“MARY.” UNWAVERING FOCUS.” LUKE 10: 38-42; JOHN 12: 1-8.
LUKE 10: 38-42; JOHN 12: 1-3, 3-8.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO LUKE 10.
The Life Question in today’s lesson is, “How can I keep my focus on Jesus.”
The Biblical Truth is that we can remain focused on Jesus by listening to Him, giving Him our best, and having greater concern for His approval than that of others.
Lynn Pryor said he was amused to walk into his family room one evening to discover his 16- year-old son watching TV. Nothing unusual there, but he was also listening to music, playing a video game, and carrying on several “instant messaging” conversations on the computer all at the same time. Multitasking. It defines this generation of young people and befuddles earlier generations.
While he admires his son’s ability to pull that off, multitasking can sometimes get in the way. There are times when a task---or a family member---needs our undivided attention.
Many Christians find themselves struggling to “keep the main thing the main thing” instead of settling for religious activities. Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, offers us a model of spiritual single-mindedness. Life offers choices between good and best. But like Martha, we all tend at times to be distracted from seeking the best.
When Jesus was in the home of Martha and Mary, Martha asked Jesus to rebuke Mary for not helping her prepare the meal. Jesus rebuked Martha for her anxiety and commended Mary for choosing to listen to His word.
When Jesus was at a feast honoring Lazarus’s resurrection, Mary anointed Him with an expensive ointment. Judas criticized her for not selling the ointment and giving the money to the poor.
Jesus said that helping the poor is an ongoing need but preparation for His death was a unique opportunity. Jesus honored Mary for doing what she did.
At least three prominent women who wee devoted to Jesus had the name Mary. One of these was His mother Mary, whose devotion is most clear in her response to the announcement of Jesus’ conception and birth in Luke 1: 26-38.
Mary Magdalene was a devoted follower of Jesus. He had cast seven demons out of her. She and other women of Galilee helped Jesus in Luke 8: 2-3.
Along with Jesus mother Mary, Mary Magdalene was at the crucifixion in John 19: 25. Mary Magdalene became the first witness of the risen Lord in John 20: 1-18.
The third Mary was Mary of Bethany. She and her sister Martha welcomed Jesus into their home, where Mary listened to Jesus words in Luke 10: 38-42. The two sisters urged Jesus to come when their brother Lazarus was dying. After Lazarus had been dead for four days, Jesus raised him from the dead in John 11.
At a meal in Jesus’ honor, Mary of Bethany poured expensive ointment on Jesus feet, an act for which Judas ridiculed her and Jesus defended her in Luke 12: 1-8. This third Mary is the focus of our lesson today.
PLEASE READ LUKE 10: 38-42.
Toward the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Luke wrote in Luke 9: 51,“when the days were coming to a close for Him to be taken up, He determined to journey to Jerusalem.” Shortly into Luke’s narrative of this time in Jesus’ life, Jesus and His disciples entered a village.
We know from John 12: 1 that Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus lived in Bethany. Bethany was a small village a short distance east of Jerusalem. Situated on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem.
In Luke’s account Lazarus is not mentioned, only Martha and Mary are mentioned. There is no discrepancy between Luke’s account of the household and John’s account, for Luke mentioned only those---Mary and Martha---who were key players in this narrative.
Martha is mentioned first and as he one who welcomed Jesus into her home. Martha is he feminine noun form of an Aramaic word meaning “mistress,” a role that she was apparently playing as mistress in charge of the house.
Thee is some speculation that Martha played this role because she was he oldest of the three siblings---certainly the oldest of the two sisters---and therefore the house belonged to her. Her house, however, can also mean the house where she (as well as others) lived.
Enter Mary. Mary probably had started out helping her sister with all the responsibilities entailed in hosting this group. Somewhere in the service, however, perhaps as she came and went from the room, she became enthralled by whatever Jesus was saying.
Whether Jesus was giving a formal discourse or was engaged in one of those serendipitous teaching moments around the dinner conversation, Mary found herself captivated by His words. She took a place at the Lord’s feet, front and center. She was listening continually to what He said.
Why wasn’t Martha doing the same thing---sitting at Jesus feet? Because she was distracted by her many tasks.
