King of Peace: Mark 12:18-27 The Sadducees

Fr. Aaron’s intro/prayer…

Would you please turn with me in your Bibles/bulletins to our Gospel text this morning, Mark 12:18-27.

In this series through the Gospel of Mark, we have been observing the person, teaching, and works of Jesus Christ, the King of Peace.

You have witnessed His breathtaking wisdom as a Teacher of God’s Kingdom and a breathtaking Story-Teller and scholar of God’s ways.

You have seen his wisdom in conversation with the leading Jews of every class and philosophy—priests, Pharisees, Herodians…

Today, we enter into an epic showdown between Jesus and the Sadducees.

When I was a student at Wheaton College,

(those of you who’ve gone to Moody or other Christian colleges may relate)

one of the common late-night past-times of students, particularly as freshmen in my recollection

Was theological sparring—

Debating Bible topics like the age-old predestination vs free-will debate

Usually there’d be two really bright (maybe snobby) kids,

who would go to face-to-face combat

in passionate display of their biblical and philosophical knowledge

PROVING without a doubt why their view is right

and the OTHER’s is wrong.

Other students, like me, with less knowledge

Would huddle around to listen

And enjoy the stimulating dialogue,

and if we were lucky, see someone get totally schooled

How much do you think though,

these 12AM Scripture debates,

helped us grow in a greater awe and reverence of the sovereignty of God in our salvation,

and a greater obedience to Jesus, not taking his grace for granted?

I don’t think very much.

We can have all-night debates about theology, ethics, morality…

We can have all the answers, all the proof-texts, the data to PROVE our point

We can be outwardly RIGHT, impressively so

while inwardly in entirely the wrong place.

Outwardly RIGHT,

inwardly DEAD.

We can be profoundly knowledgeable,

apparently godly + spiritual to those around us,

but inwardly aliens to the living God.

That’s where the Sadducees stood.

1. We’ll first consider WHO the Sadducees were

2. then consider their argument posed to Jesus,

3. and conclude with Jesus’ answer,

which I pray

will keep us from being externally living,

while internally rotting.

Who Were The Sadducees?

The Sadducees were the theological liberals

The educated elite,

the urban class of Jerusalem.

Many of them were priests, religious leaders who were well-respected in political circles.

Mark fills us in on some of their theology:

(v18) “They say that there is no resurrection.”

To them,

Death is extinction

When your body dies, your soul CEASES to exist

After all, from dust you came, to dust you shall return—

and in dust you shall remain… they said.

Acts 23 tells us the Sadducees denied not only the resurrection of the body,

but the existence of angels and spirits.

It seems these Jews believed only in that which they could see,

beyond the Creator somewhere in the heavens

Their politics were simple: KEEP the status quo

Do what makes for peace with the Roman occupiers

Progress with social and cultural norms,

Don’t get hung up on religious dogmas or concern about an afterlife

In our story, perhaps after hearing Jesus’ ingenious answer to the Pharisees:

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

The Sadducees turn to one another,

saying

“THIS is our opportunity—

To kill two birds with one stone,

Knock out both this revolutionary Jesus,

and these conservative Pharisees, while they’re already down.”

“We’ll show who the superior party is!”

They come up with—what they suppose—is a brilliant argument against the resurrection,

a cherished doctrine both of Jesus and the Pharisees.

An argument—in the form of a question

seeking to EXPOSE the ABSURDITY

of belief in an afterlife on a new creation.

It’s the same regular thing we see and are tempted to do in our world and culture

Ask a question to someone we disagree with

not out of genuine interest to understand them

but to PROVE our point and shut them down.

Well this was:

2. The Sadducees’ Argument

v.19

“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.”

The Sadducees go on,

With likely a hypothetical scenario,

Drawing upon the so-called “Law of Levirate”—or the “Brother-in-Law” law—from Deuteronomy 25.

This law

was GOD’S gracious command

for the protection and provision for widows (vulnerable in the ancient world) and the preservation of the name of their husbands who died before having a child

“There were seven brothers”,

“The first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring.

And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise.

And the SEVEN left no offspring.

Last of all the woman also died.”

One woman married, the same woman widowed

SEVEN consecutive times

Never once bearing a child

until she herself died.

The Sadducees close with this clincher of a question,

“In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be?…”

“Whose wife will she be?”

It’s meant to be a GOTCHA moment.

A trap.

Yet another attempt by those in power,

to catch Jesus in his words,

and shut his ministry down.

You’ve heard this kind of question.

“If God exists and created the world, then who/what created God?”

A question I’ve heard several times from Muslim neighbors:

“If Jesus is God,

And Jesus dies on the cross,

Then who ruled the universe when GOD was dead?”

(after pause…)

Now, what’s the problem with such questions?

They begin with false assumptions.

