The Conversation Between Martha and Jesus

Lesson #179

Up to this point, Jesus has raised people, who have died physically, back to physical life without any connection to their spiritual life. The time has now come when Jesus must include the spiritual dimension. He introduces this concept when he said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26 ESV). Notice the wording Jesus uses. He does not say he will bring about the resurrection or that he will be the cause of the resurrection, but he says something much stronger; he says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus is connecting the resurrection from the dead to an eternal fellowship with God and it occurs only through a relationship with him. This relationship with Jesus is established as of necessity by his statement, “Whoever believes in me.” This resurrection will not occur apart from Jesus Christ. The one who will experience the resurrection is the one who has eternal life before he or she dies, who lives on after physical death. The resurrection will then provide a new, perfect body to complete our salvation. If you are only born physically you will experience two deaths: spiritual and physical. If you are born both physically and spiritually you will experience only one death: physical death. You must be born twice in order to be a new creature in Christ to which a resurrection body can become a part of and that second birth occurs only in relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus asks Martha if she believes this to which she says, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” (John 11:27 ESV). She says she believes, but she limits her belief to Jesus being the Son of God the one who is coming into the world and does not include the aspect of he being the resurrection. We will see shortly that she still has more to learn.

We will finish this lesson by beginning the next section, which is defined by John 11:28-37.

After having this conversation with Jesus on the road into Bethany, Maratha “went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”” (John 11:28 ESV). From this verse it is easy to conclude that Martha is concerned about the safety of Jesus, because she went, not she and Jesus, to Mary and in private she told her about Jesus calling for her. It appears that Martha is trying to get Jesus and Mary together without a large crowd. Referring to Jesus as “The Teacher” was a natural way for any disciple of Jesus to refer to him at that time.

“And when [Mary] heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him” (John 11:29-30 ESV). Martha disrupts Mary’s grieving to inform her about Jesus, which prompts her to quickly go to meet him. As we suspected earlier, Jesus waited to meet Mary outside of the village, where he had talked with Martha.

We will see next time that Mary wasn’t alone when she went to meet with Jesus.

Prayer

Father, as I prepare this lesson I am touched by Martha’s struggle in trying to grasp the concept of Jesus being the resurrection, not just the one who will bring it about or cause it to happen. In thinking about this I realize that since he is the resurrection and the life, I have to be in him and he in me if I am to experience the resurrection. The resurrection is a process that occurs in him, not external to him. Apart from Jesus there is no resurrection; simply eternal death apart from God.