This lesson is on Mary and her unwavering focus on Jesus. But before we paint Martha in too negative a light we must look at it from her perspective. We do not have an exact number, but Luke wrote that this happened while they were traveling. So to invite Jesus into the home would include inviting those traveling with Him.
Counting Mary, Martha and possibly Lazarus, there could have been as many as 16 people in the house! If Jesus arrival in Bethany was unexpected, then the workload might have been compounded because Martha wasn’t prepared.
Martha had invited this entourage into her home, and she would follow through with being a gracious hostess. To tend to that many people would, of course, involve many tasks, or literally, “with much serving.”
Martha might have wanted to sit at the feet of Jesus, but she kept being distracted by the undone tasks around her. Distracted carries the idea of being “drawn from around.” Martha’s focus was being drawn by all the chores around her. To put it in more contemporary terms, Martha’s mind was pulled in every direction.
One can almost see and hear dutiful Martha through Luke’s simple descriptions. Can you see her working feverishly in her kitchen? Her knife-wielding hand chopped fresh vegetables while her ladle-wielding hand stirred pots and pans over the fire. As she gathered the food together, she balanced plates with pots. Martha was a one-woman restaurant baking bread for the Bread of Life.
She dragged hot heavy pots from the oven, perhaps wondering if anyone noticed her hard work. She drew water from the well. Clearly, Martha’s serving Jesus got in the way of her listening to Jesus.
Finally, when she couldn’t handle the pressure any longer, she marched into the living room, dish-cloth in hand, and wiping the perspiration from her face, offered a prayer request on her own behalf. “Lord,” she said likely with a touch of anger in her voice, “don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.”
In an instant, the Lord revealed that He understood both the greatest need of the moment as well as the one who had made the best use of her time. Jesus answered her with words of compassionate, merciful love. “Martha, Martha,” He said, “you are worried,” or inwardly fretting over the details and duties of the meal. The inward fretting boiled outward, causing her to be upset.
She was simply too easily distracted by things of lesser importance. Serving a meal for Jesus was good, but listening to Jesus was best. To be sure, that’s what Jesus thought and said!
Martha’s solution was not to confront Mary but to confront Jesus. She came up suggests that as Martha was hurrying about with her many tasks she stopped suddenly and spoke to Jesus. The nature of the verb suggests that it was an explosive act whereby she burst in and interrupted whatever Jesus was saying.
Martha’s words were just as explosive. She didn’t rebuke her sister directly, but she openly rebuked Jesus. Lord, don’t you care was Martha’s way of accusing Jesus of being insensitive to her situation or at least of faulting Jesus because He was monopolizing Mary’s time.
The problem from Martha’s perspective was that Mary had left me to serve alone. Mary had been doing her part of serving earlier---so she was no slacker---before she was drawn fully into the presence and words of Jesus.
Martha told Jesus exactly what to do. Martha didn’t tell her sister that she ought to return to serving, but she told Jesus to tell her.
Today, many people excuse their absence from worship and Bible study by saying they are too busy for these things. Supporting a family is a good thing, but when it is used as an excuse not to worship and study God’s Word, they display wrong priorities. People can become so anxious about good things, even religious activities, that they follow in Martha’s footsteps.
A young Christian told His friends he had been so busy serving the Lord that he had not found time to pray. His friends asked him how he knew he was doing what God wanted him to do if he did not report regularly for orders. And where did he get the strength to do the work of the Lord?
Only through listening to His Word and communing with Him can we find the direction and strength to serve God in daily life. Believers keep their focus on Jesus when they make listening to Him their priority.
What Mary chose would not be taken away from her. It is perhaps best to interpret this to mean that Mary made the right choice to listen to Jesus, and He would not prevent her from continuing to listen.
There is a time and a place for everything. God uses both Marys and Marthas. We should serve like Martha, but we should not let that service get in the way of our focus on Jesus. There is nothing greater than wholehearted devotion to Jesus Christ.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO JOHN 12.
PLEASE READ JOHN 12: 1-3.
We are now approaching in our study the closing hours of our Lord’s ministry here on earth. He had come ot Jerusalem for the last time to give His final testimony knowing well that rejection and crucifixion awaited Him, for none of these things took Him by surprise.
