Come Out to Meet Him

Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. (John 11:20)

But at midnight there was a shout, 'Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' (Matthew 25:6)

At first this may seem very strange, to put these two verses together in such close proximity. But then again is it really? If we were to look at these circumstances through the eyes of heaven as Jesus always did, then in reality it was with intense anticipation that Jesus approached Bethany that day.

But darkness, gloom, sadness and great disappointment shrouded the emotions of those in Bethany. In addition there was a background of fear produced by the threats and hatred of the Jewish leaders against Jesus. All of these dark emotions obscured a correct view of reality as Jesus saw it and prevented people from sharing in the perspective they could have had in faith like what Jesus enjoyed. A most wonderful and joyful event was just about to transpire and nearly everyone was assuming that the very opposite was unavoidable.

Not only was Lazarus about to be reunited with his best Friend and his sisters but joy was about to energize the lives of everyone who believed in Jesus. But ironically the Jews who had come to purportedly console the sisters but with ulterior motives to insinuate doubts and questions about Him, would react quite differently. After the performance of this crowning miracle of Jesus' ministry just before His sacrifice, these men would so harden their hearts against the light of this unmistakable sign of His divinity that they would not only determine to kill Jesus but would also seek to bring about another death for Lazarus. Now how insane can that be? Lazarus has just been delivered from the grip of death and these men in the name of religion wanted to send him back to the grave again because the testimony of his very life weakened their grip on political power.

Indeed, Martha made the right choice when she decided to go out to meet Jesus alone. Without consciously realizing what she was doing she was in fact going out to meet her Bridegroom, the very one who had come to earth to save all who would respond to the wooing affections of God. In her intense pain and sorrow and surrounded by dark suggestions of the Jews seeking to implant evil thoughts about Jesus in her heart in her most vulnerable moments, Martha chose to leave that negative atmosphere and go out of the village to meet Jesus. Yes, she made the better choice this time to move into the presence of Life Himself rather than continue to grieve and mourn and sink into deeper darkness and depression among others feeling the same way.

Previously it had been Mary who had chosen to break out of the mold of the expectations of society to remain close to Jesus clinging to His every word and soaking up God's affection for her. Martha had become so incensed with Mary's refusal to cooperate with her expectations that she had publicly shamed her and even demanded that Jesus rebuke her sister only to be gently rebuked herself. Yes, Mary had chosen the best option that time even though to everyone else it seemed out of place.

But Jesus' words to Martha in that encounter had accomplished their intended effect and Martha's heart had changed. Now she saw the importance of coming close to Jesus even if life didn't make sense and her questions remained unanswered. It was Jesus Himself that was most important, not conforming to the customs and expectations of society. This time it was Martha that chose to break out of the mold and seek out the presence of Jesus while Mary in her intense grief and pain remained back home among those who only reinforced the temptations toward doubt and bitterness.

I perceive a vital lesson for my own heart in these verses. There are times when I cannot see any answers that address the deep pain in my own life. No matter how I try to figure things out, how much biblical knowledge I may have or how long and hard I pray, it sometimes seems that things only get worse and more confusing. My heart is tempted to throw in the towel, to give up trusting in this invisible God who seems to let me down when I need Him most. Doubts press in on every side and my friends send me mixed messages about what God thinks about my situation. I don't know what to do or which way to turn and I am tempted to simply take the path of least resistance and try come up with my own solutions while turning my back on Him.

But I have been learning that when there seems to be no answers, the most important thing I must do is to simply come into the presence of Jesus and press closer and closer to Him even when it feels irrelevant or absurd. Everything screams that I need to work more on fixing my problems, yet something inside keeps prompting me to focus on spending extra time in the presence of Jesus and giving Him the benefit of the doubt.

As I meditate over the next few verses detailing the interchange between Jesus and Martha my own heart is warmed with increased affection for Him. Martha makes a choice contradictory to all that she is feeling and expresses as much confidence and faith in Jesus as she can muster. Even though her 'friends' from Jerusalem are insinuating that Jesus has let her down and that He does not come through when things get really tough, Martha chooses to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt. Because of her expression of confidence in His heart for her even though she could have expressed many angy, painful feelings and questions about Him, Jesus took up her words of faith and drew her out to connect even more deeply with His heart.

