In the warm climate of Palestine, a dead body would decompose rapidly, so the bodies of those who died were often buried the same day as the day of death. Lazarus had been dead four days by the time Jesus arrived. Jesus and His disciples were on the other side of the Jordan River when they received the news about Lazarus. The journey to Bethany meant traveling more than 20 miles (all by walking). The road to Bethany involved climbing from more than 1,000 feet below sea level, to an altitude of 2,700 feet above sea level. It took a long, long day of difficult up-grade walking to get from Jericho to Bethany.

In verse 40, we read, “But Martha (who) was cumbered about much serving, came to (Jesus), and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me.” Lesson 6) Mary chose the good part, the one thing needful—which is salvation through repentance of sin, faith in Christ—and a commitment to follow Him in obedience. Cash Box YE Pop Singles - 1976". Tropicalglen.com. Archived from the original on October 20, 2018 . Retrieved October 30, 2017. It sounds like a promotion, doesn’t it? Going from servant to friend. Being a servant, however, is not a bad thing. Also, note that in John 15:17, Jesus repeats the command for us to love one another immediately after He has repeated the concept that He saved us so that we would bear fruit. The two are intertwined. When He gave His new commandment (John 13:35), Jesus said that others would know that we are His disciples by our love for one another. Here, He ties our ability to bear fruit with His command that we love one another. As people see the love between Christians, they will be drawn to the source of our love, our Savior who gave Himself for us on the cross.These have been only a few fragmented attempts to answer our original question. I leave the question to you now and encourage you to lean into the Scriptures. Listen to your life and find more and better answers on your own. How has Jesus defined you? When have you heard Him say, "Don't be afraid?" Has He met you in your weakness? Have you experienced His unqualified love? When Jesus arrived, Mary soon found a place sitting at the feet of Jesus, drinking in His words of wisdom. Mary took advantage of this time with Jesus to hear what He had to say—and what He was teaching about the real issues of life here and hereafter. There is something tranquil in what Mary chose to do. Mary chose to hear about matters of eternal consequence. This later scholarship contradicts the consensus of many 19 th century British scholars, who tended to see the alternation of verbal forms in John 21:15-17 as not merely one of style but of substance. However, support for this archaic position has continued to dwindle in the face of the apparently irrefutable evidence that the Fourth Gospel regularly deploys synonyms for the sole purpose of stylistic variation. As Jesus speaks these words to his disciples, he is preparing them for his betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection. Jesus knows that he will love these disciples all the way to the cross and beyond. And he calls them to demonstrate the same kind of love for the Father, the Son, and for the children of God. Jesus did not simply profess his love; he lived it, and he died for it. We too are called to sacrificial love. Most of us will not be asked to surrender our lives, but rather our time, talents, and treasure. It might mean laying down our agenda or setting aside our pride to serve someone in need. That was the kind of love Jesus exemplified on the cross, and it is the kind of love that he called his followers to mirror. Jesus is saying something like this: “Now Martha, stop and think about life; there are not really many necessary things. You are concerned about a lot of details, but you could live without them if you had to. On the other hand, there is one thing that you just can’t do without—and Mary has found it!”

