In the House of Mary and Martha

Over yonder is a beautiful village homestead. The man of the house is dead, and his widow is taking charge of the premises. This is the widow Martha of Bethany. Yes, I will show you also the pet of the household. This is Mary, the youngest sister, with a book under her arm, and her face having no appearance of anxiety or perturbation. Company has come. Christ stands outside the door, and, of course, there is a good deal of excitement inside the house. The disarranged furniture is hastily put aside, and the hair is brushed back, and the dresses are adjusted as well as, in so short a time, Mary and Martha can attend to these matters.

The Welcome to Christ.

They did not keep Christ standing at the door until they were newly appareled, or until they had elaborately arranged their tresses, then coming out with their affected surprise as though they had not heard the two or three previous knockings, saying: “Why, is that you?” No. They were ladies, and were always presentable, although they may not have always had on their best, for none of us always have on our best; if we did, our best would not be worth having on. They throw open the door, and greet Christ. They say: “Good morning, Master; come in, and be seated.”

Christ did not come alone; He had a group of friends with him, and such an influx of city visitors would throw any country home into perturbation. I suppose also the walk from the city had been a good appetizer. The kitchen department that day was a ver>’ important department, and I suppose that Martha had no sooner greeted the guests than she fled to that room. Mary had no anxiety about household affairs. She had full confidence that Martha could get up the best dinner in Bethany. She seems 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. There is Martha, hard-working, pains-taking, a good manager, ever inventive of some new pastr>’, or discovering something in the art of cooking and housekeeping. There is Mary, also, fond of conversation, literary, so engaged in deep questions of ethics she has no time to attend to the questions of household welfare. It is noon. Mary is in the parlor with Christ. Martha is in the kitchen. It would have been better if they had divided the work, and then they could have divided

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the opportunity of listening to Jesus; but Mary monopolizes Christ, while Martha swelters at the fire.

Trouble in the Kitchen.

It was a very important thing that they should have a good dinner that day. Christ was hungr>% and He did hot often have a luxurious entertainment. Alas! me, 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?”

Christ scolded not a word. If it were scolding, I should rather have His scolding than anybody else’s blessing. There was nothing acerb. He knew Martha 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.” As Martha throws open that kitchen door, I look in and see a great many household perplexities and anxieties.

L,azarus was probably the mainstay of his sisters, though the family may have been wealthy, as the character of their house certainly indicates, if the ruins pointed out to travelers as those of the residence of the three be genuine. Martha, being the elder, took upon herself the responsibilities of the house, and being an industrious, pushing, ambitious woman, was occasionally out of patience with Mary, who was probably of a more social disposition than her sister, and sometimes forgot her domestic duties in her attentions to friends and acquaintances. But Jesus did not regard this as a fault, since we owe obligations to society which in a degree under circumstances are as imperative as household requirements, for it is to this social characteristic that we stand indebted for our pre-eminence above the lowest classes of human life.

But Christ had been a frequent visitor to the house of Mary and Martha, and it is probable that He made it His home during His visits to Jerusalem. He had revealed Himself to them as the Christ, and hence we can have no surprise that Mary was so ardently attached to Him, and that she forgot all else when sitting at His feet receiving His instructions. Therefore when Martha came with her complaint to Jesus, He said to her:” Thou art troubled about many things: but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. She is more anxious about her soul than about her corporeal needs, and her joy is therefore in learning the means of salvation which I have come to declare. This is that better part which shall never be taken away, but shall bloom perpetually in her heart until it shall bear fruitage in that kingdom

from which I am come.”

Return of the Seventy.

