Martha (sister of Lazarus)

• Martha (sister of Lazarus)

127:3.5Af­ter the Pass­over sup­per Mary sat down to talk with James while Martha, Laz­a­rus, and Je­sus talked to­gether far into the night. The next day they at­tended the tem­ple ser­vices, and James was re­ceived into the com­mon­wealth of Is­rael. That morn­ing, as they paused on the brow of Oli­vet to view the tem­ple, while James ex­claimed in won­der, Je­sus gazed on Je­ru­sa­lem in si­lence. James could not com­pre­hend his brother’s de­meanor. That night they again re­turned to Beth­any and would have de­parted for home the next day, but James was in­sis­tent on their go­ing back to visit the tem­ple, ex­plain­ing that he wanted to hear the teach­ers. And while this was true, se­cretly in his heart he wanted to hear Je­sus par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sions, as he had heard his mother tell about. Ac­cord­ingly, they went to the tem­ple and heard the dis­cus­sions, but Je­sus asked no ques­tions. It all seemed so puerile and in­signif­i­cant to this awak­en­ing mind of man and God—he could only pity them. James was dis­ap­pointed that Je­sus said noth­ing. To his in­quiries Je­sus only made re­ply, “My hour has not yet come.”

• Martha (sister of Lazarus)

141:9.2The dis­ci­ples of John re­mained at Beth­any be­yond the Jor­dan, teach­ing and bap­tiz­ing the mul­ti­tudes, so that Je­sus was ac­com­pa­nied only by the twelve when he ar­rived at Laz­a­rus’s home. Here Je­sus and the apos­tles tar­ried for five days, rest­ing and re­fresh­ing them­selves be­fore go­ing on to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. It was a great event in the lives of Martha and Mary to have the Mas­ter and his apos­tles in the home of their brother, where they could min­is­ter to their needs.

• Martha (sister of Lazarus)

164:3.1The next morn­ing the three went over to Martha’s home at Beth­any for break­fast and then went im­me­di­ately into Je­ru­sa­lem. This Sab­bath morn­ing, as Je­sus and his two apos­tles drew near the tem­ple, they en­coun­tered a well-known beg­gar, a man who had been born blind, sit­ting at his usual place. Al­though these men­di­cants did not so­licit or re­ceive alms on the Sab­bath day, they were per­mit­ted thus to sit in their usual places. Je­sus paused and looked upon the beg­gar. As he gazed upon this man who had been born blind, the idea came into his mind as to how he would once more bring his mis­sion on earth to the no­tice of the San­hedrin and the other Jew­ish lead­ers and re­li­gious teach­ers.

• Martha (sister of Lazarus)

186:0.1As Je­sus and his ac­cusers started off to see Herod, the Mas­ter turned to the Apos­tle John and said: “John, you can do no more for me. Go to my mother and bring her to see me ere I die.” When John heard his Mas­ter’s re­quest, al­though re­luc­tant to leave him alone among his en­e­mies, he has­tened off to Beth­any, where the en­tire fam­ily of Je­sus was as­sem­bled in wait­ing at the home of Martha and Mary, the sis­ters of Laz­a­rus whom Je­sus raised from the dead.

190:2.6And David did not long wait, for the fourth ap­pear­ance of Je­sus to mor­tal rec­og­ni­tion oc­curred shortly be­fore two o’clock in this very home of Martha and Mary, when he ap­peared vis­i­bly be­fore his earthly fam­ily and their friends, twenty in all. The Mas­ter ap­peared in the open back door, say­ing: “Peace be upon you. Greet­ings to those once near me in the flesh and fel­low­ship for my broth­ers and sis­ters in the king­dom of heaven. How could you doubt? Why have you lin­gered so long be­fore choos­ing to fol­low the light of truth with a whole heart? Come, there­fore, all of you into the fel­low­ship of the Spirit of Truth in the Fa­ther’s king­dom.” As they be­gan to re­cover from the first shock of their amaze­ment and to move to­ward him as if to em­brace him, he van­ished from their sight.

168:5.3Soon af­ter this Martha and Mary dis­posed of their lands at Beth­any and joined their brother in Perea. Mean­time, Laz­a­rus had be­come the trea­surer of the church at Phil­a­del­phia. He be­came a strong sup­porter of Ab­ner in his con­tro­versy with Paul and the Je­ru­sa­lem church and ul­ti­mately died, when 67 years old, of the same sick­ness that car­ried him off when he was a younger man at Beth­any.

190:1.9When David had taken leave of his breth­ren, he went over to the home of Joseph for his mother, and they then went out to Beth­any to join the wait­ing fam­ily of Je­sus. David abode there in Beth­any with Martha and Mary un­til af­ter they had dis­posed of their earthly pos­ses­sions, and he ac­com­pa­nied them on their jour­ney to join their brother, Laz­a­rus, at Phil­a­del­phia.

162:8.2For years it had been the cus­tom for these three to drop ev­ery­thing and lis­ten to Je­sus’ teach­ing when­ever he chanced to visit them. With the loss of their par­ents, Martha had as­sumed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the home life, and so on this oc­ca­sion, while Laz­a­rus and Mary sat at Je­sus’ feet drink­ing in his re­fresh­ing teach­ing, Martha made ready to serve the evening meal. It should be ex­plained that Martha was un­nec­es­sar­ily dis­tracted by nu­mer­ous need­less tasks, and that she was cum­bered by many triv­ial cares; that was her dis­po­si­tion.

