teaching, but here he gives Martha a beautiful promise: “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe me?” “Yes, Lord, I believe you are the messiah.” The one God had promised. The one who will save us all from our sins.
She is standing in the street on one of the worst days of her life. Her brother is dead. Not only does her heart hurt from the loss of a brother she loves, but now her very life is precarious; with no one to provide for their welfare, these sisters would be destitute. She believes her brother will be raised to heaven in the future; she doesn’t realize that future is only moments away. In her mind, nothing has changed.
Except that she knows who Jesus is and that God has kept his promise to bring a savior. Mary did it first, but Martha came to understand it, too: we must seek what’s best, Jesus himself.
Pray: Dear God, thank you for your forgiveness, for sending your son to die for my sins. I want to know you more. Help me to seek you in every circumstance. Amen.