What Do You Know?

In today’s Gospel passage Jesus is accosted by some Sadducees, an aristocratic group of priestly families from whom the high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem was chosen. We read more about the Sadducees in the Gospel of Matthew, but this is their only appearance as a distinct group in the Gospel of Mark. You need to know two important things about the Sadducees to understand the encounter I’m about to share. First, they only accepted as authoritative the written law in the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy); they didn’t view any of the Prophets (like Isaiah or Jeremiah) or the writings (like Psalms) as scripture and they rejected any oral law. The other important characteristic to know is they didn’t believe in resurrection like the Pharisees. The Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection because they didn’t see reference to it in the Books attributed to Moses.

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August 16, 2015
Mark 12.18-27, What Do You Know?
Pastor Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church

Listen to Mark 12:18, 18 Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; 21 and the second married the widow and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22 none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. 23 In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.” 24 Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

This encounter between Jesus and the Sadducees is a classic example of a type of religious person. The Sadducees ask a question designed to make Jesus and what he believes look bad; they’re trying to trap and embarrass him. The type of question the Sadducees put to Jesus is called in Jewish tradition “boruth” which means “vulgarity” because it’s a scoffing question that shows contempt for the person being addressed. They ask a question not because they wish to learn, not because they’re open to what God is doing in Jesus, not because they wish to understand. They ask a question to make themselves look good and to feel better about what they believe and to try and make Jesus look stupid. This is the type of question that drives two people further apart rather than encouraging true dialogue or greater mutual understanding where there is honest and genuine difference of opinion.

The Bible verse that lay behind the Sadducees question is Deuteronomy 25:5 which says if a man died leaving no children his brother was to marry the widow. The first son of that marriage should bear the dead man’s name and inherit his property. The point behind this law in a day when there was no social safety net was to make sure a widow wouldn’t be left with no way to survive. The Sadducees don’t care about that at all. They’re imagining a ridiculously unlikely scenario of a poor widow who marries and buries seven brothers so they can ask the question, “In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”

Jesus’ response in the form of a question emphasizes two key points, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?” Jesus’ answer tells us as his followers that it’s important for us to know both the scriptures and the power of God if we wish to understand the resurrection and a lot of other things as well.

Why is it important for us to know the scriptures, to know what the Bible says? Because knowing the scriptures helps us understand God’s Story of Love for us and for all creation. Love Expressed Love is experienced through relationships and reading the scriptures we discover that a loving God wants to be in relationship with us. In the Book of Genesis we learn humanity is made in the image of God and we’re made to be in relationship with God and with one another. Though God always takes the initiative to express love to us, many of us don’t embrace that love, at least initially.

Love Rejected. Many of us reject and resist the love of our Creator. We try to control our own lives and destinies and we reject relationship with God. This rejection is called sin. God has given us life, and offers us relationship, but we flee in pursuit of our own selfish ends and reject the love and longing for relationship that God expressed.

Love Restated Our rejection doesn’t stop God’s love. God’s love was restated in a completely new way in Jesus. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, it’s possible for us to love God and others in restored relationships. Paul writes in Galatians 4:4-5, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world but to save the world. Jesus was willing to surrender his life in order that others might live, bear his name and carry on his work. In the scriptures we see God’s love expressed, rejected, and then restated in Jesus.

Love Accepted We have to choose if we’ll accept God’s love for us and love God in return. When we believe in and trust Jesus and accept him as our Savior and the Leader of our life, our past rejection is forgiven and we are set free to become who God created us to be. This offer is extended to all of us like a gift, but we still have to claim it. God’s love for us is expressed and restated, but only we decide whether or not to accept the offer.

Love Empowered When we accept the offer of God’s love in Christ, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit we’re included in the family of believers (Acts 2:38-39), enabled to produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23), and we’re equipped with gifts to use in ministry and service (Ephesians 4:11-13). We no longer fear condemnation and even when we die we do so knowing God will never let us go. Having accepted the offer of God’s love and believed in Jesus we can live and die with hope and confidence.

Love Obeyed We seek to live as God’s obedient and faithful children by worshipping with others in a local church, reading the Bible and praying, participating in a small group, and by sharing God’s love with others through faithful and generous service to the world. We need one another to truly know and experience the loving touch and power of God. In the prologue to his book Leadership Jazz, Max DePree writes about his wife Esther and their granddaughter named Zoe, the Greek word for life. Zoe was born prematurely and weighed one pound, seven ounces, and the wise nurse named Ruth gave him instructions including, “tell her over and over how much you love her, because she has to be able to connect your voice to your touch.”

