Cover photo courtesy of freebibleimages.org.
(Continued from part I, “Good Soil Mary, Busy Soil Martha”; translations taken from the CSB)
Knowing God can and does overcome our inbred idolatry should encourage the trepid. John 12:1–8 preserves a story for us mirroring that of Luke 10:38–42. Once again, Martha is serving Jesus and co. Once more, Mary finds her familiar place at Jesus’ feet, leaving off helping her sister. One more time, Jesus extols Mary’s conduct. Only this time, no word can be heard of Christ chastening Martha.
What gives? Perhaps Jesus won’t bother repeating himself. I explained myself clearly the first time. I needn’t tell her the same now. Likely not. Maybe he’s preoccupied extolling Mary’s solitary belief in his looming death, the point drawn out in the parallel passages of Matthew and Mark: “Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” (Matt 26:13; Mark 14:9) Possibly, Jesus is too busy propounding the truth that he matters more than the poor—more than everyone else, for that matter.
Contrary to the above suggestions, I believe something else is up in Jesus’ silence towards Martha. Matthew (26:6–13) and Mark (14:3–8) pass over the names John gives in this story. (Luke 7:36–50 is an entirely different occasion much earlier in Jesus’ ministry.) Plausibly, the meal occurred at the house of Simon the Leper (so Matthew and Mark); for John, the three siblings Lazarus, Martha, and Mary were center-stage in light of John ch. 11. Writing years after Mark and Matthew, John clarifies the participants in a way Matthew and Mark do not. Jesus’ claim that the testimony of this woman would travel ‘round the world with the gospel had come true. John 11:2 explains that “Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair,” even before he tells the story in ch. 12, assuming the readers’ familiarity. But by giving us the names of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary in ch. 12, John gives a gift to the observant. I’d like to think that Jesus quietly glancing over Martha’s service in John 12:2 tacitly affirms her.
The chronological arch from Luke 10 to John 12 climaxes for Martha in John 11. What happens there? Lazarus dies for the glory of God, to the glory of God the Son (John 11:4). John incredibly narrates, “Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.” (11:5; note that Jesus leaving Lazarus to die is not contrary to his love for them). But why front Martha and background Mary as “her sister” when he says he loved them (compare 11:1, 3, 36)? The reason for fronting Martha and Christ’s love for her is to foreground her confession: “25 Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 27 ‘Yes, Lord,’ she told him, ‘I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.’” (John 11:25–27) Her shimmering confession rivals Peter’s (Matt 16:16–17). The testimony is simple and profound—life-giving, in fact. When Martha wavers, Jesus summons her once again to believe and see God’s glory (11:40). Jesus loved her enough to tell her that his word to her mattered more than her serving him (Luke 10:42). Now he loves her too much to leave her in her unbelief. So believe she does, for the glory of God, to the glory of the God the Son (John 11:4–5, 27, 40).
When we come full circle to John 12:1–8, first tracing the steps from Luke 10 to John 11 and comparing the accounts of Matthew 26 and Mark 14, a new detail emerges from the trail. What seems to be a throw-away line in John 12:2 turns out to have massive import: “Martha was serving them”. And Jesus does not correct her. Notice how this time, Martha’s service forms the background of the story. What is all this but Jesus transforming Martha through his gospel addressed to her? What is the outcome but Martha doing what she did best all along (serving), but now with better motives (belief in Christ) for the best of causes (the glory of God)? Jesus says nothing now, yet he has made all things new.
Martha makes me hopeful. She demonstrates with her life what Paul commands with apostolic authority in 1 Cor 7:17 (and in 7:20, 24): “Let each one live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him. This is what I command in all the churches.” Jesus never meant to stop Martha from serving him. By correcting her as he calls her, Christ assigns her to serve to her fullest capacity. Now she can evidence the true gospel sown in her heart by bearing good fruit. Even as he rebukes your life lived to self (despite its seeming yet false service to God), the sovereign king, Jesus, reassigns you to live for him (Romans 6: 11; 1 Cor 10:31). Stunningly enough, that normally doesn’t mean a new job. It means a new motive, a new standard, a new creation, and above all, a new boss.
~ Carpe Deum! ‘Grasp God!’
Carpe Deum 
Leave a comment