Because of her choice Martha had the privilege of holding communion with Jesus that Mary missed. Because of her choice to prefer His presence over that of the mourners and commiseraters back home, she was able to begin to experience hope much sooner than anyone else in this story including Jesus' own disciples. Jesus responded to her words by making her an offer that was far better than what her own heart had dared to express. But in the process He also reinforced her confidence in the Word of God and in the truth about the resurrection lifting her mind above the despair and pain that was currently blinding her mind. By connecting her back to the sure foundation of the Word of God and reminding her of the truth about life and death, He laid a foundation for a further revelation about His own purpose for coming to this earth. Through her willingness to dialogue with Jesus in her pain Martha created an opportunity for Jesus to voice some of the most promising words in Scripture that millions have since benefited from.

The Bridegroom was coming to town, but unfortunately the bridal party with Him failed to share in His anticipation of what was about to happen. The Bridesmaids also were in a stupor of grief and misapprehension of what Jesus was all about and so Jesus worked with what He had and took advantage of the small opening that Martha's words offered Him to inject joy and hope into the darkest day of her life.

I can't wait to unpack the next few verses because I have already seen some very exciting insights waiting to be explored there. I too want to change the way I think about Jesus, to embrace hope and encouragement and new life while surrounded by insinuations and distortions about what God is all about. I want to spend more time in the presence of Jesus and turn away from the dark views of God promoted by religious people or the world. I want to dialogue with Jesus personally and give Him opportunities to share His heart directly with me and lift me out of my depression and sadness and fears. I want to learn the lesson of going out to meet Him in my own life and turning my back on what is familiar and expected. I want to spend my time in the presence of Jesus so He can convey to me the truth about reality and His love for me as He knows it instead of what I assume.

Consolation or Comfort?

and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. (John 11:19)

Throughout the book of John whenever the term 'Jews' is used it usually is in reference to the Jewish leaders who entrenched themselves in opposition to the ministry of Jesus. With that understanding this verse seems to indicate a subtle reference to something going on beneath the surface besides just an honest desire to bring comfort to a grieving family.

Mary in particular was well known around that region for her rather colorful lifestyle. She had spent years in prostitution and I have long felt that she had a very magnetic personality. Based on the stories of these two sisters I also imagine that while Mary was very attractive her sister was much less so. Martha was more of a thinker and certainly had her own struggles to enter into the kind of saving relationship with Jesus that she needed, but she did not deal nearly so much with the kind of temptations that Mary faced because she did not have the same attraction for men as Mary.

In contrast I think that Mary was a very feeling oriented person. She responded to various situations much more from her heart and emotional reactions much more than with logic and Jesus related to her differently because of this. Yet Jesus was intent on drawing both of these sisters into close relationship with Himself as well as their brother. He spent many wonderful times relaxing in their home with His disciples forming bonds of deep friendship with this family. But this did not go unnoticed by His enemies in nearby Jerusalem where Mary's reputation and Jesus' close friendship with her family became a point of great interest among those seeking any way possible to undermine His reputation and influence among the people.

I also feel that it is entirely possible that Mary was also well-known among the religious leaders for more personal reasons because some of them may have taken advantage of her weaknesses themselves. It is quite possible that the woman dragged before Jesus to be stoned was this very Mary though that is impossible to prove from biblical text. The motives of the leaders in that story indicate a deep jealousy of Jesus and a desire to hurt Him in every way possible. And what better way to attack Him than through threatening one of His dearest friends and exposing her publicly while seeking to use His love for her to embarrass and trap Him with a 'sting operation' purportedly to clean up the morals of the people.

