Now look at Martha, but while you look, do not get out of patience with her. She is cumbered and growing fretful. Her service is getting too much for her, she can not get things done as well as she would like. And being fretful and tired she goes wrong herself. First she is cumbered; the next thing she feels cross with Mary; “Mary is sitting there at the feet of Jesus, and I am so busy getting the supper. What right has she down there when I am so busy?” The third thing she gets cross with Jesus, and she says, “Dost not Thou care that my sister hath left me to serve?” Cumbered in her own spirit, angry with her sister, reflecting upon her Master, and putting the blame on him of her weariness. Dear soul, how she loved and wanted that supper to be all that it ought to be, but she had forgotten that service only was acceptable which was filled up with communion with the Lord. How tenderly the Lord deals with Martha! There was nothing acrid in His words. He knew that she had almost worked herself to death to get Him something to eat, and so He throws a world of tenderness into His intonation as He seems to say, “My dear woman, do not worry, let the dinner go; sit down on this ottoman beside Mary, your younger sister. Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.” Is there not a volume of love and sympathy expressed in these words? And may not the Marthas of to-day learn wisdom from them and seek in Jesus that Friend who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, “that good part which shall not be taken away?” The Saviour looked with love and pity upon the troubled Martha, for He realized that she was not only cumbered with many cares, but she was also anxious for His personal comfort. He was her Guest. Though the Lord of Glory, He was also man, having human wants. He hungered and thirsted as other men, and it was the duty of these sisters to provide for Him the necessary food. If at the last day it will be a matter of condemnation to any one that he has seen one of Christ’s disciples an hungered or athirst and did not minister unto him, how much more guilty would they be who would suffer Christ Himself to go without food when He was hungry, and that too in their own house!