162:8.3As Martha bus­ied her­self with all these sup­posed du­ties, she was per­turbed be­cause Mary did noth­ing to help. There­fore she went to Je­sus and said: “Mas­ter, do you not care that my sis­ter has left me alone to do all of the serv­ing? Will you not bid her to come and help me?” Je­sus an­swered: “Martha, Martha, why are you al­ways anx­ious about so many things and trou­bled by so many tri­fles? Only one thing is re­ally worth while, and since Mary has cho­sen this good and need­ful part, I shall not take it away from her. But when will both of you learn to live as I have taught you: both serv­ing in co-op­er­a­tion and both re­fresh­ing your souls in uni­son? Can you not learn that there is a time for ev­ery­thing—that the lesser mat­ters of life should give way be­fore the greater things of the heav­enly king­dom?”

124:6.9On the east­ern slopes of Oli­vet they paused for rest in the bor­ders of a lit­tle vil­lage called Beth­any. The hos­pitable vil­lagers poured forth to min­is­ter to the pil­grims, and it hap­pened that Joseph and his fam­ily had stopped near the house of one Si­mon, who had three chil­dren about the same age as Je­sus—Mary, Martha, and Laz­a­rus. They in­vited the Naz­a­reth fam­ily in for re­fresh­ment, and a life­long friend­ship sprang up be­tween the two fam­i­lies. Many times af­ter­ward, in his event­ful life, Je­sus stopped in this home.

168:0.6When Martha met Je­sus, she fell at his feet, ex­claim­ing, “Mas­ter, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Many fears were pass­ing through Martha’s mind, but she gave ex­pres­sion to no doubt, nor did she ven­ture to crit­i­cize or ques­tion the Mas­ter’s con­duct as re­lated to Laz­a­rus’s death. When she had spo­ken, Je­sus reached down and, lift­ing her upon her feet, said, “Only have faith, Martha, and your brother shall rise again.” Then an­swered Martha: “I know that he will rise again in the res­ur­rec­tion of the last day; and even now I be­lieve that what­ever you shall ask of God, our Fa­ther will give you.”

127:6.3Al­though they could hardly af­ford it, Je­sus had a strange long­ing to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. His mother, know­ing of his re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence with Re­becca, wisely urged him to make the jour­ney. He was not markedly con­scious of it, but what he most wanted was an op­por­tu­nity to talk with Laz­a­rus and to visit with Martha and Mary. Next to his own fam­ily he loved these three most of all.

167:4.2Je­sus was very fond of Martha, Mary, and their brother, Laz­a­rus; he loved them with a fer­vent af­fec­tion. His first and hu­man thought was to go to their as­sis­tance at once, but an­other idea came into his com­bined mind. He had al­most given up hope that the Jew­ish lead­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem would ever ac­cept the king­dom, but he still loved his peo­ple, and there now oc­curred to him a plan whereby the scribes and Phar­isees of Je­ru­sa­lem might have one more chance to ac­cept his teach­ings; and he de­cided, his Fa­ther will­ing, to make this last ap­peal to Je­ru­sa­lem the most pro­found and stu­pen­dous out­ward work­ing of his en­tire earth ca­reer. The Jews clung to the idea of a won­der-work­ing de­liv­erer. And though he re­fused to stoop to the per­for­mance of ma­te­rial won­ders or to the en­act­ment of tem­po­ral ex­hi­bi­tions of po­lit­i­cal power, he did now ask the Fa­ther’s con­sent for the man­i­fes­ta­tion of his hith­erto un­ex­hib­ited power over life and death.

125:2.7On Wednes­day of the Pass­over week, Je­sus was per­mit­ted to go home with Laz­a­rus to spend the night at Beth­any. This evening, Laz­a­rus, Martha, and Mary heard Je­sus dis­cuss things tem­po­ral and eter­nal, hu­man and di­vine, and from that night on they all three loved him as if he had been their own brother.

127:6.5Je­sus passed on through Je­ru­sa­lem, only paus­ing to look upon the tem­ple and the gath­er­ing throngs of vis­i­tors. He had a strange and in­creas­ing aver­sion to this Herod-built tem­ple with its po­lit­i­cally ap­pointed priest­hood. He wanted most of all to see Laz­a­rus, Martha, and Mary. Laz­a­rus was the same age as Je­sus and now head of the house; by the time of this visit Laz­a­rus’s mother had also been laid to rest. Martha was a lit­tle over one year older than Je­sus, while Mary was two years younger. And Je­sus was the idol­ized ideal of all three of them.

168:0.4Many friends from near-by ham­lets and oth­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem came over to com­fort the sor­row-stricken sis­ters. Laz­a­rus and his sis­ters were the chil­dren of a well-to-do and hon­or­able Jew, one who had been the lead­ing res­i­dent of the lit­tle vil­lage of Beth­any. And not­with­stand­ing that all three had long been ar­dent fol­low­ers of Je­sus, they were highly re­spected by all who knew them. They had in­her­ited ex­ten­sive vine­yards and olive or­chards in this vicin­ity, and that they were wealthy was fur­ther at­tested by the fact that they could af­ford a pri­vate burial tomb on their own premises. Both of their par­ents had al­ready been laid away in this tomb.

172:1.7It was be­cause of this re­buke, which he took as a per­sonal re­proof, that Ju­das Is­car­iot fi­nally made up his mind to seek re­venge for his hurt feel­ings. Many times had he en­ter­tained such ideas sub­con­sciously, but now he dared to think such wicked thoughts in his open and con­scious mind. And many oth­ers en­cour­aged him in this at­ti­tude since the cost of this oint­ment was a sum equal to the earn­ings of one man for one year—enough to pro­vide bread for five thou­sand per­sons. But Mary loved Je­sus; she had pro­vided this pre­cious oint­ment with which to em­balm his body in death, for she be­lieved his words when he fore­warned them that he must die, and it was not to be de­nied her if she changed her mind and chose to be­stow this of­fer­ing upon the Mas­ter while he yet lived.