Every year during the week leading to Easter, I like to read through the stories of Jesus’ last week on earth. This morning, I found myself in John 12 and in the home of His dear friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus – three siblings who loved Jesus and believed Him to be the Christ – at the scene of a dinner. And as the next passage began, I caught something I’d never noticed before, “The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.” The Feast, being Passover and the crowd, being those that made Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem a triumphal one means that this night at Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ home was the last before Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last week of his life.

Before He faced the crowds who would both love and hate Him within a week, before He saw His disciples flee in fear, before He took upon all the evil of the world and carried all the pain and suffering we have cast upon one another and our world, we find Jesus at the home of beloved friends for one last night of food, conversation and togetherness. Can you imagine it?

Most of them probably had no clue what the next week would hold – how everything was about to change.

 

God has been talking with me lately about the loving relationships He has called me to. In a season of life where it seems there are many more questions than answers, I am increasingly sure of one thing: my life is being filled with relationships to cultivate. The people in our lives are more than companions – they are gifts – and with each gift, we have a responsibility of honoring them and God by loving well.

I’ve been turning this over in my mind for a while now and practically, think that in my life this probably means

More phone calls than texts.
More in-person visits than Skype sessions.
More handwritten notes than emails.
More prayer than passing thought.
More service and sacrifice on my end.
Less sitting back and waiting, more initiation.

We’re all different – and the ways we minister and love others will sometimes look different – but the responsibility remains.

The people in our lives are gifts – I think Jesus believed that. After all, the night before He begins the last week of His life, He spends His time in the comfort and presence of dear ones. They ate and talked. Possibly still glowing from the glory of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, I’m sure they laughed and reminisced, most unaware that in a week Jesus would be lying dead in a grave. But in a moment, the tone of the night shifted as Mary let down her hair (something women never did in public in that culture and time), poured perfume costing an entire year’s salary over His feet and wiped them clean with her hair. Maybe she could sense that this was the last time they’d all be together like this – at least for a while anyways – and she did what she felt called to – loving her friend well.