Women in white raiment

by John Lemley

On the other hand, Mary had no worriment about household affairs. She seemed to say, “Now, let us have a division of labor. Martha, you cook, and I’ll sit down and be good.” So you have often seen a great difference between two sisters. Mary is so fond of conversation she has no time to attend to the household welfare. So by this self-appointed arrangement, Mary is in the parlor with Christ, and Martha is in the kitchen. It would have been better if they had divided the work, and then they could have divided the opportunity of listening to Jesus; but Mary monopolizes Christ while Martha swelters at the fire. It was a very important thing that they should have a good dinner that day. Christ was hungry, and He did not often have a luxurious entertainment. Alas! if the duty had devolved upon Mary, what a repast that would have been! But something went wrong in the kitchen. Perhaps the fire would not burn, or the bread would not bake, or Martha scalded her hand, or something was burned black that ought only to have been made brown; and Martha lost her patience, and forgetting the proprieties of the occasion, with besweated brow, and, perhaps with pitcher in one hand and tongs in the other, she rushes out of the kitchen into the presence of Christ, saying, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?”

Now look at Martha, but while you look, do not get out of patience with her. She is cumbered and growing fretful. Her service is getting too much for her, she can not get things done as well as she would like. And being fretful and tired she goes wrong herself. First she is cumbered; the next thing she feels cross with Mary; “Mary is sitting there at the feet of Jesus, and I am so busy getting the supper. What right has she down there when I am so busy?” The third thing she gets cross with Jesus, and she says, “Dost not Thou care that my sister hath left me to serve?” Cumbered in her own spirit, angry with her sister, reflecting upon her Master, and putting the blame on him of her weariness. Dear soul, how she loved and wanted that supper to be all that it ought to be, but she had forgotten that service only was acceptable which was filled up with communion with the Lord.

How tenderly the Lord deals with Martha! There was nothing acrid in His words. He knew that she had almost worked herself to death to get Him something to eat, and so He throws a world of tenderness into His intonation as He seems to say, “My dear woman, do not worry, let the dinner go; sit down on this ottoman beside Mary, your younger sister. Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.” Is there not a volume of love and sympathy expressed in these words? And may not the Marthas of to-day learn wisdom from them and seek in Jesus that Friend who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, “that good part which shall not be taken away?” The Saviour looked with love and pity upon the troubled Martha, for He realized that she was not only cumbered with many cares, but she was also anxious for His personal comfort. He was her Guest. Though the Lord of Glory, He was also man, having human wants. He hungered and thirsted as other men, and it was the duty of these sisters to provide for Him the necessary food. If at the last day it will be a matter of condemnation to any one that he has seen one of Christ’s disciples an hungered or athirst and did not minister unto him, how much more guilty would they be who would suffer Christ Himself to go without food when He was hungry, and that too in their own house!

Martha was right, therefore, in seeing that a suitable meal was prepared for her guests. Her mistake was that she set an undue importance upon the matter. She represents that large class of Marthas which emphasizes fidelity to temporal cares and subordinates the devotional and spiritual. Mary represents that side which magnifies the devotional and spiritual, and which subordinates the temporal and physical things, making them subserve the other. The one is serving Christ in our own way and according to our own zeal; the other is humbly waiting at His feet for direction. Martha must needs get up a great entertainment. She must have a needless variety of dishes, show thereby the skill and resources of her art as a housekeeper. Instead of thinking mainly of what her distinguished Guest might do for her, of the infinite store of blessing that hung upon His lips, she was wholly intent upon what she might do for Him. While thus absorbed and fretted with cares of how she might give her table a more comely appearance, she was losing the heavenly manna which Jesus came to dispense, and which she so much needed for her soul. Not only did she throw away this priceless opportunity of hearing the words of eternal life directly from her Lord, but she was unreasonably vexed at Mary for not being as foolish as herself.

The thoughts and purpose of her heart were as open to Him as were those of the gentle, loving Mary; and while one revealed care and anxiety for the perishing things of this life the other told of perfect love and trust in her adored Lord; of earnest longing for the knowledge of the truth, of deep humility, of self-forgetting devotion, of that quiet courage which fears neither ridicule nor opposition.

There may have been some truth in Martha’s complaint against her sister. Very possibly Mary may have been so absorbed with the “good part” which she had chosen, as to be really negligent of her household duties, and to throw upon Martha burdens which should have been shared equally by the sisters. Had Mary, sitting at the Master’s feet and drinking in the precious doctrine that fell from His lips, been puffed up thereby, and said to Jesus, “Speak to my sister Martha, that she stop her household cares, and come and sit with me in this devout frame of mind,” very likely the rebuke would have fallen in the other direction.

Observe, Jesus did not meet Martha’s words against her sister with a denial, or with an apology. He simply vindicated Mary’s religious integrity, by testifying that she had “chosen the good part.” She was a faithful, humble, loving disciple, and delighted to sit at His feet and receive instruction. That which Jesus calls “that good part” must be of priceless value, a treasure well worth obtaining in this changing, perishing world; for it is to be enduring, “it shall not be taken away.” Like the favored Mary, we may not literally sit at the Master’s feet, yet He is speaking to every humble child of God, in and by His Word. We may choose the world with all its vanities which perish with the using, or we may choose Christ as our portion, both for time and eternity. O! how many troubled Marthas there are in these modern times that need to choose the “good part,” that need to sit humbly at the dear Saviour’s feet, to be nourished by His love, cheered by His council, and approved by the divine “well done!” The lowly life of humble sacrifice is the only life worth living.

The next view we have of this beautiful Bethany home the scene is all changed. The sunshine is all gone out and great clouds of sorrow and distress have rolled into the sky of its happiness. Prosperity has given place to the bitterest adversity, the brightness and gladness are banished, and the sisters are right down under the deepest, darkest shadow of sorrow that ever settled on their home. The well-beloved brother, Lazarus, is ill unto death, and Jesus is far away, and in the very midst of His Peræan ministry. In their distress, the first thought of these sisters was of Jesus. “If He only knew our brother was sick,” they doubtless said one to the other, He would sympathize with us, and at once restore him to health. And so they sent him the simple message, “He whom Thou lovest is sick.”

Our first thought is when the messengers, bearing the sad intelligence, had informed the Lord, He would have at once promptly responded to this cry of help coming from the home where he had been so heartily welcomed and so bountifully entertained. But how different was His reception of the message from what we naturally expected. So far as is known, He did not even return an answer. Could they have been mistaken? Did not Jesus love Martha and her sister, and was not the very message couched in the words, “He whom thou lovest?” Would He dishonor the confidence they had reposed in Him?

For two whole days He continued His Paræan ministry “in the same place where He was.” To us this conduct is most surprising. O, how often the Lord does so with us, even when we cry after Him in our sorrow He does not come. But always right in front of the statement, that He does not come, we have “Jesus loved.” How it added to their sorrow. Lazarus dying, Christ not coming, and at last Lazarus is dead and in the tomb, and yet the Master has not come. Surely the dense gloom of bereavement has settled down over the home, but a little while ago so full of sunshine and beauty.