A New Relationship - Mark 12:18-27

A New Relationship - Mark 12:18-27
By Pastor Lee Hemen
November 21, 2010 AM

A few years ago I was in a grocery store when a young mother with her little preschooler came walking down the aisle. The little girl kept asking for different things and the mother would patiently respond, “No, you cannot have that, stop asking.” When the little girl had evidently had enough of the answer she did not like, she lay down in the middle of the aisle and begin to throw one spectacular fit. The mother did not flinch; she just kept shopping, and related to her daughter, “When you are done, I will be in the next aisle over.” She then calmly put the item she had been looking at in her cart and walked around the corner.

When some folks do not get the answer they want, they can act just like a little immature preschooler. Evidently the religious ruling class did not get the answer they wanted out of Jesus, so they send in another group to try and entrap him with a bizarre question concerning wives, widows, and the resurrection. What these ignoramuses failed to understand is that Jesus was teaching about a whole new relationship, a new relationship that would change everything forever. Let’s find out what happens…

READ: Mark 12:18-27

When we place our faith in Christ, we enter into a whole new relationship with God. But some continually want to dispute this fact. Why is it that some folks love arguing simply for the sake of arguing? Then there are those who love to twist tails by setting up a straw man argument. The Straw Man argument is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. The Sadducees do this by…

I. Using a hypothetically impossible situation!

1. The resurrection makes our new relationship with God possible! The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in resurrection. It was something not taught in the Law of Moses and the Sadducees only viewed the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, as authoritative. Sadducees saw the here and now as being where a righteous person is blessed or cursed. There was no afterlife. They also understood that their rivals the Pharisees agreed with many of Jesus’ teachings, including the resurrection, the kingdom of God, angels, and eternal life, so they were trying to show that the doctrine of resurrection was incompatible with the law by suggesting an off the wall situation. “‘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. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?’” (Mark 12:19-23) WOW! Sounds like one of those new reality TV shows! The law did address the care of a widow by a man’s brother, but it is highly unlikely that anything even remotely approaching the circumstances they describe would ever occur. Jesus is in Jerusalem again and the pressure is on to find something they can entrap him. Were they truly concerned about the resurrection? Let’s review what Jesus taught. Jesus had told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” And then he asks her, “Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26) This is what drove the Sadducees crazy toward Jesus and his teaching. Luke related in his answer to this question the Sadducees put to Jesus, that he responded by telling them that “those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead… they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:35-36) The Sadducees had used a hypothetically impossible situation. Jesus knew however that the resurrection makes our new relationship with God possible.

EXAMPLE: If I asked the question, “Where’s Waldo?” you might recall those popular children’s picture books from the 1980s. That little guy in the red-and-white-striped shirt and hat loved to hide in the pages amid a busy blur of images that made it nearly impossible to find him. Why do some folks treat God like “Where’s Waldo?”? Here’s what I mean: Some think that God camouflages himself and we have to “discover” where he is hiding. Or that God gives us crossword clues and we have to figure out his secret code in order to discover what he desires. Some ask silly enigmatic questions concerning faith. One such question I have been asked was, “If God revealed himself to you as a Smurf, would you still worship him?” The answer is that he already has revealed himself to us, and not as a Smurf. The Sadducees deliberately asked a hypothetically impossible question in order to justify themselves before their fellow Jews. Jesus was unfazed. He knew that the resurrection makes our new relationship with God possible.

The entire imaginary situation solely exists in the warped minds of those who wanted to entrap Jesus. Again, he isn’t fooled. Jesus knew that the resurrection would come and change everything. In fact, our faith changes our eternal situation! Therefore, Jesus answers truthfully in a manner that supports who he is and his mission. He gives them…

II. An authentic answer!

1. Our new relationship changes everything! Jesus gives several responses that his questioners did not expect. The first answer he gives denies that there is any problem because the believer’s resurrection existence is completely different from their earthly life. Jesus bluntly tells them that they are in “error” and rhetorically accuses them of not knowing “the Scriptures or the power of God!” Things like marriage simply do not exist as we understand them in heaven. In fact relationships will be similar but changed in a whole new wonderful way! Jesus explains that “When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” Angels are created beings, but they have no need of marriage because there is no need for their sexual reproduction. They are neither male nor female, they are simply God’s messengers and each has specific duties. Mankind was created by God, but unlike angels, we were given the command to subdue the earth and to be fruitful and multiply. (Genesis 1:28) In the coming kingdom there will be no need to “subdue and multiply.” Jesus’ next answer, while sounding awkward, actually is designed to teach that resurrection does indeed happen. Jesus emphatically responds by saying, “When the dead rise” and “about the dead rising.” It was a fact. The resurrection was going to happen whether the Sadducees believed in it or not! The same is true for our day and age as well! Jesus’ questioners were being hypocritical because they did not actually believe what they were asking! Jesus turns their own argument back on them by asking them, “have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?” Of course they had. They believed in the Patriarchs. However, if God said he was the God of these men found in the Pentateuch, it meant that God was continually their God from the time he spoke to Moses from the burning bush until then! Therefore, God “is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Jesus tells them, “You are badly mistaken!” Not only was their questioning of Jesus concerning the resurrection skewed, but their impossible question was ill founded! The Sadducees used a weak argument that had sounded convincing to them, and Jesus gives them an authentic answer! Our new relationship changes everything!

EXAMPLE: I have discovered that getting to the heart of the question is what truly matters. This is especially true when it concerns answering people’s questions about faith in Christ. I have found that if you simply allow folks to read the Scripture for themselves and ask them what they think it means, it allows them the freedom to express what they are learning about God. I am not telling what them to think nor am I “judging” them. This works in counseling as well. In fact, there have been times when I have shared with very angry folks and after I have allowed them to vent, they eventually tell me the real problem. One person asked me, “Why do you always ask me what I think? Why don’t you tell me what to think?” I smiled and asked, “Why would you say that?” We both ended up laughing over this, but they were able to relate how they felt and found their own answer to their predicament. Jesus does this with the Sadducees. They were not really asking for an answer, but they needed one anyway and Jesus helps them to find it for themselves. They do not like it, but in doing so, Jesus gives them an authentic answer.

Conclusion:

We learned a couple of things this morning concerning our new relationship with Jesus. The Sadducees used a hypothetically impossible situation but Jesus gives them an authentic answer concerning our new relationship.
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Pastor Lee Hemen has been the outspoken pastor of the same church for 25 years in Vancouver, WA. He writes regularly on spirituality and conservative causes and maintains several web blogs. This article is copyrighted © 2010 by Lee Hemen and is the sole property of Lee Hemen, and may not be used unless you quote the entire article and have my permission.

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