Mary, Martha and Lazarus: Three Ways of Being Close to Jesus
The Bethany dinner where one family revealed three very different responses to Christ
Welcome to today’s reflection.
Each weekday, paid subscribers receive an exclusive reflection designed to offer a thoughtful pause amid ordinary life. My prayer is that these brief reflections create a little space for curiosity, contemplation and wonder amid the noise of the day.
Over the past week, I have been helping my daughter move out into her own place for the first time.
It has been demanding in many ways. Physically, of course, from all the moving things, decorating and building. But it has also been surprisingly emotional. Seeing her in her own flat, surrounded by the things she had collected over the years, I suddenly realised I was not simply helping my daughter move house. I was witnessing a moment I had spent years hoping for.
To many people, it probably just looked like a young lady moving home. For us as parents, we know how much it has taken to get here. Her strength in overcoming the challenges life has thrown her way has made her tough and beautiful, and perhaps, for the first time, I realised just how much it has formed her into the person she has become.
I have been immensely proud.
This week I have been reading the opening of John 12 and realising that something similar was going on. Jesus is having dinner with friends, which on the surface looks like the most ordinary thing in the world. But John wants us to notice that something much deeper is happening.
John immediately reminds us that this is not an ordinary gathering.
“Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.”
That detail changes everything. After all, one of the people sitting at the table had once been dead. Lazarus is not there because he achieved something impressive or because he had something important to say. Lazarus himself is living proof that death does not have the final word.
Around this table are three people who know Jesus intimately: Lazarus, Martha and Mary.
All three love him. All three have experienced something of who he is. Yet each responds to him in a different way.
Perhaps that is why this small dinner scene has endured for so long.
Because most of us can recognise ourselves somewhere around that table.