While Jesus was in tl’ie vicinity of Jerusalem, teaching small parties that gathered about Him, the seventy disciples whom He had sent forth to preach, when on His way to the Feast of Tabernacles, returned and made report to Him of their extraordinary success, and declaring that they had even power over devils in the name of their Master. This happy announcement certainly gave great pleasure to Jesus, even though He must have foreseen the results of their labors, for though as Christ He knew every man’s heart and could grasp the two eternities of the past and future, yet within Him was also a temporal nature that connected Him with the earth by common attributes of a mortal, and to which He was largely subject. Therefore must He have been gratified by the report of His emissaries, which foreshadowed the success of the kingdom of the Gospel He had come to set up. But with a comprehension of the ills which might follow unbridled zeal and which frequently among men makes over-self-confidence a precursor of failure, Jesus saw the necessity of repressing the extreme enthusiasm of His exulting disciples, and He therefore said to them, in effect: “Your report is indeed very encouraging, but it was given to Me to foresee how Satan would fall from heaven like a bolt of lightning, and how he would be unable to withstand the power delegated to you through Me. I have subjected him to you as he has been subjected to Me, and I will give to you also power to tread on serpents and on scorpions, and over all evil things, none of which shall hurt you; but nevertheless rejoice not so much at the power thus bestowed as at the blessings which follow your works, and the knowledge that your names are written in heaven.” And with this Jesus lifted His eyes towards heaven with thanksgiving, saying, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” And turning to His disciples again. He said, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them: and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.”

Efficacy of Prayer.

One of the disciples, deeply impressed by Christ’s words, asked Him for a form of prayer which should serve for constant invocation, such as John, or the rabbis, prescribed for their followers. This disciple had probably been accepted some time after the .-rmon on the Mount was delivered, and though he may have heard the prayer which was then given by our Lord repeated by others, yet he desired to receive a form from Christ’s own lips. His request was answered by Jesus, who repeated substantially the prayer with which all Christians are so familiar, and which glows as a jewel in His incomparable Sermon on the Mount. Having thus satisfied the disciple’s longing, Jesus took occasion to speak of the efficacy of prayer when the utterance is accompanied? by great faith and persistency, using the illustration of how a friend may be prevailed upon by persistent entreaty to do a thing when simple request would fail to influence him. Then said He,” If perseverance in your importunities move a selfish man to grant your petitions, how much more willing is God to listen to your supplications, since persistence in prayer affords proof of sincerity and faithful devotion to God and dependence in His mercy.”

Jesus Shows Himself in the Temple.

For two or three months Jesus had snjourned among His friends in the vicinity of Jerusalem, doubtless living in partial seclusion, and teaching among the few who were willing to receive His instructions even if they were indisposed to accept Him as the Messiah. His wisdom, mercifulness and exemplary life were attractions which the honest Jews could hardly resist, and the few who were not afflicted with the canker of prejudice and bigotry, listened to Him with eagerness, though His conversions during this period were few.

The Feast of Dedication was now at hand, when there was a rejoicing of seven days in commemoration of the renewal of the Temple worship after its suspension under the edict of Antiochus. December’s Cold had made out-door preaching uncomfortable, and as Jesus always observed the national celebrations. He entered Jerusalem at the time of the feast to participate in the jubilation. His appearance on Solomon’s porch, which was that portion of the first Temple which Nebuchadnezzar had neglected to destroy, was quickly followed by a scramble on the part of those who hr.d been in the court to approach nearer to Him. Almost on the instant he monopolized popular attention, and crowds pressed about Him, the Pharisees seizing the occasion to ply Him with questions. For some reasons they were more conciliatory in their speech, and seemed to invite overtures for a reconcilement of the differences that had broken into revilings and threatenings against Him on several occasions. But it was plain that they could not abandon their position of hostility unless He would renounce His pretensions and become plastic to their ambitions. They therefore said to Him:” We have waited long for a Messiah, who has been promised to restore Israel to her former glory, and as Thou hast often intimated that Thou art that Messiah, we ask Thee now to tell us openly. Do not keep us longer in doubt, but if Thou be Christ tell us plainly.” Jesus was not to be beguiled by their soft platitudes, or their profifers of friendship on conditions, so He answered them: “I told you and ye believed me not; the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I ,5aid unto you.” Or in other words: “I have not only told you, but I have given proofs of My Messiahship by works, by miracles, which I could only do through power given Me by My Father. But you will not believe Me because you are not My sheep. They who are within the fold acknowledge Me as their shepherd and know My voice; to these I give eternal life. My Father which gave Me power to work wonders and to save souls is greater than all, yet I and My Father are one.”

Jesus Vanishes Out of the Hands of His Enemies.

