The story continues with Christ’s return to Bethany. Jesus does not go right into the city since the rulers of the Jews had determined to kill Him and He did not wish His presence known. Instead He waits outside. As He waits Martha hears that He has come and goes to meet Him. Mary waits in the home.
In Martha and Mary we have a contrast between two types of faith. And since we have these two types of faith today, it is worth exploring them a little. When Martha comes to Jesus her words contain a very strange mixture of belief and doubt. She says, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.” Later she says of her brother, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (vv. 21-22, 24). Martha says that she knows that anything Jesus will ask of God, God will grant.
Yet she limits Him to the place and the time. She said, “If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” And she added, “I know that he shall rise again… at the last day.” How strange this is! And yet it is not uncommon. Martha is a type of the predominantly intellectual believer. She had strong character, and her mind is critical. She believes what is reasonable, and she does not profess more than she actually feels. Much of this is good. Christian faith is reasonable, and it invites our intellectual assent. We are to be reasonable. Yet there is a weakness in purely intellectual assent. For if the whole of our faith is sight, our faith is limited by sight. And there is no strength for crises that transcend our understanding. Such faith is always partially mixed with doubt.
But then there is Mary. Her faith was not without reason. She had taken time to learn from Jesus. But her faith contained something more. Mary comes to Jesus, and her lips say the same thing as the lips of Martha: “If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” But practically every reader recognizes in an instant that there is a world of difference in the cry. Martha had debated with Jesus as she made her comment. Mary fell at His feet, and her words were made in the context of total trust and confidence. This was the position that Mary loved best. She had sat at His feet when Martha was serving. She is found at His feet again in chapter 12.
Mary was the one person who understood that Christ was going to the cross to die. In chapter 12 she anoints His feet with spikenard, and Jesus testifies that she did this against the day of His burial. Mary had listened. She had learned. But she had gone beyond mere intellectual knowledge to know Jesus intimately and to love Him. Out of that love and understanding came the intuitive realization that for Him anything at all was possible.
How do you come to Jesus? Do you come only with an intellectual faith, or do you come with the faith that throws itself totally upon Christ and seeks to learn from Him and love Him more? If you come as Mary did, you will find that in addition to knowledge there will be a strong, growing, and simple trust built upon an intimate knowledge of the one who is your Lord and master.