What we Christians mean by GOD

is the type of BEING that is by nature uncaused,

Without BEGINNING

What Aristotle called the “UNMOVED Mover”

the immaterial ESSENCE at the root of everything that exists

The necessary STARTING point for all created things

When Jesus died on the cross,

Yes, God the Son died

But he no more ceased to exist,

than any of us CEASE to exist upon the death of our bodies

As we recite in the creed, which references first Peter

‘He descended into hell’

1 Pet 3:18-19 “[He was] put to death in the flesh but MADE ALIVE in the spirit, in which he went and PROCLAIMED to the spirits in prison”

EVEN during those DEATH, Jesus was actively exercising His divine power through a VICTORY sermon to imprisoned spirits

(*Confirm the Fathers on this interpretation)

We also believe that though Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in everything that they do

We do not believe that God the Father or God the Holy Spirit died there on the cross!

Their question, again, is,

‘Jesus, in this future, never-ending life you believe in,

Whose wife—among these seven brothers—will she be, for they all had her?’

What would have been obvious to all the hearers,

is that when all of them are raised to new life

they could not ALL be married to her.

NO single one of the husbands could lay special claim to her because none of them had borne her children

It’s clear to the Sadducees that the doctrine of the resurrection,

is a ridiculous idea—even pitting it against God’s own Word!

Have you ever had somebody quote Scripture to you,

in order to contradict some biblical conviction that you hold?

Someone claiming that your supposed biblical conviction,

is actually contradictory to God being a loving God?

or a just God?

It’s the same problem.

Wrong assumptions.

What was the Sadducees wrong assumption about the resurrection?

That the Mosaic Law and human institutions like marriage

continue in the life to come!

In reality, Jesus teaches us, “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (v.25)

Holy angels who live in the immediate presence of God, have NO sin, and NO human weakness

and therefore, have NO need for the wonderful help and pleasure that marriage uniquely provides

Angels who, being immortal, they cannot die—

don’t need to procreate to carry on God’s mission to the ends of the world

In the resurrection, in the AGE of NEW CREATION, when God makes ALL THINGS NEW

You and I—married or unmarried now—will experience the satisfaction of ALL our needs, all our desires, all our longings

We won’t be held back by suffering and death

But will gladly serve and enjoy our God and King.

And we won’t be disappointed bachelors or bachelorettes

Nor sad spouses whose happy earthly marriages have been dissolved

BUT TOGETHER, as ONE united Body

Will be a RADIANT Bride

wrapped in the arms of our shared Savior,

lost in everlasting love and wonder.

The Sadducees totally miss it.

So Jesus exposes their wrong thinking.

He rebukes them.

And refutes them.

And in so doing, leaves us with two VITAL lessons about how to be, and how to REMAIN alive on the inside,

alive to God.

The first words Jesus replies with:

“Is this not the reason you are WRONG,

that you know neither the Scriptures, nor the power of God?”

Our wise Lord addresses the underlying error

That brought forth their silly argument.

He puts his finger on the REASON why these men were utterly off-target,

clever in their own eyes

but corpses on the inside.

2 Reasons, in fact.

They do not KNOW the Scriptures.

They do not KNOW the power of God.

Because of their ignorance of

of God’s written revelation

and God’s active power

They were dead-wrong about the resurrection.

These were well-studied, thoroughly trained leaders in law and liturgy

they had their Masters degrees, their PhD’s of theology, law, and ministry

But they were horribly lost, duped in damnable heresy.

“You are QUITE wrong,” Jesus emphasizes in v.27.

The question is,

how did these leaders, influencers, even professional Bible interpreters,

drift so far?

How did these ‘men and women of the times’, politically and socially attuned, prestigiously educated

GET so off base?

So WRONG about the resurrection,

such that Jesus could say of them:

You know NOTHING of my Father’s words,

and you know NOTHING about how my Father works.

I think C.S. Lewis touches upon the answer.

In the fantasy The Great Divorce,

Lewis pens a conversation between two people in heaven—

A man from hell, visiting heaven (he’s called a ghost)

And a man from heaven, described as gloriously white and solid

… Sum up their dialogue.

Here’s the clincher, where the Solid Man puts HIS finger on the cause of this Episcopal Bishop’s apostasy:

“Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith…” (X2) (GD pp34-38)

If you read the extra-biblical history,

you will discover that the Sadducees, long before this dialogue with Jesus

had been caving over time to the pressures of the world,

and compromising the purity of worship in God’s temple,

to accommodate their unbelieving neighbors.

And in the process,

their hearts drifted FAR from a humble submission to the authority of God’s Word

and a personal experience of God’s abiding presence.

Like the Bishop in Lewis’ story,

They would’ve argued,

“Of course we KNOW the Scriptures,

We help run the temple rituals as outlined in Leviticus

We’re members of the court of Judea, judging according to the laws of Exodus + Deuteronomy

Of course we KNOW the Scriptures!”

“And is not God’s power manifest, in our successful and influential lives,

our respect in the eyes of the ruling family and of the Romans

our ability to GET things done?”

“We’re on the RIGHT side of HISTORY, after all!”

Nope.

There is a kind of Christianity that you and I can practice our whole lives

Have a general sense of being right with God

A general respect from the world

But on the inside, dying slowly

No longer putting ourselves under the Scriptures

No longer listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit

Here’s the lesson from our Lord Jesus’ answer here:

If we’re more sensitive to the voices of our day, than to the voice of God,

We will lose both the world AND God. (X2)

What then shall we do?

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