At this declaration of His equality with God, .]esus was loudly reviled, and some of the more bigoted and frantic Jews took up stones to hurl at Him. But calm in His Godly dignity and self-possession, Jesus stood fearless before His brutal enemies and awed them by His majestic demeanor. “Ay,” said He, “these are your arguments, fer lack of reason you would take up stones; pray, for what deed of mercy would you stone Me? “” It is not for good works that we would stone You,” answered the crowd, “but for bla.sphemy, because Thou makest Thyself the equal of God.”

“Do you not know,” replied Jesus,” that it is written in the law, ‘I said ye are gods? ‘If therefore ye shall call the old patriarchs and the ancient rulers of Israel gods, how can you say I am a blasphemer, when I have given you the proofs that I am above both ruler and prophet, the Messiah who has been sent into the world with such power as you have with your own eyes seen Me manifest. By these works, if ye were not full of bigotry and worldliness, ye would know that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”

This further incensed the Jews against Jesus, for while awaiting an answer to their first question they had listened to a defence of His claims to Messiahship. Their anger now knew no bounds; with threatenings of vengeance and ravenings of intense excitement and consuming anger, the crowd, now grown into a mob, rushed toward Jesus with the intention of dragging Him outside the Temple and there stoning Him to death. But His time had not yet come. As on two other equally perilous occasions, He suddenly disappeared and left His rabid enemies howling in distraction at the miscarriage of their murderous designs.

Lazarus, Whom Thou Lovest, is Sick.”

Having, through a miracle, it would appear, escaped the frenzy of a mob, Jesus withdrew from Jerusalem “and went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at fir.’^t baptized.” In this region, where the people were called heathens, He would be comparatively safe, even though here also He had met on previous visits with taunts and reviling. But in Galilee, or. Samaria, or Judea, there was no security, for His appearance in either province would have been quickly followed by arrest and probable execution. Hence, He went again into Perea, and to His joy crowds “resorted unto Him” and openly acknowledged His Messianic powers, for said they “John did no miracles; but all things that John spoke of this Man were true. And many believed on Him there.”

While Jesus was thus preaching to interested congregations at Bethabara, a messenger came in great haste from Martha and Mary in Bethany with the sad tidings, “Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.”

My Bible is written all over with lead-pencil marks made last December at Bethany on the ruins of the house of Mar>’ and Martha and Lazarus. We dismounted from our horses on the way up from Jordan and the Dead Sea. Bethany was the summer evening retreat of Jesus. After spending the day in the hot city of Jerusalem, He would come out there almost ever>’ evening to the house of His three friends. I think the occupants of that house were orphans, for the father and mother are not mentioned. But the son and two daughters certainly inherited property, for it must have been, judging from what I saw of the foundations and the size of the rooms, an opulent home. Lazarus, the brother, was now the head of the household and his sisters depended on him, for he was very popular and everybody liked him, and these girls were splendid girls. Martha, a first-rate housekeeper, and Mary, a spirituelle, somewhat dreamy, but affectionate, and as good a girl as could be found in all Palestine. But one day Lazarus got sick. The sisters are in consternation. Father gone and mother gone, they feel very nervous lest they lose their brother also. Oh, the pain of waiting in such an emergency. And the two sorrow-stricken sisters sit and rock themselves in excessive, almost hysterical grief, crying the while, “Oh, if Jesus were only here. He would save our brother.” But there is no response to their message and Lazarus grows worse and worse. The fever, the thirst, the quickening breath, the pinched features, the rolling blood-shot eyes, tell a story quite as sad as any the doctor himself could relate. How the girls hang over his pillow! Not much sleep about that house, no sleep at all. From the characteristics otherwise developed, I judge that Martha prepared the medicines and made tempting dishes of food for the poor appetite of the sufferer, but Mary prayed and sobbed. Worse and worse gets Lazarus, until the doctor announces that he can do no more. The shriek that went up from that household when the last breath had been drawn and the two sisters were being led by sympathizers into the adjoining room, all those of us can imagine who have had our own hearts “broken. But why was not Jesus there as He so often had been? Far away in the country districts preaching, healing other sick, how unfortunate that this Omnipotent Doctor had (387)

not been at that domestic crisis in Bethany. When at last Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been buried four days and dissolution had taken place. In that climate the breathless body disintegrates more rapidly than in ours. If, immediately after decease, that body had been awakened into life, unbelievers might have said he was only in a comatose condition.