Now we have the Holy Spirit and the Spirit-inspired Word of God to reveal to us all that we need to know for life and godliness (John 14:26; 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:9-13; 2 Pet. 1:3-4). If you know Christ, you know things that the most brilliant scientists and philosophers in the world don’t understand! You know the living and true God, who spoke the universe into existence! You know His plan for history. You know how to have your sins forgiven. You know why He put you on this planet. You know that you will spend eternity with Him in glory. You know how He wants you to conduct yourself in all of life’s difficult situations. All of this and more is revealed to us in God’s inspired Word! In the life of the Church, over the ages, “love of friendship” managed to get a foothold and secure its place, despite being often misunderstood. From a theological perspective, the mistrust of this “love of friendship” stems from its appearing to be a preferential, even exclusive, kind of affection and, thus, a contradiction of the biblical command to love all people. However, it need not be either exclusive or contradictory. The Christian understanding of “love of friendship” emerges from many biblical texts, throughout the Old Testament and the New, but in a particular way in the Fourth Gospel. National Top 100 Singles for 1976". Kent Music Report. December 27, 1976 . Retrieved January 11, 2022– via Imgur. But as D. A. Carson cautions ( The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 522), we need to be careful about being too chummy in calling Jesus our friend. In the Bible, God and the Lord Jesus call certain ones their friends, but no human ever refers to God or Jesus as their friend. It’s not a mutual, reciprocal friendship. The Bible refers to both Abraham (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; James 2:23) and Moses (Exod. 33:11) as friends of God. Jesus here calls the disciples His friends. But He is still their Lord and Teacher (John 13:13, 14). Although at the last supper, the apostle John laid his head on Jesus’ breast, years later when John saw Jesus in His glory, he fell at His feet as a dead man (Rev. 1:17). So as we consider whether or not we are friends of Jesus, we need to maintain John’s reverence. In fact, being a servant of God is always a high honor in the biblical tradition. It’s very likely that Jesus thought of himself as God’s Servant after the manner of the Servant Songs in the book of Isaiah.Country Singer C.W. McCall of 'Convoy' Fame Dies at 93". Yahoo Sports. April 4, 2022 . Retrieved May 5, 2023.

Before proceeding, it is important to make an etymological detour and speak briefly about the terminology used for “love” in the Fourth Gospel. The Johannine imagery of “love” and “friendship” spans two word groups: ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν. The verbal form, ἀγαπάω, is used thirty-seven times in John whereas φιλέω occurs twelve times. Most of this usage congregates around the Farewell Discourse (John 13:31–17:26), where “love” and “friendship” are major themes and where, according to the vast majority of Johannine scholars, the two verbs, together with their respective cognate groups, are used interchangeably with no distinction in meaning. Theirs was a genuine friendship with its ups and downs. Peter is the only disciple to say "no" to Jesus. Jesus saves his highest praise and most severe rebukes for Simon Peter. Though Jesus surely was close to more than one of His disciples, theirs is the only fully-formed friendship in the gospels. Let's look briefly to their friendship as a paradigm and see what we can find in answer to our original question: What does it mean to be friends with Jesus? Even though Peter had denied even knowing Jesus to the stragglers in the courtyard at Caiaphas', later, when He is raised from the dead, Jesus sends word, "Tell the disciples...and Peter I am going ahead of you to Galilee." (Mk 16:7) Even though Luke tells us their eyes met across that courtyard when Jesus heard Peter utter his third denial, still Jesus was willing to turn and go from that place and die on the cross for Peter and for you and for me, knowing the worst in all of us. Lesson 3) Jesus saw Mary and the other mourners weeping, and He too wept. The words translated “weep” in John 11:33 and 11:35 are two different words.If these commands sound vaguely familiar, it’s because Jesus already said (John 13:34-35), “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Why would Jesus repeat this command on the same night? He repeated it because He was the master teacher and He knew that repetition is the key to learning, especially learning something that isn’t easy. It takes more than one hammer blow to sink a nail. It takes more than saying it once for us to learn to love one another! And what will these friendships look like? I think Jesus has already shown us. Friendships are relationships of love – genuine love, expressed love, love enacted through self-sacrifice. Is that how we view friendship? Is that the sort of friendships we seek to cultivate? Often we don’t. Perhaps we think we don’t need them. Perhaps we fear we’ll be misunderstood if we love our friends too deeply. Perhaps we just don’t want the disruption. But if friendships are about the love of self-sacrifice, perhaps they should be disruptive. There’s a cost to laying down our lives for others. Real love costs something, and real love is what Jesus calls us to in friendship. Anyone who has ever been in church is familiar with the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It was written by a son to comfort his mother whom he had left behind in Ireland when he came to the United States in the 1850s. One writer says, “The Lord wants all of us to imitate Mary in our worship, and to imitate Martha in our work—blessed are those who achieve the balance!” Somebody had to prepare the supper. If Martha would have spent most of her time sitting at the feet of Jesus (like Mary did), Jesus and His disciples would have gone hungry that night. On the other hand, there is always the danger of putting too much emphasis on the busy side of life—which can lead to the neglect of the devotional and contemplative side. Jesus did not condemn Martha, but neither did He condone her activity. The serving was not bad, but she allowed the serving to get her all tensed up.