We counted Him as a friend. Jesus, that is. When He was in Jerusalem, He would stay with us in Bethany. We are, to many, a strange household, my brother Lazarus, my sister Mary & I, but I really think Jesus saw us as, well as part of His family, but certainly as dear friends.
We'd often had Him share meals with us, He knew me well enough you know to rebuke me as one does a sister when I got things wrong. You see I'm the practical one of the three of us. Lazarus is a man & looks after & cares for us, Mary, my sister often has her head in the clouds, living very much at the mercy of her thoughts & feelings, but I'm the practical one. Jesus though had seen through my facade of busy-ness & had shown me that I shouldn't always seek refuge in what I do, but allow myself space to breathe & contemplate & enjoy what is important in life.
Anyway, I digress, for I wanted to tell you about the time when I was confronted with the truth of who Jesus is, who He really is! Not just a friend' or a Teacher, but so much more than that.
You see, it began really when Lazarus fell ill. To begin with we did all the things you do when someone falls ill, I made broth, but there was no improvement & he got worse.
We watched over him as the fever took hold of him, sometimes it took both of us to hold him still as he seemed to thrash about in his agony. It was at this point we decided, Mary & I to send for Jesus. We managed to get someone who knew where He could be found & sent word for Him to come quickly. We told Him that Lazarus, His beloved friend was very ill.
Whilst we waited for Him to come, we watched & nursed Lazarus, but he got worse. The thrashing stopped, but the fever didn't get any better. He grew paler & paler, became still & then, almost before we realised how bad things were, he died!
We were stunned. We grieved, we wailed. Mary & I prepared him for burial, we both wanted to do that for him & we buried him in the tomb in our garden.
The house was full of those who had come to support us & mourn with us, yet I think for both of us, the aching void we felt wasn't simply in the loss of our dear brother, but because Jesus wasn't there. We didn't know why, but we did know that He hadn't come.
It was a few days later when someone came running in to me to say that Jesus was coming. I thought I'd better go & warn Him what to expect when He arrived. Did He know that Lazarus had died, or was He still expecting to see him ill, but alive?
When I reached Him, I realised that He knew Lazarus was dead. Of course He knew, I remember wondering why I ever thought He wouldn't know!
I couldn't help myself, but the words of reproach left my mouth before I remember even thinking them - 'If You'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died, but even now Jesus,
I know that whatever You ask Your Father for, He will give to You.'
I'm not sure what I expected Him to do or to say. I know that as the truth of my words sank into my heart I realised that I really did believe them. I did believe that whatever Jesus asked His Father to do, it would be done & that whatever He did would be good.
I wasn't surprised at His reaction of faith in God, His Father. He reminded me that Lazarus would rise again & I replied that I knew he would rise again on the last day. His next words jolted me out of my platitude though!
He said 'I AM myself the Resurrection & the Life. Whoever believes & trusts in me even if he dies, he shall live. He who continues against all external circumstances to believe in Me shall not die. Martha, do you believe this?'
If you haven't known Jesus as we did, you won't know that tingle that you get down your spine when He says certain things, things that are so deep, so wide, so utterly mind-blowing, yet at the same time so familiar that somehow you've known them to be true all your life, except no-one until this moment has ever been able to paint the picture of them for you. Well, I had one of those moments as He said those words. I knew, I knew what I'd always known, but now, I really KNEW IT!
Almost as if the words themselves were new to me I replied with a sense of wonder, 'I believe that You are the Christ, the Anointed Son of God, the Promised One, the Messiah!' He simply smiled at me in that way He could when you know that He knew what it was you were going to say & was so pleased you'd said it.
I left Him & went to get Mary, still with that sense of wonder within me. Mary was weeping with her friends, but went straight away to find Jesus. She told me much later that she had actually said the same thing I had to Him when she found Him! Maybe we're not so different after all, my sister & I!
Anyway, Jesus came & asked where they had laid him & we all went to the tomb. Some of our friends were muttering about Jesus having left it too late to come, but no-one doubted His love for our brother because as we got to the tomb, He wept. He simply wept for His friend, our brother. Even those who had been muttering couldn't deny this outpouring of love & grief from Jesus.
As He gathered Himself, He then said the most extraordinary thing, He told the men to take away the boulder! Lazarus had been in the tomb four days by now, it had been hot, the stench would have been horrific. What was Jesus thinking? I had to say it, but even in saying the words, I knew there was something He was going to say, or do!
What He said was directed at me - 'Didn't I tell you that if you believed in Me you would see the glory of God?'
'I do believe in You my Lord' was my hearts reply, but the words that left my lips were an assent to His request.
