Sister of Martha and Lazarus, a resident of Bethany about two miles from Jerusalem. Appears three times in the Gospels, always in a posture that tells you everything: (1) Luke 10:38-42 — she sits at Jesus' feet listening while Martha serves, and Jesus commends her for choosing "the good portion"; (2) John 11 — when Lazarus dies, Mary falls at Jesus' feet weeping; Jesus weeps with her and raises her brother; (3) John 12:1-8 — she anoints Jesus' feet with a pound of costly nard and wipes them with her hair, an act Jesus says is for His burial and will be told wherever the gospel is preached.
Mary of Bethany is the Gospels' picture of the worshipping disciple. She is the countermodel to Martha's anxious activity — not because work is wrong (Martha is rehabilitated at John 11, where she gives one of the greatest Christological confessions in the Gospels), but because the one thing needful is first. Mary has chosen it. Her three appearances share a pattern: she is always at Jesus' feet — listening at His feet, weeping at His feet, anointing His feet. She is not preaching; she is not administrating; she is not fighting with Pharisees. She is doing the one thing the Gospels present as primary: sitting with Jesus and loving Him extravagantly. Her anointing — a year's wages in nard broken open over Him — was rebuked by Judas as wasteful. Jesus defended her: "She has done a beautiful thing to me... wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her" (Mark 14:6-9). The Church needs Marthas and Marys both; it dies without either. But when they collide, the worshipper's portion will not be taken away.