Martha of Bethany

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Henryk Siemiradzki (1886). Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, Martha is shown on the left taking care of the affairs of the household—a scene described in Luke 10.

Church of Saint Martha, Tarascon, France

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.”

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.

Martha, Mary and Lazarus

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.

In this relationship, Mary was a focus for the devotion of the heart, the path of the mystic, whereas Martha represented the reasoning of the mind, the path of the occult. In Lazarus we find the heart and head united in the action of the hand of service to Christ.

The sacred mysteries that were taught to Mary, Martha and Lazarus during their last supper with Jesus before his crucifixion were anchored in their four lower bodies as a record of cosmic Truth they were to bring forth at a later time. Lazarus reembodied in the twentieth century as a teacher of Christian Science whose ministry of healing has touched countless lives.

The mission of these three lifestreams has formed a threefold flame down through the centuries, and the love of Mary and Martha has become the essence of wisdom, a legacy for the age, while it was the destiny of Lazarus to go forth and proclaim the highest teachings of the Christ and to demonstrate those teachings by the actions of the Law.

Sources

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, October 10, 1992.

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Path to Immortality, chapter 5.