Title: Resurrection in the Present Tense
FCF: The power of the Resurrection, revealed b the Scripture, is power for living now.
I. Intro: What question would you ask Jesus?
a. My name is a question mark (Mi – ca – el)
b. Sitting in the Starbucks talking with Jesus
c. (May want to address, “why no marriage?”
i. Simple answers: We’re the Bride of Christ. I love my wife, she is the most beautiful woman I know. But even she knows she’ll be #2. I know, when she gets to heaven and sees Jesus, she’s going to look back at me for a second and think “I settled for that?”
ii. But – the focus of Jesus answer has very little to do with the answer that the Sadducees thought they wanted.)
II. Living as if there is No Resurrection
a. The Characteristics of the Sadducees
i. Temple, Tradition, Torah
b. The Tradition of the Sadducees
i. Not dissing the tradition here!
c. The Trap of the Sadducees
i. They had gotten so “sophisticated” about their “religion” that they thought they were the ones in control. Our tradition indicates that there was one angel who thought he was sufficiently sophisticated and in control that he knew better than God what to do. You know what happened to him also.
ii. They had no joy! A verse that I often like to quote – “If there is no resurrection, we above all men should be most pitied. We should eat, drink, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
d. The Fate of the Sadducees
i. They died out when their Temple did – but their philosophy lives on today, I fear.
III. Living as if there is Only the Resurrection
a. Only 3 chapters in 1200 deal with Heaven – most of it is living here!
b. One of my favorite books is The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.
i. He suggests that heaven isn’t anything like we imagined. Hell is just too small and heaven too great for us to bear – we have to become toughened up to stand even near the presence of God.
ii. Its all the extension of our choices down here
iii. It reinforces the fact that God is God of all. He is God our rising up and our sitting down. When we’re here in Church, when we are eating with our friends. He’s the God who knows when we’re sittin’ on the toilet.
c. Notice Jesus answer – I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is a living God! He is the God who is the father of the people, but he’s also the God of Laughter. He’s the God of the Schemer – the one whose very name means he struggles with God. He is God to all of them, and he is God to all of them right now.
d. So, what questions would you ask Jesus?
i. Simpsons bit “What if you’re really good but you get into a bad fight and they cut your arm so that you get gangrene and have to have it amputated? Will it be waiting for you in heaven?” (And the exasperated Sunday School Teacher answers “For last time Bart, yes!”)
ii. So many people want to ask me “What is heaven like?” They know things like “It’s so restful and peaceful – you have wings, a cloud and do nothing all day.” Or, the only thing we do in heaven is play harps. There is no sadness. They even know some of the history - “Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels, but was cast out of heaven.” Well, I often have to tell them, frankly those things aren’t in the Bible. It is true there will be no more tears in heaven, but the vast majority of what we “know” about heaven doesn’t come from the Bible. The story of Lucifier being cast out of heaven, for instance – that comes from John Milton Paradise Lost. The idea that we become angels and play harps all day – that’s Bugs Bunny.
iii. Joel’s question: What problem is Christianity trying to address? I gave him a long, convoluted answer, but a friend of mine – Jeff Willetts, answered it in one word – Sin.
IV. Living Because of the Resurrection
a. I could write a book about what it means to live because of the resurrection. Well, actually, I don’t have to, because God already did.
b. But, I want to tell you a story (Ernest Gordon) about what it means. In 1942, the same year Westover Baptist was being formed…
V. Closing
a. I asked earlier what question you want to ask Jesus. One of the best I have ever heard is “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
i. Notice – that verb is in the present tense.
ii. It knows there is a heaven, but it realizes that what’s here matters
This morning, before we read the Scripture, I’d like you to take a second to imagine the following scenario. You get to ask Jesus one question – any question. What would you ask him? You can imagine that you’re in a Starbucks somewhere, and that’s probably because aside from God, it’s probably about the only other thing that’s omnipresent.
I ask you this, because the chapter we’re reading from – Matthew 22 – records three such encounters. If you have your Bibles, you should turn to Matthew 22: 23-32. Three different groups of people got to ask Jesus a question. And, I’ve got to tell you, I think they all asked some pretty dumb questions. Now, I know your teachers have always told you, there’s no such thing as a dumb question, but I think you can safely say that these are, because all three of these questions are less about actually knowing an answer, then they are about saying something about the people who asked the question.
