Who Jesus Is With Her
(Identity Revealed Through Encounter)
Do an exercise with me.
Draw two columns on a sheet of paper.
In the left column, list the labels others have placed on you.
Wife.
Mother.
Student.
Teacher.
In the right column, list the names you quietly place on yourself.
I imagine your lists would be long.
We carry labels like weights, adjusting our posture around them.
Have you ever wondered who Jesus says you are — not in theory, but in the middle of your grief, your devotion, your confusion?
Most of us are familiar with the story of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of Luke 10.
Martha is busy preparing.
Jesus is teaching.
Mary is seated at His feet, listening.
Martha enters the room.
“Lord,” she says, breath tight,
“Tell her to help me.”
“Martha, Martha…”
Mary, the daydreamer.
Mary the sensitive one.
Mary, who doesn’t pull her weight.
Does this feel familiar?
Have you ever been misunderstood in a room full of people?
“Mary has chosen what is better,
and it will not be taken from her.”
He does not ask her to explain herself.
He does not require her to justify her posture.
He protects her.
Have you ever longed for someone to simply say,
“Leave her alone”?
We meet the sisters again.
Lazarus is dead.
Martha runs to meet Him as He enters the village.
“Lord, if You had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
Jesus says to her,
“I am the resurrection and the life.
The one who believes in Me will live.
Do you believe this?”
Mary remains in the house.
She must be sent for.
“The Teacher is here.
He is calling for you.”
When Mary sees Him,
she falls at His feet.
“Lord, if You had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus sees her weeping—
He weeps.
Two sisters.
Same words.
Different posture.
With one, He speaks.
With the other, He weeps.
Once again, Jesus had come to Bethany.
Lazarus reclining at the table.
Martha serving.
The hum of conversation.
Mary rises.
In her hands—
a jar.
She breaks the seal.
The room fills with fragrance.
She kneels at Jesus’ feet.
She unbinds her hair.
She pours the oil
over dust-covered feet.
With her hair
and her tears,
she anoints Him.
“Why this waste?”
“Leave her alone,” Jesus says.
“Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world,
what this woman has done for Me
will also be told in memory of her.”
He defended her belonging.
He wept with her grief.
He received her devotion.
If this is who He is with her,
What might that mean for you?
If something in this story stirred you, there may be something in your own life that keeps replaying.
A memory.
A regret.
A conversation you’ve had in your head a hundred times.
You don’t need a long-term program.
You may just need space to untangle it.
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