In that story it also seems clear that the Jewish leaders seeking to trap Jesus by dragging this woman (very possibly Mary) before Him for public execution for adultery well may have set her up for this very purpose. And in setting her up it is also very likely that one of their own had enticed her into committing this act with their participation, for there is no mention in that story about the man involved even though a strict observance of the law of Moses required that both the man and woman be punished. This convenient oversight belies the strong potential that they did not want their diabolical schemes directed against Jesus or their own lusts and hypocrisy exposed.

Now when Mary and her sister were hurting deeply and their faith in Jesus was under extreme stress because of the unexplainable delay of Jesus to come to their aid in a crisis, these Jews saw an excellent opportunity to exploit Mary in yet another perverted way, so they gathered around her to supposedly bring comfort and consolation to her. Again, I feel that many of these men internally had their own desires to take advantage of Mary and were controlled to a great extent by their own passions and lust while maintaining a pious exterior to keep up appearances and appear to be holy before the people. But all the while Jesus could see clearly the ugliness, hatred, lust and wickedness in the hearts of these men who claimed to represent God before the people.

What I see really taking place here was an intense competition between two representations of God, two belief systems about the truth about what God is really like. It was because religion in general and God's chosen representatives on earth in particular had miserably failed to represent Him anywhere near properly that Jesus came to this earth to do the job personally. Religion had degenerated into a mere external system of traditions, formalities and distortions thereby nearly completely obliterating the real truth about the love and compassion and mercy of our heavenly Father. As is often true today, those who most claimed to represent God exercised the greatest influence to distort and damage His reputation. This is one of the most effective schemes of Satan as he has sought since the beginning of sin to cause as many as possible to believe destructive lies about God while those claiming to believe in Him drive others away who might be attracted to the real truth about Him.

In this story these very men with lust in their hearts and hatred against Jesus piously show up in Mary's house to purportedly bring her consolation. They certainly found it attractive to hang around a woman with such charisma that stimulated their own perverted desires, but their motives were anything but noble. As can be seen in subtle references throughout this story, these men very likely had ulterior motives in their supposed consoling. What they really desired was to reinforce the already strong temptation to doubt Jesus on the part of these sisters. These men moved in like vultures to exploit the pain and weakness of these women just when they really needed encouragement and more faith. Rather than coming to strengthen their trust in the integrity and goodness of Jesus, these miserable comforters who had not long previously possibly sought to get Mary killed in their attempts to discredit Jesus now show up appearing to show sympathy for her. But what they really wanted to do was to amplify insinuations about Jesus' motives and infer that He did not really care for people nearly so much as people thought He did.

I believe this highly charged atmosphere of doubt and unbelief that oppressed the whole village of Bethany at this time was one reason Jesus did not enter into the village but remained outside when He arrived. The following dialogues that take place were at a distance from where all the 'consoling' was going on, for Jesus was not welcome to draw near to those who had such animosity toward His spirit. That is not to say that He did not want them to be changed in their attitudes toward Him or did not desire their salvation. But Jesus respects the choices of every person and when people harden their hearts against the truth about God that Jesus came to reveal, He has little choice but to leave them to the results of their choices while doing everything possible to rescue those being deluded by their influence.

I did some research on the Greek word translated here as console and discovered that it is generally used mostly in to human to human situations. It does not appear very often in the New Testament and is different from the word used more often for the kind of comfort that God seeks to bring to our hearts. For me this is an indication that John selected this word to distinguish between the intentions of the Jews surrounding Mary and Martha in contrast with what Jesus desired to do for them. An English word that might fit even better in this spot might be 'commiserating' rather than consoling. And the questionable motives behind the actions of these Jews seems to lend to this conclusion.

Jesus had desires for these sisters far beyond anything anyone around was thinking about. Martha came the closest to guessing what Jesus had in mind when she met Him outside of town upon His arrival. That is a most interesting exchange that I look forward to unpacking and is in stark contrast to the mixed motives of the Jews who had quite the opposite intentions in their hearts. Jesus came to bring life and joy and peace while these Jews focused on death and doubt and distrust. As the saying goes today, with friends like that who needs enemies.