Sunday Sermon

"God of the Living"
[Mark 12:18:27]
September 3, 2006 Second Reformed Church

Hear the Law of God given through Moses: "If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel. And if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then the brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.' Then the elders of the city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, 'I do not wish to take her,' then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off of his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, 'So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.' And the name of the house shall be called in Israel, 'the house of him who had his sandal pulled off'" (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

This is the law that the Sadducees had in mind when they came to Jesus and posed the hypothetical situation we heard in this morning's Scripture. What does the law mean? What is its point?

When God gave the land of Canaan -- Israel -- to the Israelites, He set up a system whereby, no matter what befell any family or individual in the family, every family of Israel, with the exception of the Levites, would have an eternal inheritance of land. God divided Canaan among the tribes and set it in His Law that the land that was given to the families was to eternally be the families. Even if the land was lost or sold, the land would return to the family after a certain time.

This law was part of that system by which the land remained in a given family. If a man married and died before a son was born -- and inheritance of land was normally to the first-born son -- if he died, leaving no son, if he had a brother, for the sake of the family and the continuation of the family name and the continuation of the land in the family's name, the brother ought to marry his deceased brother's wife and bear a son by her in his brother's name. Does that make sense? If you are a married woman, and your husband dies and you have not borne a son, if your husband has an unmarried brother, that brother ought to marry you and bear a son in his brother's name, that there would be a first-born son to inherit the land.

That ought to be done. But notice, the brother did not have to marry his sister-in-law, he could refuse. But if he did so, he and his family would be publically humiliated and known as someone who was unwilling to carry on his brother's legacy.

Do we understand this law?

So, the Sadducees came to Jesus with this law in mind when they posed their question.

But, who were the Sadducees? We don't see much of the Sadducees until the end of the Gospels -- specifically until after Jesus overthrows the tables of the money changers. We often speak of them in the same breath with the Pharisees. Let us distinguish them (cf. Http://users.aristotle.net/~bhuie/pharsadd.htm):

The Pharisees were a group of rabbis who taught the Old Testament and the oral tradition of the rabbis. They were to keep the worship of God holy, pure, and right. They believed in the physical and the spiritual realms -- believing in angels, demons, heaven, paradise, sheol, Gehenna, etc. They believed that God was actively involved in history. They believed that humans were composed of a body that died and would be raised and an immortal soul which never died.

The Sadducees were a political party that upheld the Old Testament, as they interpreted it -- with special attention placed on the laws regarding capital punishment -- but they rejected the oral tradition of the rabbis. They believed that God created and then left humanity to its own devices; thus, fulfillment in found through politics. They adopted Greek philosophy and rejected the spiritual realm: they did not believe in angels or demons; they did not believe in an afterlife of any kind. They believed that the body and soul were both physical and died and stayed dead. They rejected the existence of any resurrection.

So we can see that their question was hypocritical and mocked the Law of God: they asked Jesus, if, according to the Law, a man died, leaving his wife without a son, and each of his brothers married her, one after another, and she never bore a son, and all seven brothers finally died and the wife died -- "In the resurrection when they rise again who will be with the woman? For all seven have had the woman?" The Sadducees didn't believe in resurrection, so their question was posed hypocritically. And the idea that seven brothers, one after another would marry a woman, makes light of the Law itself, which was for the preservation of the family name and the inheritance of the land.

The Sadducees posed the question to trap Jesus, yet, even so, since they only believed in the physical realm, not the spiritual, and they also rejected resurrection, the implication of the question is physical, "With which of the brothers would she have sexual intercourse in the heavens?"

And Jesus was repulsed by their question -- for their mocking of God's Law, for their crude minds that rejected the teaching of God -- "Is it not because of this that you are wrong, that you do not know the writings nor the power of God?" Jesus said, "Your question makes it clear that you do not know the writings of God nor do you know the Power of God. You do not know what God has said, nor do you know what God can do."

First, Sadducees, you are wrong -- there is a spiritual realm. There are angels and demons. Second, Sadducees, you are wrong -- there is a resurrection. And when the resurrection occurs, they will be no marriage and giving in marriage -- in other words, there will be no physical relationship between men and women. No, resurrected humans will be like the angels in this sense: they will not have sexual union. And, of course, there will be no procreation. It is unnecessary in the resurrected state.

Third, Sadducees, you are wrong -- the soul does not die. Jesus told them, if they remembered the book of Moses, they would remember that God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush and identified Himself, saying, "I am the God of your father; and of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Exodus 3:6a). And Jesus told them, "God is not the God of the dead but the living."

What did He mean? He meant that when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were alive -- even though their bodies were dead and buried, they were still alive. Jesus was not saying that they were alive in people's hearts and minds -- no, He was saying that after death, we remain alive.

And, since only the dead can be resurrected, and Jesus said that there is a resurrection, then the resurrection is of our physical bodies, which are then reunited with our souls (Cf., I Corinthians 15).

Brothers and sisters -- it is not just a dream -- it is not just a fantasy: C. S. Lewis once said, "You have never seen a mortal man." He meant what Jesus teaches us this morning, though our bodies die for a time, we do not die. We live on forever. And the day will come when our bodies are raised from the dead. And we will be whole human beings again. But then, in a twinkling of an eye, we will be changed, perfected, fully sanctified and glorified, made holy, like the first-born Son of the Father.

In the movie, "The Dead Poets' Society," Robin Williams plays a teacher who tries to impress upon his students that they should "seize the day" -- they should live for today -- because, as he showed them the pictures of students from generations before, he whispered, "They're food for worms, boys." Live. Enjoy. For tomorrow you're dead.

As Christians, we acknowledge that the body dies, but in the Scripture, and in this Supper, we acknowledge more than the fact that Jesus lived and died, more than the fact that He rose and is alive and meets us in the bread and the cup with His Grace, but we acknowledge that we have this hope, that we, too, though our bodies die, we shall live and be raised, and live forever with our God and Savior.

If we believe that, then we have nothing to fear. Death, though sad, though a foe -- death is defeated and it will not last forever, but it shall be destroyed and we shall be welcomed into the Kingdom of our Christ.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for being the God of the living. We thank You for letting us know that all those who have died are right now alive, and there is a resurrection to come on the last day. We thank You that You have delivered Your elect from death and saved us into the Kingdom of Light and Life. We pray that You would continue to bring Your elect to You, that You might be glorified in Your Most Gracious Work. In Jesus' Name, Amen.