John selected three incidents from the events of these final hours of Jesus ministry. First, that of the supper at Bethany; secondly, that of His entry to Jerusalem, coming to it for His hour; and finally that of the coming of the Greeks.
His foes had tried to take Him and trap Him, had issued a proclamation that if anyone should know where He was to report, that they might take Him. Now He was coming of His own volition for His hour.
This event was much on Jesus’ mind. He had tried to tell His followers about it, but most of them didn’t think it would happen. But two people seem to have taken Him seriously. And their responses were totally different. Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus and Judas betrayed Him.
“Six days before Passover” Jesus came to Bethany. This was purely a social gathering. That was the intention. “Thy made Him a supper.” Matthew and Mark tell us that the supper was given, not in the house of Martha, but in the house of one Simon the leper. It was a happy occasion.
John 12:2 begins with the words so they gave a dinner for Him there. It’s likely the meal was given in Jesus’ honor, but it may also have been a celebration of the restored life of Lazarus.
Of all the guests, John singled out Lazarus as one of those reclining at the table with Him.
In the preceding chapter, Jesus performed the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. To some the raising of Lazarus is considered Jesus’ greatest miracle, and it certainly was “the last straw” for the Jewish leaders to take action against Jesus.
Within the community of Bethany, it was a cause for great rejoicing, and it certainly must have been a festive occasion as Jesus—the Savior---and Lazarus---the saved---reclined at the meal together. Martha again was serving at a celebration of the two men who were so dear to her heart.
We can assume those reclining at the table with Jesus were all men, for it was not proper for women to recline in public at a table with men. Women may have been in and out of the room serving the meal. Mary entered and performed a most unusual act of service---she anointed Jesus with oil.
In oriental fashion, the men would have been reclining at a low table, leaning on small couches or pillows with their feet extending behind them. Mary then would have been behind all the guests.
In particular, Mary used a pound of fragrant oil of spikenard. This was oil used to anoint special people. A pound was a large amount of this oil (“about a pint”), and it was very costly. Judas later valued it at 300 denarii. A denarius was a coin equivalent to a day’s wages for a laborer. Thus 300 denarii was the equivalent of that many days of work or about a year’s wages. In other words, this was an expensive item.
This was not common household oil: it was highly valued and expensive nard. The oil’s main use was in the preparation of a dead body. By reading John’s Gospel one might assume that Mary and Martha had bought the oil to anoint Lazarus body and they had not used it all.
However, this pure and expensive nard came in an alabaster flask. These flasks normally had long thin necks and the only way to retrieve the contents was to break the neck of the jar. This oil, then, had been used for no other reason than for what Mary used it---to anoint the body of Jesus.
Every eye must have been on Mary as she anointed the feet of Jesus with this expensive oil. The odor of the perfumed oil would have filled the room.
Mary did two other things that would have been considered shocking. First, she wiped His feet. The Jews considered it an extremely degrading act to touch someone else’s feet. Therefore, the washing of the feet was reserved for the lowest servants or anyone deemed of little value
Mary’s love and devotion to Jesus were so great that she was willing do the most degrading act in the eyes of others. Her self-humbling act showed her highly elevated regard for Jesus.
(One cannot help but wonder if Mary’s act of devotion and service entered the minds of the disciples a few days later when Jesus Himself exhibited such self-humbling devotion to them in the upper room by washing their feet in John 13).
The second shocking thing Mary did was not only touch Jesus’ feet but to do it with her hair. Every eye must have been on Mary as she anointed the feet of Jesus with this expensive oil. The odor of the perfumed oil would have filled the room.
The custom of the time dictated that a woman’s hair was to be gathered and bound up on the day she was married. She would never again be seen in public with her hair freely flowing. Only immoral women went out in public with their hair down.
Mary’s devotion was to Christ, and she was so moved by the love of Christ that she disregarded social customs, loosened her hair in the presence of all these men, and used her hair to wipe the fragrant oil on Jesus’ feet.
