Sad, You See - Mark12:18-27

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us,‘If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wifeand raise up descendants for his brother.’Now there were seven brothers.The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants.So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died.

At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.”

Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but they are like the angels in heaven. As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob.

He is not God of the dead but of the living.You are greatly misled.”

So who were those guys? They pop up through out the gospels and are clearly antithetical Jesus from the first days of his public ministry and remained zealously opposed through the death and resurrection even right up until they were wiped along a along with Pharisees and other temple Jews following the rebellion in 70 AD. Why did Jesus bother with them? They were few in number but their impact on Jewish society in Israel was far out of proportion to their numbers. Why? They were the upper crust, educated, wealthy, politically astute and connected, they were favored by the Romans because they, the Sadducees, were very invested in protecting the status quo. Needless to say, Jesus posed a threat to them because Jesus was all about turning the temple economy upside down. Curiously, they did not believe in the resurrection because they put full stock in the Pentateuch which they believed was silent about a resurrection possibility. When an individual died, they were dead in all ways and there was no possibility of life after death. I find it strange that a group so dedicated to God could be so utterly opposed to a life with God beyond death.

Looking around today, are there movements like the Sadducees present in our society? Who are they? I hesitate to name them lest I come across as entitled and judgmental but I have no choice but look at is happening and I how I see it relate to the gospel. Are there those who claim righteousness but then fail to see Jesus in our lives. Is it right to proclaim belief and the right to worship in freedom but when it comes to living the live demanded of the gospel, they turn away against those who hold fast to belied? No. Is it right for those who are willing to focus tightly on one moral issue but abandon everything else that goes with it? Again, no. Am I guilty of one of these? I am. I regret it but I can’t let go.

Jesus, however, sidestepped the issue neatly by simply denying the legitimacy of the arguments that were so carefully laid out to trap him. Revelation did not end with the Pentateuch, it continued on through history but then after silence of a several hundred years, a last prophet, John, came to announce the prophet who would fulfill all. Resurrection is true, the word did not change but evolved. God did not say he WAS the God of all, he said he IS God of all. He still is.

What does that mean for us today? Modern Sadducees who deny the role of the Gospel to moderate and influence behavior need to be confronted with the the falsity of religious freedom only being about worship. We also, however, have to embrace the gospel in its entirety and not just cherry pick what we think is important because even if it is the most important, it is not to be considered to exclusion of all else.

I don’t know how to do that except to love the next person I meet bearing the entirety of the gospel on my back and in my soul.