Sermon Tone Analysis
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PO - The one word that makes a difference between Christianity and all religions is the word resurrection.
The resurrection of Christ in the past gives the believer bright hope of the future.
HUM - A Sunday school class of kindergarteners were studying the Creation story.
After several weeks, they were ready to review.
“What did God make the first day?” the teacher quizzed.
“The second day?”
They answered both questions correctly.
“And what happened on the third day?”
The teacher asked.
One little child, face shining with enthusiasm, exclaimed, “He rose from the dead!”
The child might have missed the creation story, but he sure got the important Cliff Notes.
Jesus’ resurrected body lives today.
INTRO - Resurrection is our topic today and in our passage we will hear Jesus addresses the matter of resurrection.
Some didn’t believe in life after death.
Jesus quotes from God’s own word teaching them while assuring us that the resurrection is absolute.
TRANS - Let’s travel back to a time when the Master spoke first hand to those who came to understand and believe.
And, with that same Spirit, let’s pray for God’s help so that we, too, might come to understand and believe.
PRAY
What does it say?
What does it mean?
Misunderstood Authority
Who were the Sadducees?
We don’t have anything from the Sadducees themselves.
All we know comes from the NT, Josephus, and some rabbinic texts.
Even with all that, its hard to get a balanced view.
Their name comes from saddiq which means “righteous” and from the name Zadok (possible the high priest)
Most see them as religious and conservative.
Some, as Jewish aristocracy.
Others as a political party.
And, to one extent or another, a combination of those things.
What “resurrection” did the Sadducees deny?
The old bit of Bible humor says, “The Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection, so they were sad-u-see.”
ILL - For centuries Portugal’s motto was “Nothing More Beyond.”
Their world was limited to the familiar dimensions of the area around the Mediterranean Sea.
They believed that to sail beyond the horizon, their border, would be to drop off the edge of the world.
Eventually, voyagers discovered worlds beyond and brought back evidence to substantiate their claims.
Decision makers were compelled to alter their motto to read, “More Beyond.”
The resurrection we celebrate at Easter assures us there is more beyond the grave.
We do not have a chart to guide us, save Jesus Christ; details are sketchy, but our destination is certain.
The Sadducees, however, say their is no resurrection:
To be a Sadducee, placed you at odds with many people.
It is difficult to understand how this group was the priestly party from whom the people selected the high priest.
They might not agree with the Pharisees, but considering Jesus, “only yesterday” cleansed their temple (the temple was their domain) now the had a common enemy.
As the ancient proverb says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” turns true among these Jesus haters.
What OT principle were the Sadducees referring to in Mark 12:19?
Consider the Sadducees didn’t believe in the afterlife.
So, just questioning Jesus about is obviously intended as ridicule.
ILL - Perhaps you’ve asked a question knowing the answer?
Or, perhaps you’ve been asked a question you couldn’t answer, or were immediately corrected for providing?
What ever the case, done here, this is ridicule.
The Sadducees didn’t want an answer from Jesus.
Their intent was to deliver a double blow; prove Jesus wrong among his followers and themselves superior above the Pharisees who failed to trap Jesus with words.
To accomplish that, they drew from the OT principle of the levirate marriage from the Pentateuch:
To what extent the law was still observed in Jesus’ time is not clear.
What is clear is we know the Sadducees placed considerable emphasis on the anything from the Pentateuch.
For the Sadducees, these great scholars, they just knew they had Jesus trapped.
Does Mark present the Sadducees’ scenario of the seven brothers and the childless woman as real or hypothetical?
There are some scholars who argue that this account is a creation of the early church.
However, its difficult to imaging the early church fabricating a dialogue on the facticity of the resurrection without in some way talking about Jesus’ resurrection.
Because this lacks an allusion to the resurrection, argues in favor of its authenticity.
Understood Authority
What does it mean that the resurrected saints will be “like angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25)?
Some say:
this means we have the same spouse in heaven (this interpretation carries too much of this world into the next)
some claim, that like angles, humans will spend all their time worshipping God and will not have time for earthly relationships.
Others say sexual relationships will be done away with because that was for populating the earth.
The truth is that the Bible doesn’t really teach that much about the way things will be in heaven.
What it does say is:
we get glorified bodies
we will enjoy God
we will worship Him
we will serve Him forever
earthy relationships will be transformed and we will continue to enjoy those relationships
but, we don’t exactly know the exact nature of relationships
Why did Jesus quote from the book of Exodus to answer the Sadducees instead of another book of the Bible?
The Sadducees placed great emphasis on the OT teaching.
Knowing that, Jesus uses the word from the story of the burning bush found in Exodus 3:6:
The Sadducees considered themselves true believer, scholars, and upheld the OT as the authoritative word of God.
How is Jesus’ reference to Exod 3:6 in Mark 12:26 a proof of the resurrection?
Because the Sadducees considered Exodus authoritative,
and in the word from Exodus God said “I am” not “I was” the God of Abraham…
they were forced to see that God considers the patriarchs still alive.
Therefore, if God says the patriarchs are alive, then at the Resurrection God will raise up their bodies to live in eternal life.
HUM - There is a story that says a man whose obituary was printed in the paper rushed to the editor.
The “corpse” lodged his protest: “How dare you print my obituary in the paper!
I’m alive.
See me.
Here I am.” “I sure am sorry,” the editor answered, “And it’s too late to do anything about it.
The best thing I can do for you is to put you in the ‘Birth Column’ tomorrow morning and give you a fresh start!”
A fresh start indeed!
For the Christian, we’ll have a fresh start in bodies built for eternity.
Not only will be be with Jesus, we never need to worry about being separated from Him again!
What do I do with this?
As we consider Jesus’ answering the Sadducees, we’re assured by God of our own resurrection as his righteous ones.
According to Paul, Jesus’ risen, imperishable body created the pattern for our resurrected bodies.
In all this we can rejoice; Jesus assurance and our future hope.
Also, it gives us the encouragement to invite others to experience what we have in Jesus.
CLOSE - Stand and read from 1 Cor 15:1-28 (while stressing the hope of our future resurrection):
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