But Christ remained for two days after receipt of the message, preaching at Bethabara, before He left off His work of teaching to go to the relief of Lazarus, and before this time had expired His friend was dead and laid away in the sepulchre. But Jesus knew the very moment when Lazarus died, and deferred His return to Bethany in order to make a more glorious manifestation of His power and infinite mercy. When at length He said to His disciples,” Let us go into Judea,” they were amazed at His apparent recklessness and advised against such a perilous undertaking, saying, “Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee; and goest Thou thither again?” But he replied by asking them “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” Meaning thereby that His work could not be arrested until the hour when His earthly mission should be accomplished; that until that time all the power on earth could not close His labors by bringing Him to the sacrifice which it was given Him to know He was to suffer. Then said He, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may wake him out of his sleep.” Why waken him, when sleep is an index of restoration; when sleep j;moothes the wrinkles of pain; when sleep lifts the burden of suffering and lures back the fugitives of streng and composure? And so the disciples wondered why Jesus would wake his friend, for they did not understand that the sleep of Lazarus was the sound slumber of death. Thereupon Jesus told thera plainly. Thomas, apparently regarding his Master’s safety more than the mission which prompted Him to return, spoke boldly to the other disciples, “Let us also go that we may die with Him.”. But there is no occasion for fear, Thomas; the Jews will not yet harm Him, for the day of His labors is not yet spent. And so they all started back to Bethany, but on their near approach to the place, they met Martha, who, with fresh burst of grief told Jesus that Lazarus had already lain in the grave four dapj, and in despairing voice exclaimed, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here my brother had not died.” If this Were not sufficient evidence of Lazarus’s death, there is plenty of other proof. Mary and Martha and her brother had many friends, and these had not yet ceased to offer their consoleraents in comforting words and kindly acts of sympathy. But there was also the grave in which the body was lying, and to the sepulchre therefore Jesus was led by the two sorrowing sisters, accompanied by a curious crowd. Many sympathizing friends were there, but of the group there were three especially conspicuous: Jesus, who was the family friend, and the two bereft sisters. We went into the traditional tomb in December, and it is deep down and dark, and with torches we explored

It. We found it all quiet that afternoon of our visit, but the day spoken of m the Bible there was present an excited multitude. I wonder what Jesus will do! He orders the door of the grave removed, and then He begins to descend the steps, Mary and Martha close after Him, and the crowd after them. Deeper down into the shadows and deeper! The hot tears of Jesus roll over His cheeks and plash upon the back of His hands. Were ever so many sorrows compressed into so small a space as in that group passing on down after Christ, all the time bemoaning that He had not come before? Now all the whispering, and all the crying, and all the sounds of shuffling feet are stopped. It is the silence of expectancy. Death had conquered, but now the Vanquisher of Death confronts the scene. Amid the awful hush of the tomb the familiar name which Christ had often upon His lips in tlae hospitalities of the village-home comes back to His tongue, and with a pathos and an almightiness of which the resurrection of the last day shall be only an echo, He cries, “Lazarus! come forth! “The eyes of the slumberer open and he rises and comes to the foot of the steps and with great difficulty begins to ascend, for the cerements of the tomb are yet on him and his feet are fast and his hands are fast, and the impediments to all his movements are so great that Jesus commands:” Take off these cerements; remove these hinderances; unfasten these grave clothes; loose him and let him go! “Oh, I am so glad that after the Lord raised Lazarus He went on and commanded the loosening of the cords that bound his feet, so that he could walk, and the breaking off” of the cerements that bound his hands, so that he could stretch out his arms in salutation, and the tearing off of the bandage from around his jaws, so that he could speak. What would resurrected life have been to Lazarus if he had not been freed from all those cripplements of his body? I am glad that Christ commanded his complete emancipation, saying, “Loose him and let him go.”

Jesus is Condemned to Death by the Sanhedrim.