I will be honest, there was no-one there who could have predicted what He would do next, well, even for Jesus this was something else! We'd heard of Him bringing back from the dead Jairus' daughter, but she'd only just died. We'd heard too of the widow in Nain, just about to bury her son, he was on his funeral pyre when Jesus raised him from death, but our dear brother had been in the tomb for four days, his spirit would have departed and his body would have begun to decay, yet, Jesus said in a loud voice
'Father, thank You that You hear Me, that You always hear Me. I say this for the benefit of those You have brought here to this place at this time, that they might believe.' He paused, then said in that commanding way only He could, 'Lazarus, come out!'
Walking towards us came our brother, still in his burial cloths! Well, I say walking, but creeping might be better, for we'd bound him beautifully. He still had His burial cloth on his face, Jesus laughed at our reaction & told us through His joyous laughter to help Lazarus free of the binding cloths of death & let him go.
That was all we needed to free us from the daze we were in, which seemed to have frozen us to the spot. We ran to him, to Lazarus, overjoyed at seeing him again at having had him restored to us.
I knew Jesus was going to do something special, I thought He'd come & He'd heal him, we'd seen Him do that so many times before, but this......well even for Jesus, this was incredible. He'd told me I would see the glory of God. He told me Lazarus would be raised, but this....this was humbling. I glanced over at Jesus & He met my gaze & smiled. Sometimes you know, words simply get in the way. I could not have expressed anything in words that would have said any more than the look that passed between us at that point. Just as I had known, He knew, He knew how I felt, how grateful, how full of wonder, how my life would never be what it was before, how I had myself somehow passed from death to life, just as Lazarus had.
He didn't stay with us that time, because our house became such a crowded place where folk who heard about Lazarus would come, just to see him, to see if it were real, to join in our joy. The party & celebration lasted many days & even weeks later after most had gone home, we would still get the occasional knock on the door asking for Lazarus, asking to simply shake his hand, for they wanted to share in the wonder of our resurrected brother.
Even some of the Jewish leaders came, although they weren't full of wonder at all, but filled with scathing scepticism. We showed them the burial cloths & the grave, but they went away as scathingly as they arrived.
We all three of us felt for Jesus, we wished He could have been with us. We understood why He couldn't at that time, but we knew He'd come back again & maybe by then we might have found some words to express our delight & gratitude.........or maybe the wonder was just too great for words!
We talked about it, the three of us, in the stillness when evening draws in. How could we thank Jesus, how could we show Him just what we felt in our gratitude?
We had one thing, our family insurance if you like, our parents had left it to us. It was a pound of pure nard, yes, a pound! In talking it through we all decided that we should give it to Jesus, as an offering of thanks from the three of us.
It was Mary who came up with the idea of anointing Jesus with it, of pouring it out upon Him. We knew the Jewish leaders were planning to kill Him, they'd made it plain enough to Him, but also to us when they came to see Lazarus. They even hinted that it might be better for us if Lazarus was to disappear permanently too!
We knew they meant it, they didn't make idle threats & we knew too that time may be short, so Mary said the next time Jesus came to our home, she'd like to anoint Him with the nard & that we would both be there too, Lazarus & I.
So, about a week before Passover, Jesus came to stay again, on His way to Jerusalem. It was such a joy to the three of us having Jesus there, with Lazarus reclining with Him. I served & Mary prepared herself. At the right point in the meal we all caught each other's eyes & we knew the time was right. It was as though the whole world stood still for a time as Mary uncorked the nard & poured it on Jesus. I found myself crying with Mary as she did so. When I looked at Lazrus, he too was fighting back tears!
I can't describe how beautiful it was, how the fragrance of it filled the room, how there was something deeply spiritual, deeply profound about it. To be honest, we hadn't bargained for the sense of God amongst us that it brought. I know that wasn't just me that felt it, you could see from other people they too were deeply moved, none more so than Jesus.
After that moment, when the world began to move again, I heard Judas bemoaning the waste of the nard. I didn't like Judas & I suspected his motives for complaining weren't just that it might have been sold for the poor, but that 'poor' Judas might have had some of the proceeds! Well it hadn't been his to sell anyway, it was our inheritance, ours to do with as we wanted & we had chosen to spend it on Jesus, in grateful thanks for all His amazing goodness to us.
Jesus knew. He knew why, He knew what it cost, He knew it was our sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. He didn't agree with Judas, He said that wherever the story of today was told, the story of this sacrifice would be told too.
We didn't know then what we know now. We didn't have any idea just what significance there was in what Mary had done on our behalf. We didn't realise how short time was for Him, how imminent His death was. I know, maybe we should have, but we didn't.
Now we do know, we are even more humbled to have been a small part of His story, anointing Him for His burial in that way with what was most precious to us, poured out on Him who is most precious to us!
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