The scriptures teach us our Creator knew that we also needed both God’s voice and touch. So we were given not only the Word but the Son. The irony of the Sadducees asking Jesus about seven brothers who couldn’t produce a son is that they don’t realize they are talking to the Son of God. The world became estranged from its Creator and God sent the Son into the world to save it. The death of Jesus reveals the fullness of God’s love for the world, the love that delivers people from death by bringing us into a relationship with God. The triumphant words of Mark 16:6, “He has been raised; he is not here,” tell us of God’s power even over death. Each of us has to decide what we’re going to do with Jesus. We need to know the scriptures because God’s story of Love in the Bible helps us understand our place in the universe.

Jesus also admonishes the Sadducees for not knowing the power of God. Many people who dismiss the existence of God or who don’t believe the Bible has anything to teach them have not experienced nor do they believe in the power of God. On Wednesday night like a number of you, Jill and I were out after midnight looking up at the night sky and enjoying the beauty of the Milky Way and watching meteors that are part of the Perseid Meteor showers. The timing was great this year because the meteors coincided with the new moon so there was no moon light to brighten the sky. It’s amazing to think we’re small specks of life on a small insignificant planet in a small solar system in a small galaxy that’s part of a incomprehensibly large universe that is so well ordered that every year in August our planet passes through the same place so we see these meteor showers. I find it funny that people who have difficulty filing papers so they can find them, or keeping their room or car clean, or maintaining healthy relationships with appropriate boundaries will question the existence and power of a God who is able to bring such order to the universe.

In Isaiah 40:25-31, God speaks to us about the night sky and God’s great power compared to our human frailty. “25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. (Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?) Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Knowing the power of God enables us to have trust to live as God’s children. A man went to a store just as it was opening and said he was looking for a saw that would cut down a lot of trees. The man behind the counter pulled out a state of the art chain saw and said it was the best they had and with it he could cut down one hundred trees in a single day. The man said, “That sounds perfect,” and he bought it and left. Just before 5:00 pm the man returned to the store. He was drenched with sweat and covered with saw dust. His hands were red, swollen, and blistered. He was carrying the chainsaw and he looked angry. He approached the salesman who had sold him the saw and said, “You told me I could down one hundred trees in a day with this saw. I worked all day and only managed to cut down three trees and I’ve never been so exhausted in my life. I want my money back.” The salesman replied, “I’m so sorry. I don’t understand.” And he took the chain saw, pulled the cord and it roared to life. The man jumped back and said, “What’s that noise?” We can go through life without knowing or utilizing the power of God, but it’s a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

The Sadducees question that prompted Jesus to speak about the importance of knowing the scriptures and the power of God was about the resurrection. Sometimes we may wonder, doubt or question whether resurrection is possible, what it will be like, and if we’ll know those we’ve loved on earth in the life to come. Jesus says when we rise from the dead we’ll be “like angels in heaven” – we’ll be a different type of being in perfect communion with God. Jesus challenges the Sadducees skepticism about a future life by reminding them of a scripture that is in the Torah when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6) he claimed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These early ancestors of Israel had been long dead by the time of Moses, but they were alive to God and in God’s presence. In Luke’s version of this story, Jesus says, (Lk 20:38), “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” In the book of Psalms which the Sadducees didn’t accept as authoritative, there are many verses about what happens after we die. Psalm 49:15, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.” Psalm 73:23-26, “Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me with honor. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

This is the same basic conviction we see in the writers of the New Testament. Eternal life begins here and now on this earth when we enter a new life by committing ourselves to Jesus Christ. The inevitable death of our physical bodies does not impact our relationship with God. This is what Paul was expressing when he wrote in Philippians 1:20-24, “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.”

As followers of Christ we don’t need to fear death because it is like a birth that leads to life in a new and different way. Psalm 16:8-11, “I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. 10 For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit. 11 You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Since the nature of God’s character is love we can be confident that God holds us close both in this life and in the life to come. Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Reading through the Gospels, Jesus rarely tells anyone straight out, “You’re wrong.” But that’s what he says to the Sadducees, twice, in today’s scripture. And in the face of death and especially the tragic loss of young life, we hold on to Jesus words that the Sadducees are wrong and in Jesus there is hope for life to come for all who believe in him.

Blessing: Jude 24-25, Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Questions for Discussion or Reflection

1. If you could ask Jesus one question, what would it be? Why would you like to know the answer to that one question?
2. Why do you think the Sadducees asked the question they did? What was their motivation?
3. Jesus says the Sadducees are wrong because they “know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.” Why is it important for us to know and be familiar with the scriptures and the power of God?
4. Discuss or reflect on ways that you can become more familiar with and knowledgeable both of the scriptures and the power of God.
5. When Jesus says, “He is God not of the dead, but of the living,” how does that give you hope even in the face of your own death or the loss of loved ones?