Without hesitation, Martha answers: “Yes, Lord. His directness, piercing through her bewilderment and hurt, necessitates a response.

He honors Martha with one of his seven “I am” statements, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and challenges her, “Do you believe this?” (vv. However, Jesus speaks prophetically about what will happen shortly at Lazarus’s tomb. Thinking eschatologically, Martha parrots a prevailing principle, that “he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (v. Jesus answers Martha, likewise, directly: “Your brother will rise again” (v. Foregoing a greeting, she says-bluntly and perhaps accusingly-“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. Jesus arrives during the mourning period. Jesus remains silent, absent, and mysterious. The sisters must have watched the road ceaselessly, listening acutely. Obviously, Jesus will come quickly! But Jesus delays. Through the sisters’ message, Jesus learns that Lazarus, “the one you love” (John 11:3), is ill. Often called the “Raising of Lazarus” the John passage is better seen as conversations between Jesus and his disciples and, individually, with Martha and Mary (Blessing 2002:399). Martha’s second appearance verifies her importance. Consider, for example, God’s call to Abraham not to lay a hand on Isaac (Genesis 22:11), the call to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3:4), and Jesus’s appearance to Saul on the Damascus road (Acts 9:4). Name repetition, a biblical rarity, denotes emphasis and a divine encounter. 41)-“Martha, Martha…”-presents interesting canonical parallels. It is also important to note that the doubling of Martha’s name (v. However, Jesus’s teaching contains this sincere compliment: Jesus wants Martha’s company more than he wants her splendid meal. Earlier, he had re-ordered the family around himself, declaring that whoever does God’s will is “my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mark 3:31–35) and, likewise, the Sabbath, declaring “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8). He thereby continued his pattern of changing established traditions.

Hospitality now includes service to him by doing and listening. Jesus thus re-organizes traditional biblical hospitality around himself. He surprisingly states Mary has chosen “what is better.” Adjudicating Martha’s demand, he decides Mary’s choice “will not be taken away from her” (v. Jesus then recognizes Mary’s different service: listening. He acknowledges Martha’s service to him and others but names a detracting habit: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things” (v. However, Jesus makes it a brilliant teaching moment. Martha ruins her own dinner party! She forces her honored guest to arbitrate a seemingly ongoing squabble: sibling household duties. Interrupting Jesus, she demands, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” (v. Listening to him teach, Mary ignores any responsibility for food preparation as well as traditional norms of gender separation. But Mary sits at Jesus’s feet, enthralled (Luke10:39). Traditional norms of hospitality (established already in Genesis 18) demanded that guests-in this case, Jesus and the dozen or more who accompanied him-be fed, protected, honored, and housed. Among them, he sheds the stress of his ministry’s long hours and its harassment from religious authorities.ĭisplaying an eclectic schedule, Jesus shows up, perhaps unexpectedly.

He loves Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (John 11:5). Jesus chooses to “hang out” with this trio (Honeycutt 2019:10). The family, especially the sisters who entertained a single man, broke the rules (Camille 2007:44–45). It was unusual that siblings lived together none seemed eager to marry. Perhaps Martha was a widow with a large compound able to accommodate many guests.

“Martha opened her home to him” (Luke 10:38) (italics added). An entourage accompanied this itinerant preacher. In the last year of his ministry, Jesus left Galilee and relocated to Judea. The scene is Bethany, a two-mile walk east from Jerusalem. They show a woman of independent thought and bold assertions, one meriting study and shaping theology. Her interactions with Jesus provide added insights on his character. Later, while experiencing her brother’s sudden illness and death and her keen disappointment regarding Jesus’s prolonged absence, Martha declares that Jesus is the Son of God (John 11:27). She, her brother, and sister illustrate the concept of hospitality demonstrated by the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). Image in the public domain, by Google Art Project.īased on Luke 8:1–3, Martha is arguably one of the women of means who supported Jesus and the Twelve, his co-traveling, male disciples. This mid-17th-century painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer depicts Jesus’s visit to the home of Martha and Mary, as described in Luke 10:38–42.

Lazarus song of bethany