Mary and Martha’s traditional roles in Luke are here reversed. It is Martha who is with Jesus while Mary is absent, surely out of complicated anger. The sisters’ anger is palpable, though not specifically described. Mary comes when called; but when she does, she confronts Jesus with the same words that Martha had used. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”Â
Along with the manifold implications in the details, there are two great lessons in today’s reading: Jesus delays to come to Bethany for the sake of the greater miracle — which will therefore build greater faith in the witnesses; and the apostles, unaware of that but mindful of the threat back where they came from, determine to follow him regardless.
Daily Devotional • September 8
A Reading from Job 25:1-6, 27:1-6
1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2 “Dominion and fear are with God;
  he makes...
Peter affirms that Jesus has been raised, Jesus sits at the right hand of God, and Jesus is both Lord and Christ, i.e. Master and Messiah., and states that he and those with him are witnesses to it all.
So human beings control how the decision is made, but they acknowledge that the actual decision must be out of their control so that God’s will may be known and done. This means of deciding is therefore offered to God whom they trust to use it to reveal his will.
