To hear this Morning Devotion, please click What good is a useless faith_
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One of the Bible’s most beautiful pictures of worship is when Mary of Bethany poured anointing perfume on the feet of Jesus and wiped it off with her hair.
It was an absolute picture of devotion by one with a passionate faith in her Messiah.
This same Mary was also the one who chose to hang on every word that Jesus was speaking during an earlier dinner at the house she shared with her sister Martha.
Mary caught grief then for leaving her sister to do all the work in the kitchen, but Jesus defended Mary’s choice, saying she was focused on “the better things” of honoring God.
These pictures of devotion came to mind this morning when John 11 portrayed quite a different picture of Mary.
Actually, Mary was shown as one going through a spiritual crisis and who refused to go to Jesus.
“I trusted Him. I prayed to Him. Repeatedly. And then He let me down,” was the clear impression of her attitude based on her recorded behavior.
As I read the account involving the death of Mary’s brother, Lazarus, I thought of how most every believer at one time or another enters a season of spiritual crisis involving a profound feeling of being let down by God.
Mary had been Jesus’ biggest cheerleader in Bethany, I’m sure. A skilled socialite, Mary knew how to connect with people and to influence them.
It was a very good thing for Christ’s ministry to have Mary on the team.
But then Lazarus became deathly ill.
Mary and Martha and their friends started praying like crazy.
Mary said a message needed to get to Jesus so that He could do another one of Him healing miracles and poof! Lazarus back to good health.
After all, Mary reasoned, Jesus had the power to do so. He had even made blind people able to see again.
This was Lazarus, we’re talkin’ about. He was the brother of Mary and that should grant some special access, shouldn’t it?
No.
Jesus, of course, had a larger plan for this circumstance. One that would resolve Lazarus’ physical woes but which would also become a defining moment for how the Jews looked at Jesus, both those who loved Him and those who hated Him.
She was terribly distraught that Jesus didn’t provide a long-distance healing for Lazarus — or even come right away to pray over him.
“I’m one of His biggest supporters. Doesn’t that count for something?” she might have said to herself.
Jesus, of course, had a different agenda for this event. But Mary couldn’t see that and was simply reacting to her experiences and presumptions.
Mary’s profound disappointment was shown when Jesus finally arrived in Bethany after Lazarus had died.
She refused to meet Him, despite the likely urging of Martha.
Jesus told Martha that Lazarus would live again and then He asked about Mary.
When Mary heard that Jesus had asked for her, she jumped to her feet and left her home where she and friends had been mourning.
Mary found Jesus and fell at His feet, not to thank Him for coming but instead to complain that He didn’t show up earlier to prevent Lazarus’ death.
Fortunately, this story had a happy ending and Christ’s faith in God carried the entire crowd of weak-faith believers through the flood of despair.
For Mary, this was a painful, yet potent lesson about heartache and personal timetables and plans and the need for a mature faith.
It is a lesson that we need to re-learn over and over.
Christ’s delay in answering our prayers does NOT mean Christ doesn’t care. Instead, it often means that circumstances or perhaps our hearts are not ready yet for the display of His interceding power.
“Not now” does not always mean “Not ever!”
The wise believer trusts that God’s answer to his or her prayer will come at the time that it will accomplish the most for God’s Kingdom and for the believer.
Mary had to learn this lesson as recorded in John 11.
Paul had to learn this lesson and wrote about it in Romans 8:28-37.
James had to learn this lesson and wrote about it in James 1:2-8.
Some of us now are gaining spiritual maturity as Christ spends what seems to us as too much time in His intercession workshop. Our lesson from John 11 is to keep trusting through the heartache, knowing that He’s working on something significant and enduring that will be good to us and bring glory to Him.
As always, I love you
Martin
