Jesus At Bethany Series

April 7, 2019 Sermon on Jesus @ Bethany

We have been focussing on the last number of months on the Trinity so that we come to understand more deeply who God is,

who the God is that we love, worship, the God is who has provided salvation for us, to better know who the God is who loves us with an everlasting love.

But there are two types of knowing: there is the kind of knowing that occurs in our minds, which is essential. But there is also the kind of knowing that is about our heart.

And generally that knowing transfers slowly with difficulty from our minds to our hearts, from our intellects to the seat of our emotions.

The distance between head and heart is the longest distance that exists in the world.

And when we are talking about God, we are in fact talking about the one who loves us with an everlasting love, and to give ample evidence for that love He went to the cross to suffer for our sins in order to reconcile us to God.

This is the One who calls us by name. The one who has adopted us to the family of God.

It is very personal. It is very intimate. The gospel is very personal and intimate.

And the gosPELS give us what is really a very personal and intimate line of sight as to what God would do and in fact did when He came face to face with people just like us.

We make a mistake if we think that the people and stories we find in the gospels are too ancient, too far away from what the human race is today, from what our lives are about today, to be relatable.

In fact, the closer you look, the more you see yourself in the people. The nearer you get to the story, the more you see how truly universal the gospel is. It speaks to all times.

To all nations. To all ethnicities. To male and female. To all frames of mind, to all personality types. The gospel stories speak because they are the heart of God speaking.

And so today we will be looking at a couple days in the life of some people that Jesus knew.

It was an incident that happened during the period of time leading up to Jesus entry into Jerusalem, because holy week is coming, Palm Sunday is coming, Good Friday is coming. Easter Sunday is coming.

In the narrative today there are 6 people. Each is responding in their own way to the presence of Jesus. Each has a role in the story, in the dinner party.

Martha experiences the event as the servant, the helper.

Lazarus has recently spent 4 days of his life dead. He views the scene as one who has literally been raised from the dead. That’s got to be a unique perspective.

Mary experiences the story as a worshipper, one whose response to Jesus is to love.

Judas is there trying to manage his image. He tries to come across as one who is concerned about money, but he is a thief.

Jesus is there on His way to His reason for being born. “For this reason I was born...”

The 5 People in the Story: Martha

Let’s look at Martha. What does she do? She serves.

She is tending to the needs of others, She is active, engaged, an eager participant in the story. Why? Well for at least 2 reasons.

Martha is the type who likes to be active. It comes naturally to her. We see her elsewhere, in another event recorded in the Gospel of Luke: Luke 10:38-42.

In that account Jesus and his disciples arrive a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

“She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I’ve heard Martha critiqued here as a kind of busy-body who misses the point of Jesus’ presence.

I’m not sure that’s fair. In this account, Martha welcomes Jesus, opens her home to him.

She creates opportunity, she excels in hospitality. She revels in the possibilities of the presence of Jesus, and she does what she knows. And what she knows and does is what everybody actually needs.

Now Martha is not happy that she’s on her own in the prep, and Jesus does call her by name and speaks to her of what’s going on inside of her.