Follow Me with Understanding (Lent 3, 2025) - John 12:1-8

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Martha's second recorded encounter with Jesus is in John chapter 11, on a terrible wonderful day. 

Martha was a woman of faith. She was a daughter of Israel, and to be a daughter of Israel was not just citizenship. It wasn't just your driver's license and your passport, it was your identity. It was who you were. It was your roots. It was your family. It was your future.  

She was a daughter of Israel, and Israel was waiting. Waiting for and working towards deliverance: when God would send His Messiah, His Christ, His Anointed One to save them from their enemies and restore their nation. 

In the Old Testament tradition, priests and kings and prophets were ‘messiahed’ (anointed); they would be marked with oil in a ceremony, and set apart by Holy Spirit with prayer to do a particular task for God. Martha knew her people’s history. She knew what they were waiting for—who they were waiting for.  

She would have known scriptures from Leviticus about the ‘messiahed’ (anointed) priest who was allowed to offer the sacrifice on behalf of his people. She would have read in the historical books about the ‘messiahed’ kings, Saul, David, and Solomon, who ruled the nation under the authority of God. She would have read in the Psalms about the Lord's ‘messiahed’ one, empowered to do the work of justice and of peace on earth. She would have read about prophets being ‘messiahed’ with oil or with Holy Spirit Himself. 

The spirit of the Lord God is on me because the Lord has ‘messiahed’ me to preach good news to the poor. Isaiah 61:1-2

Later on in those Old Testament writings, references to a ‘messiahed’ one become more specific and more future focused.  

In Daniel 4, we read about a ‘messiahed’ prince who will come and rebuild a conquered and emptied Jerusalem. 

In Lamentations: 

The Lord's messiahed one, the breath of our life, was captured in the enemy’s pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.” So, rejoice and be glad daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. Yet the cup will pass to you as well. - Lamentations 4:20-21 

In other words, 'Our messiahed one is down but not out. Your turn is coming.' 

Martha's people knew these stories, these promises, these prophecies. They wanted Messiah to come. They were expecting Messiah to come. They started trying to make it happen: taking up swords and fighting against their occupier Rome in (as they thought) the name of God. They were trying to kickstart the day when God would send His Messiah king to rule with peace and justice, to kick out the invaders, and restore Israel to its holiness.

______ 

This ordinary woman of faith, this daugher of Israel, stood face to face with Messiah on a terrible wonderful day. (John 11:1-44) 

Her brother Lazarus had died. Jesus came to the funeral four days too late, so it seemed. 

From their first encounter in her living room to this day at Lazarus' graveside, a better part of three years had gone by. In that three years of Jesus’ ministry and of Martha's life, we have no record of her ever leaving Bethany. Women were not under the same obligation to attend the three annual pilgrimages ordained by Yahweh God. Martha had responsibilities at home caring for her family, earning their bread, probably raising her siblings, and I would suggest that in those three years of working and living her life, Martha had lots of time to think.  

Between her meetings with Jesus and their conversations, she had time to think. 

Each week she would have attended synagogue and heard the prophecies and promises read again and again. Day to day she had hours to think it over while she was washing the dishes and sweeping the floor. I think she probably saved up her questions for moments when Jesus would turn up on her doorstep again.  

Martha had those three years to think about how He taught and how He loved and how He healed and how He raised the dead and how He broke the human rules, all the while pointing people towards Yahweh God, just like Messiah was going to do.  

She had all that time to think about those generations of prophecy, of expectation, and of suffering.  

She had time to think about all those promises made by God, and kept by God, and repeated by God.  

And I think that at some point, in all that thinking, the pieces fell into place. She realised, “Messiah! This is it! This is actually it. God's messiahed One is here.”  

So on that awful day—that awful, awful day when Lazarus was sealed in his tomb, four days dead, when Mary was at home, surrounded by grief and by grieving friends, and Martha was out of the house just trying to keep busy—on that awful day, when her family was shattered, here came Messiah.  

He walked into her own front yard. He stood there with His cheeks wet with tears of anger over the grip that death has on this world.  

And before (not after) He raised her brother back to life, Martha said to Jesus, “I believe that you are Messiah. The Son of God, who was to come into the world.” And now? Here you are.  

I think that Martha thought and asked and learned. She put those pieces together. I think she understood as well as anyone possibly could on that day that Messiah had come.  

And that whatever happened next... He was right. 

So where did she go from there? Where does Martha's trajectory take her, from that awful, wonderful day?  

As far as we are able to get to know her from the text of Scripture, that day was the climax of her story. But it was not yet over. 

The final point that we see in her trajectory happened on another ordinary day, when she was working. And not long before another resurrection.  

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. So they hosted a dinner for Jesus there. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with Him. Then Mary took about a pint of expensive perfume, made of pure nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 

But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was going to betray Him, asked, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” Judas did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money bag, he used to take from what was put into it. 

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “She has kept this perfume in preparation for the day of my burial. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”    John 12:1-9 

This story is one of my absolute favourite events in Scripture. When we meet Martha for the third and final time—still serving, still busy, but so much wiser.  

The room is filled with people sitting at a meal, leaning on the table with one elbow, eating with the other hand, with their feet extended out behind them. Martha is on her feet. She’s working, with her hands full. She's got a towel in one hand and a tray in the other. She's wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve. She's standing in the doorway, and she's watching. Just watching. Watching as her sister the disciple pours a year's worth of income on Jesus’ feet. Martha takes a deep breath as the perfume fills the air. She watches as Mary lets down her hair—breaking the rules again—and wipes away the excess perfume with her hair.  

And Martha says, “Lord, tell her not to waste that! Do you know how many dishes I have to wash in a year to make that much money?” 

No. 

Martha says, “Lord, if you'd wanted to, you could have prevented this waste!” 

No. 

Martha says... Nothing.  

She’s just standing there, and I think she is filled with joy at the sight and she's thinking, “Hang the rules. This is right.” 

Tonight, it is somebody else's turn to miss the point. Because Martha gets it.  

She understands. She knows Messiah is in the room. Nothing else matters. And the only thing that she can do... is follow. 

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