A pound of this perfume was about 12 of our ounces, which was a significant amount. Mary lovingly---without any inhibition or concern about what others thought---wiped the oil that covered Jesus feet. And with that large amount of fragrant oil it is quite natural to expect that the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Apart from the day when He went to the house of Mary and Martha this would appear to be the occasion when the invitation was that of pure hospitality. On this day Martha was acting as hostess in Simon’s house.
When we met Martha in Luke, she was preparing a meal for Jesus and Mary, and Lazarus and herself; four people. Here in Simon’s home she was preparing a meal for Jesus and 12 disciples that is thirteen, and Mary and Lazarus, and possibly the host Simon and Martha herself. 17. Four only on the previous occasion; seventeen now, and there is not a word of distraction.
PLEASE READ JOHN 12: 4-8.
The radiant loveliness of Mary’s action shines like a rainbow of God over the dark clouds that were gathered about Jesus. In the words of Judas hell flashed itself out in deep and dire animosity.
On the surface the criticism by Judas seems to have had some merit. There were many poor people in the land. They were helped by the generosity of others. The O.T. stressed the duty of helping the poor.
The value of the ointment was said by Judas to be equal to a year’s wages. That would have fed and clothed many needy people. John told us that Judas said what he did out of impure motives. John said that it was not that he cared for the poor. Judas was the treasurer for Jesus and the disciples and he was a thief. “He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.” John reminded his readers that this was Judas Iscariot, who in just ahs ort time would betray Jesus.
Judas’s criticism was basically, “Why this waste?” From the world’s point of view acts of extravagant love for Jesus are wasteful. If a young couple begins to tithe, some friend will think this was a waste when the couple needs the money for other things. A young doctor dedicates his life to mission service, choosing that above a potentially lucrative practice in his hometown. Some people will say, “What a waste.”
Jesus first words to Judas were, Let her alone. When Martha criticized Mary, Jesus rebuked her mildly; when Judas attacked Mary, Jesus was stronger in His rebuke of the greedy disciple.
In vs. 7 Jesus connected this anointing by Mary with preparation for His burial.
Jesus interpreted Mary’s action as a sign that she had taken Him seriously when He had spoken of His coming death. And this anointing was her way of showing her love and gratitude and also of affirming Him in His mission of salvation at the cross.
As we noted earlier, only two of Jesus’ followers took what He said seriously. One was Judas, and he acted by betraying Jesus for money. He decided that he would have something to show for his years with Jesus. Mary of Bethany was the other. God used her act of extravagant love to encourage and affirm Jesus before He went to the cross.
In reply to Judas’s exclamation about the poor in verse 5, Jesus said, “The poor always ye have with you.” Some people have accused Jesus of being insensitive to the needs of the poor. This is a totally wrong conclusion to draw from these words. Jesus was alluding to Deuteronomy 15:11, which is in a passage calling for people to be generous to the poor. The ideal toward which the people of Israel were to strive was that there would be no poverty. But the actual situation is that poverty will always exist in a human society. Jesus was responding to the criticism that the ointment should have been sold and the money used to help the poor. The por are all about us and should help them; however, Mary had a unique opportunity to do something directly for Jesus. She had an opportunity to show special love for Him and to show that she recognized His anguish as He headed to the cross. Opportunities come quickly and leave quickly. Therefore we need to seize the opportunities we have for showing extravagant love to Jesus.
Do you think Mary was surprised at the criticism she received? Personally I don’t believe she was surprised. But her awareness of possible criticism did not keep her from doing what she did. Her eyes and her heart were fixed on Jesus, and she was determined to show her love for Him whatever anyone said or did. Jesus soon would be arrested and killed. There would be no other occasion to do what Mary had done. Mary acted at the right moment.
What are lasting lessons in John 12:4-8?
Jesus’ followers should seize opportunities to express their love to Him.
Some people will criticize those who show extravagant love for Jesus.
Committed followers of Jesus should seek to please Him, regardless of opposition and criticism.
Believers keep their focus on Jesus by seeking His approval over that of others.
Next Sunday we return to the O.T. to begin a four week study of “Godly Men of Faith.” We begin with Caleb, a man in whom faith endures. A.V. Daugherty. altav@sbc.net www.theweeks.org/av