In a status-driven society, people do all kinds of things to make an impression: live in a certain neighborhood, drive a particular car, choose one university over another… But did you know that some people are still interested in making the right impression even after they’ve died? I was browsing a website of a company that is a funeral home and cemetery for the rich and famous of California. A funeral there should only put you back thirty or forty thousand dollars. They pay attention to every detail and give you all kinds of options to make sure that you go out in style.
For instance, why settle for a regular coffin when you can get laid to rest in that Cadillac of Coffins, The Monticello—showcasing a dark, polished walnut exterior and a luxurious velvet interior—a bargain at only $14,000. For additional fees, they can provide a motorcycle escort, release doves, or even make a video of your life that plays in a TV built into your headstone! Some people really know how to make an exit!
Say what you want about Jesus, but he was a guy knew how to make an entrance. After some time spent traveling throughout Palestine and the surrounding countryside, Jesus and his disciples entered Jerusalem in grand style for the Passover, with crowds of people lining the streets shouting save us, save us! You’re sent by God! If that wasn’t enough to get the religious leaders beside themselves, Jesus actually went into the temple and started a riot at the concession stand and dealers tables.
Although this act was an affront to all the religious authorities, one group in particular would have been especially offended. They were called the Sadducees. Whereas the Pharisees were obsessed with people’s behavior, the Sadducees were all about observances at the temple and the sacrifice system that was so important to the Jewish religion. To them, a self-appointed rabbi arguing with a bunch of Pharisees out in the country was one thing, but marching around the temple like he owned the place was quite another! So they decided to humilate Jesus by way of a public debate.
Every religious group has its own distinctive. The Sadducees believed that only Holy Scripture was the Torah—for us today that would be the first five books in the Bible. So everything that they thought about religion had to be backed up by those books. For instance, since they didn’t read anything in the Torah about life-after-death, they didn’t believe in it. So that’s what they decided to debate Jesus about. I imagine that this would have served two purposes. First, by getting Jesus to “go on record” about the resurrection would have squelched any popularity this guy would have had with their sect. Secondly, they could point out how ridiculous the whole idea of life-after-death was and maybe win some people over to their way of thinking.
Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother.” Luke 20: 27 - 28
Women had no power in ancient times. When a woman was widowed, the property didn’t go to her. It transferred to her eldest son. So if a man died without fathering a son, it was up to his brother to provide the family with one. That whole idea sounds crazy to 21st century ears, but the point was that the dead man’s name and inheritance would carry on.
In a strange way, it’s similar to millionaires who donate money to build libraries and theatres on the condition that it’s named after them. They may be gone, but their legacy lives on. Maybe it reflects mankind’s longing for immortality.
Most scholars say that by Jesus’ day it was pretty doubtful that anyone still observed this practice. So why would the Sadducees ask Jesus about this if what they really wanted to talk about was the resurrection? Simply because they’re trying to frame the issue before they ask the real question. The Sadducees continue on:
Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” Luke 20: 29 - 33
This would be like walking up to Billy Graham and saying, Doctor Graham—
is it true that God can do anything? If so, could he make a rock so heavy that even he couldn’t lift it? There must have been some proud Sadducees there, thinking that this was a sure-fire conundrum that was sure to leave even Jesus speechless.
Jesus doesn’t get bogged down in this nonsense and cuts to the chase:
Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Luke 20: 34 - 38
Since the Sadducees only believed the five books of Moses, Jesus answers them about life-after-death by quoting something from the second book. The NIV Bible translation doesn’t do a great job on this scripture, but the gist is that God IS the God of the long-gone from this earth Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not WAS the God. He showed that the resurrection could be found in the Torah, it just required a little bit of digging to get to it.
What Jesus did is something that we need to do, too. Occasionally you will come across people in the church who pride themselves on being black and white thinkers, which I always find odd because life demands that we be creative in our thinking and complex in our understanding if we’re going to survive. It was only a hundred-and-fifty years ago in this country that many Christians believed that the Bible condoned slavery. “It mentions slavery. It talks about guidelines for owning slaves. That must mean it’s OK, right?” Now there was another group of Christians, called the Quakers, who dug a little bit deeper and asked themselves questions about the nature and character of God and mankind, and saw that slavery in the Bible and slavery as it was practiced in their day were two radically different things. We owe much of the abolishionist movement to the Quakers not settling for the easy answer.
Most passages in the Bible are pretty self-explanatory. The meaning of
do not commit adultery is pretty obvious. But there are other passages where we can miss the point entirely if we just read them with 21st century eyes. That’s why a commentary is such a good investment for our Bible study. Sometimes we need to understand what something meant historically before we can unlock the meaning for us today. Dig deep.
The bit about marriage is probably one of the most troubling bits of scripture for some people. Like the Sadducees, it is hard for us to imagine a future that isn’t defined by what we understand about the present. Ask anyone on the street about the purpose of marriage and I guarantee that they’ll say something about love. But to the Hebrews, marriage was very much about passing on your lineage and managing your resources. That sounds a little bit harsh and very much unromantic, but go take Sociology 101 at any college and the professor will tell you much the same thing during the unit on marriage and family life. It’s easy to get distracted by the bit about marriage and miss out on what Christ is really trying to illustrate about the resurection life. Christ describes a future where our family name isn’t that important, because we’ll be the ones that live on. And no one’s security and provision will be based on family ties, be we will all be part of one big family that belongs to God. It’s an awesome promise that often gets overlooked in one of the more shocking passages of scripture. It’s doubtful that the Sadducees paid enough attention to even comprehend what he was saying.
And are we really that much different today? We can obsess about our behavior and measuring up just like the Pharisees. We can make sure that we’re following tradition, dotting every
i and crossing every
t, just like the Sadducees. We build religious monuments and create legacies unto ourselves just to prove that we can make the cut.
And in the midst of the religious frenzy and the spiritual one-upmanship stands the Christ with his arms open wide, ignored in our frantic efforts to measure up, saying:
See how much you matter to me?
