Accepting

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

ACCEPTING

John 11:28-32

28 And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. 32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

NIV

There certainly seems to be a difference between how Mary greeted Jesus than Martha. Martha’s greeting was more intellectual and thoughtful as well as expressing her faith in Jesus while Mary simply fell at his feet and as we will see she was weeping. Yes she expressed her faith in him, which if he had been there Lazarus would not have died, just as Martha had, but she fell at his feet. Those sisters were certainly very different. We know from other accounts how Martha was one of those get it done, busy about serving Jesus people, and Mary was just a lazy no good for nothing, as far as Martha was concerned, but Jesus thought otherwise, for Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening intently to his words. Mary was also the one who we saw pour that expensive perfume on the feet of Jesus. Martha was most likely upset over that as well, although we really don’t know that, but getting this picture of the two of them, it would make sense. Martha’s was much different than Mary yet they both believed. Perhaps we should take a lesson from that. We all are certainly different people, all coming from different backgrounds, with different educational backgrounds. Some approach their faith intellectually while others approach their faith as Mary did, falling at the feet of Jesus. Both ways are fine, as we all love Jesus, and express our faith in him. Some are so busy about doing things for Jesus, busy, busy, and busy, almost to a point of making us feel guilty because we are not as busy. They want us to do the next right thing; they want us to feel we should be as busy they as they are, as Martha did to Mary. While others of us simply prefer to sit at the feet of Jesus listening intently to every word. Again both are fine and we need to allow each of us to express our faith as we are moved by the Holy Spirit. Although it is entirely possible our different approaches are simply based on our different personalities and have nothing to do with the Spirit, except the Spirit could move differently within each of us because he knows we are all different, and that is fine. So we could be like Martha or like Mary or even like Lazarus, who we may not know about his approach to faith. Although I would suppose after being raised from the dead, would be a quite unique faith indeed. Still we did not hear any words about Lazarus saying anything about Jesus during his illness. We do not have any other account of Lazarus other than this one. Luke records the time of Martha and Mary having that difference, but nothing was said about their brother Lazarus. Here all we know is that he was the one loved by Jesus and we are not told if he expressed any kind of regret that Jesus did not get there in time to heal him. But his faith must have been a great faith, trusting in Jesus even to the point of death, but after being raised from the dead, we can only imagine how his faith must have been. Those of us who have experienced great healings at the hand of Jesus know that kind of faith. Yet our lesson today is about accepting each other and the way we express our faith.