Who is Mary of Bethany in the Gospels? Who is she related to and why is she important to Jesus? What can Mary teach us about faith?
In the Gospels of Luke 10:38-42 and John 11:1-12:11, Mary is mentioned as the sister of Martha. But it is only in John that she is mentioned as having a brother, Lazarus, and coming from a place called Bethany near Jerusalem (John 11:1-2; 18;32).
Luke describes Mary as “sitting at the feet of Jesus” and listening to his teaching. This is the classic description of a disciple of a rabbi but in this time in Palestinian Judaism no rabbi had women disciples. But throughout his Gospel, Luke makes a point of emphasising women disciples among Jesus’ closest followers (8:1-3). Luke describes her sister Martha as organising the hospitality for Jesus and the 12 disciples and is perhaps annoyed that she is not being actively helped by her sibling. Luke even records Jesus mildly rebuking Martha saying that to listen to his good news, to hear his words is more immediately important. So Mary is often portrayed as a role model of Christian discipleship.
At the time of her brother Lazarus’ death, Mary keeps to her house in mourning, receives and is surrounded by friends who have walked from Jerusalem to comfort her. When Jesus arrives it is Martha who meets him and declares her faith in him as the one who could have healed Lazarus had he been there. It would have seemed strange to Martha and Mary that their closest friend had not come for the funeral which was the normal practice at that time.
Martha sends others to let Mary know the master has arrived, then Mary leaves the house of mourning and followed by the Jerusalem friends rushes to Jesus and falls weeping at his feet saying only – “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Seeing Mary’s sorrow Jesus weeps. The crowd witness all of this and some believe in him. Others will report all this to the Jerusalem authorities who will see Jesus’ growing influence as a possible provocation to the Roman authorities and so begin to plan his death.
In John’s account of her, Mary is introduced as the one who “anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair” (11:2; 12:1-12). This act in the week before Jesus’ imprisonment, trial and death was extraordinarily radical. To let down her hair in public was scandalous, the anointing of feet was the act of a slave, the cost and quality of the perfumed oil equivalent to 300 days wages for a working man! The oil made from the Spikenard plant which only grew in the Himalayas was a luxury item available only to the wealthy. Many would have felt this formerly devout house was now ritually unclean. Judas, Jesus’ disciple, spoke the words many were thinking “Why was this oil not sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor?”
Instead, Jesus praises Mary and connects her anointing to that of his impending death. Throughout this last Passover week are woven a number of heady themes: the triumphant reception of Jesus at the gate of a crowded Jerusalem as a possible messiah, his clashes with the Temple authorities. Mary alone seems to have anticipated his inevitable death. She is the only woman twice praised in the Gospels for her clear devotion to Jesus (Luke 10:42; John 12:7). Mary and her sister Martha are the only two women singled out, in the canonical Gospels, as having been loved by Jesus.
Fleur Dorrell
