Luke 20.27-40

JESUS AND THE SADDUCEES

Luke 20.27-40

Matthew 22.23-33

Mark 12.18-27

Some stories in the Bible are easy to understand. Other stories are not so easy. The story of Jesus and the Sadducees, for me, certainly falls into the latter category.

In fact, after reading through it, in preparation for this sermon, my eyes glazed over with confusion, and I found myself looking through my filing cabinet to see what I had said before on the third Sunday before Advent.

Unfortunately, there was nothing, and so I had no alternative but to sit down and wrestle with the story until I understood it, because if I did not understand it, it was more than likely others would not understand it.

So here goes.

First of all, who were the Sadducees and why did they ask the question?

The Sadducees were a group of Jewish people who formed the elite of Jewish society. They were the aristocracy of their day, who could trace their origin back to Zadok the priest, and from whom the priesthood of the Temple was recruited.

As a group, because of their flexibility with others, they had done very well for themselves out of successive regimes - both Jewish and non-Jewish alike - who had ruled Palestine. Now they were doing very well under the Romans who were the current rulers of Palestine. The last thing the Sadducees wanted was for this happy arrangement to cease which would reduce their standard of living.

Unfortunately, the teaching of Jesus appeared as a threat to their comfortable lifestyle. Furthermore, he was attracting a large following of disciples which also made them feel very uneasy.

It was therefore necessary to try to discredit Jesus, preferably in front of his followers. They therefore decided to ask a rather ridiculous question of him, in the hope he would not be able to give a satisfactory answer, and would therefore embarrass himself in front of his followers.

So what was the question?

Before we answer that, it is important to recall that there was a very ancient Jewish tradition, going back many centuries, although there is no evidence that it was still observed, which sought to guarantee the continuation of the Jewish race. It stated that if a husband died, without having produced an heir, his brother (assuming he was not already married himself) should marry his deceased brother's widow in order to produce an heir.

Now it is this law that lies behind the question the Sadducees put to Jesus, except that they carried it to ridiculous extremes, by suggesting that not only one brother married the wife, but that six others had married her in succession, in order to produce an heir.

So their question was simply this. In the age to come, whose wife would she be - number one husband? number two husband? number three husband? number four husband? number five husband? number six husband or number seven husband?

Now Jesus obviously knew that he would have to be very careful in his answer to this tricky question which had been designed to embarrass both him and his followers.

In his answer, Jesus suggests that it is wrong to transfer ideas from this world and apply them to the next. So he says, 'Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection of the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die any more because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection'.n other words, Jesus is saying that, since there will be no more death, there will be no need for the institution of marriage to exist, since there will be no need to produce future heirs.

Jesus then goes on to turn the tables on the Sadducees who were being very hypocritical in asking this question.

Let me explain.

The Sadducees accepted only the first five books of the Old Testament, namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy as being the only valid scriptures. They called this the Torah. All the other books of the Old Testament were considered heretical and could not therefore be trusted.

They therefore argued that, since there is no reference to the resurrection or to the age to come in those five books, they could not believe in the resurrection! The cheeky devils! They had just tried to embarrass Jesus by asking him a question based on the assumption of the resurrection of the dead!

Jesus could not let such hypocrisy pass him by. He therefore challenged their basic assumption, and suggested that there was indeed reference to the resurrection in these first five books of the Old Testament.

So he goes on to say: "The fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the Gad of lsaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

In other words, using this very rabbinical argument, Jesus points out that Moses, their great forefather, speaks not in the past tense, but in the present tense of the patriarchs. He does not say that God was the God of Abraham, but that he is the God of Abraham. This means, that as far as Moses was concerned, Abraham, lsaac and Jacob are alive because they have been raised to new life. Therefore, belief in the resurrection of the dead is implied by Moses, a belief which the Sadducees wish to deny.

Not only does Jesus show how stupid their question is, since there will be no need for marriage in the afterlife to produce future heirs, because death will no longer exist, but he also shows up their lack of understanding of the Torah, in which Moses implies that there is a resurrection of the dead.

Game, set and match, I think we might say!

So we might well ask: 'What is the relevance of this first century dispute, between Jesus and Sadducees, to us, living in the twenty first century?'

Unlike the Sadducees, we accept the belief in the resurrection of the dead at the end of our earthly pilgrimage

However, when the Sadducees suspended their belief that there is no resurrection, in order to ask their question of Jesus, they sought to try to define what that future life will be like by reference to their present existence. And we also often try to read into the unknown future, the conditions of time and space which provide the framework of the present.

So we ask such questions as: Will infants still be infants? Will the aged still be aged? Will we be able to see and recognise each other in the same way as we do here on earth? Will our pets be there to greet us, and will there be enough room for all of us, bearing in mind, those who have already died?

But such questions are as pointless as was the question from the Sadducees, because we are talking about a different kind of existence from that which we have known here on earth. We lack the appropriate language to talk about something we do not yet know. That is probably why both the Old Testament and the New Testament are remarkably silent on such matters, except to assure us that death is not the end of existence as foreshadowed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

However, one thing we can be absolutely certain of is that God's love towards us does not cease when we draw our final breath. His love continues.

As St Paul reminds us, in his letter to the Romans when he asks, 'What can separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship? or distress? Or persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or sword?

And Paul concludes, 'l 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.'

Now to the God, who raised Jesus from the dead, thereby assuring us that he will likewise raise us to new life, be all honour and glory, today and for ever. Amen.