Martha of Bethany
Elizabeth Clare Prophet was embodied in Palestine in the first century A.D. as Jesus’s friend and disciple, Martha of Bethany. She lived at Bethany with her brother Lazarus and sister Mary. They were intimate friends of Jesus Christ. He stayed in their home whenever he came to Jerusalem.
Martha was the head of the household and appears to have been the eldest in the family. She cooked for Jesus and looked after his physical needs when he would come. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote, in her book Woman in Sacred History: “Martha was one of those natural leaders whom everybody instinctively thinks of as the head of any house they may happen to belong to.”[1]
Martha is known for her confession of faith in Jesus Christ. It happened after her brother Lazarus had died and Jesus came to Bethany. Martha and Mary had sent word to Jesus when Lazarus became ill, but he did not go to Bethany immediately. By the time he arrived, Lazarus had already been in the grave for four days. We read in John Chapter 11:
Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, he will give it thee.”
Jesus saith unto her: “Thy brother shall rise again.”
Martha saith unto him, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said unto her, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”
She saith unto him, “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”
Strong traditions indicate that following the crucifixion of Jesus, Martha went to France to propagate his teachings. Her relics are in the church dedicated to her in Tarascon, France.
Mary, the sister of Martha, reembodied as Mary Baker Eddy and brought the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mother Mary and the apostle Paul in her Christian Science textbook and writings. She is known as the Ascended Lady Master Theosophia.
Sources
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, October 10, 1992.
- ↑ Harriet Beecher Stowe, Woman in Sacred History: A Series of Sketches Drawn from Scriptural, Legendary and Historical Sources (New York: John B. Aldren, 1888), chapter 19.