The raising of Lazarus produced a profound sensation, far exceeding that created by the restoration of the widow’s son or Jairus’ daughter. Many of the witnesses believed on Him, but yet others were so impregnated by the belief fostered by the Pharisees and rabbis ascribing His power to Beelzebub, that they hastened to Jenisalem and gave their report of the miracle with malicious comments and falsification. But the rabbis were frightened at the effect and the Sanhedrim was hastily called together to take counsel and decide what should be done. Said they, “What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” Here was the secret of their malice openly confessed. To save them from loss of power they must brand Christ with their o£cial condemnation. But an effort to do this without formal trial aroused the opposition of such honest members of the assembly as Nicodemus, and there was a prospect of the council breaking up without positive action, when Caiaphas, the Sadducean high-priest, arose with a proposition that quieted the opposition. Said he, “Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not,” or to paraphrase, “Do 5’ou not perceive that the whole nation is in peril because of the miracles of this Nazarene? The people are already wild with excitement, and if He be not speedily arrested, in their worshipful enthusiasm they will proclaim Him king and then Rome will set upon and oppress or destroy us. Therefore I say, whether He be innocent or guilty it is infinitely better that we condemn Him to death than that we take the risk of being ourselves ruined.” “And from that day forth they took counsel together for to put Him to death.”

Jesus Becomes a Fugitive.

Jesus avoided His enemies by repairing to a city called Ephraim, which was on the edge of the wilderness northeast of Jerusalem, but the identical location is not known. Here He abode as a fugitive for a short while, and then again crossed the Jordan into Perea, where the people were less hostile to Him, and where He must have had a great many friends, because He was not only followed by crowds, but was suffered to preach to the people, who came to hear Him in vast assemblages. But though Perea was regarded as a heathen province, its population was about one-half Jewish, over whom the rabbis exerted a controlling influence, as they did in Galilee and Judea. These were as bigoted and hypocritical as those in other parts of Palestine, and held the Sabbatical laws in the same rigid estimation. As Jesus had small regard for the proscriptions, exactions and unreasonable requirements of these oppressive laws, which laid the people under fanatical persecutions, it is not a matter for surprise that since He found all times and all occasions proper for the exercise of His divine functions, He should fall under the condemnation of the Jews of Perea for deeds of mercy on the Sabbath.

Oh, Wondrous Healer I

As Jesus was preaching in one of the Pcrean synagogues on the Sabbath das His attention was attracted to a poor woman, with distorted body, as she stood behind a partition of open work which separated the male from the female members of the audience. She had hobbled into this place of worship, carrying with her so great a weight of infirmity that her head was almost at a right angle with her hips. From this position she could not rise, for a rheumatic affection of eighteen years had drawn the muscles with such rigidity that they appeared ossified.

If you could call a convention of all the surgeons of all the centuries their combined .skill could not cure that body so drawn out of shape. Perhaps they might stop it from getting any worse, perhaps they might contrive braces by which she might be made more comfortable, but it was, humanly speaking, incurable. Yet this divine surgeon called out to her, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmities,” and then put both His hands on her, and from that doubled-up position she began to rise, and then the empurpled face began to take on a healthior hue, and the muscles began to relax from their rigidity, and the spinal column began to adjust itself, and the cords of the neck began to be more supple, and the eyes that could only see the ground before, now looked up into the face of Christ with gratitude, and up toward the heavens in transport. Straight! After eighteen weary and exhaustive years, straight! the poise, the gracefulness, the beauty of healthy womanhood reinstated.

Such a cure, wrought by word and touch, ought to have excited not only irrepressible thanks of gratitude in the woman, but also reverential admiration in all who were witnesses of the deed, and to have filled that synagogue with worshipful believers; but alas, for the chilling indifiference to Godly manifestations which the Pharisees felt; instead of the whole congregation giving voice to praise, the rabbi, who was priest of the synagogue, arose to give utterance to protest. With words betraying his anger he silenced the woman’s offerings of thankfulness, and read to her and the audience a lecture on the immorality of doing good, short of saving life, on the Sabbath day. Said he, “There are six days in the week in which it is lawful that men may work, a fact which this Healer either does not remember or ignores. If you must seek His aid, see that you do it on one of the secular days, and do not tempt Him, or give Him any excuse for violating the holy Sabbath.”

It was not often that Jesus became angry; His nature was all humility as it was all merciful, but He could not repress His indignation at this canting hypocrite and fanatic, who while assuming to be a religious teacher was in fact delinquent in the first principles of humanity. So he answered the rabbi by saying:” Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to water? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, the.se eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”

And when He had said these things, all His adversaries were ashamed; and all the people rejoiced for the glorious things that were done by Him.”

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