Friends serving Jesus, but in different ways

Lazarus belonged neither to the circle of the twelve disciples who accompanied Jesus on his travels nor to the wider circle of seventy disciples, but occupied another, special, position in relation to the Master and the apostles. This special position was similar to that of Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nathaniel: properly speaking, although spiritually intimate with the Master, they stood outside the circle of onlookers, but as friends. This is why Jesus said to his disciples: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.” (John 11:11)

It is characteristic of all those in this other circle that they were, so to say, “in the know”: they had not only been vigilant in awaiting the coming of the Messiah but had also alertly recognized him when he came. In the case of John the Baptist this is obvious enough, but the conversation between Martha and Jesus just before he entered Bethany (John 11:21-27) shows that she, too, recognized him as the “one who had come,” for she said: “Yes, Lord; I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”
 
Martha does not say that “only now” does she recognize and believe Jesus to be Christ, but that she has “come to” believe him to be the Son of God. The confession that, in Peter’s case, was called forth from him like a flash of revelatory lightning had, in Martha’s case, been borne inwardly over a longer period: “I have come to believe,” she said.

And again, Martha’s sister Mary, “who [had] anointed the Lord with oil and dried his feet with her hair,” received him in Bethany with the words: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32), in which words the certainty and security of insight speaks, going far beyond mere pious hope.

Martha and Mary. These two sisters belonged to the circle of friends or helpers not because they were also “in the know,” but because they placed themselves entirely at the service of the Lord. … [Martha] took on the task of offering hospitality to him who had come from heaven. … Mary did what, though not “needed” outwardly, was yet inwardly valuable beyond measure: she surrounded Jesus with soul warmth. Anointing his feet with precious aromatic ointment and then drying them with her hair was of course entirely “unneedful” (as Judas objected), but these acts offered human warmth to him who had come to die on the cross. This assuaging warmth made it humanly less daunting for him to accept his approaching task — his death on the cross — and fortified him in his mission.