When we talk about Jesus literally condescending to live with us, this glimpse into his life just highlights what condescension means. Here we have a religious group – the Sadducees – who think they know better than Jesus about what the resurrection is. The truth is, they don’t believe that there is a resurrection, and they want Jesus to know it.
Follow along with me, and you’ll see what I mean:
The Question about the Resurrection
23The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, 24“Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. 26The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. 27Last of all, the woman herself died. 28In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.”
(Side Note: You’ve heard of the musical, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?” well, this is “Seven Brothers for one Bride.”)
29Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 32‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” 33And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.
What I want to tell you about this text is that there are three different outlooks on life. You see the Sadducees’ outlook right away. They live as if there is no Resurrection.
And, of course, Jesus knows how to answer them, but he also knows there is another error to look out for. Notice that he talks about the Power of God in his response. And, the most important line in this passage – “He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.” You know the other error is to live as if there is only a resurrection. The truth is, both of the outlooks ignore the Scripture and the Power of God.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus has an agenda here of his own. He wants his people to know that the truth is that we live because of the resurrection, and that resurrection is a present tense thing. So, that’s what I want to look at this morning – I want to see what it means to live like there is no resurrection, then what it means to live as if there is only a resurrection, and then briefly see what it means to live because of the resurrection.
Before we get there, however, I want to address one issue straight up. I remember when I first met the beautiful woman who is now my wife, I was talking to a friend of hers, and I said how sad it was that I’d only be married to her in this life. I actually knew this verse! She set me straight, and I want to do the same.
You don’t need to be surprised that you aren’t married to your spouse in heaven – after all, we’re all going to be the bride of Christ. Men and women alike, we’ll all have the same husband, God himself. Now, don’t get me wrong here – I love my wife more than anything else on this earth. I can honestly say I’d travel halfway around the world for here – and I did twice! I had to work for six years for this woman to want to marry me. She was working as a missionary in Nepal, and that’s where I had to go to get this woman to say yes to me. And, I had to go twice! Once for her to think about it, and once for her to say yes! I tell you that, so that you’ll understand what’s going to happen when I Jesus. I’m going to take one look at her, one look at him, and say, “I settled for her?” He’s that wonderful. That’s not to diminish from her fabulousness. But, You see, she’s just a hint of what is to come. When I’m in heaven, I’ll know what it means to be in union with God himself.
But, these Sadducees, they don’t think that’ll ever happen. You see, they don’t believe there is a resurrection. Now, you should know why they don’t. I know we have a tendency to think that Pharisees and Sadducees and Essenes and Zealots – well, we think that Israel at the time of Jesus was one big monolithic toga party. The truth is, there were a lot of different people with different agendas. The Sadducees’ agenda could be summed up in three “Ts” – the Temple, the Torah, and their Tradition.
Sadducees, you should know, only believed that the first five books of the Bible were from God. Those five books are the whole of the Torah – the most holy part of the Bible for Jews. They just believed there wasn’t anything else. And from those first five books of the Bible, they didn’t see any evidence for a resurrection.
That’s why Jesus answered them from Exodus 3:6. He noted how God said “I am the God of Abraham.” Abraham had been dead for nearly 2000 years – that’s as far back as we are from them. And yet, Jesus knows that God is still present for Abraham. Using their own Scriptures, he’s telling them – look, if you really knew even just these only five books you think are legit – you’d know, there’s a resurrection.
They were also big fans of the Temple. They thought “we’ve got this cool Temple” that’s all we need. They thought they knew everything because they literally were the establishment. After all, you take care of the Temple; you’ve got to be pretty hot stuff! And that’s why they were all about Tradition. I mean capital “T” tradition – like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. They said “we know it all.” We’ve been there, done that – got the T-Shirt to prove it.
Now, don’t get me wrong here. I love Tradition. I’m restoring a 200 year-old house, and you don’t do that if you don’t love tradition.
And, let me tell you – the Tradition they kept was a great one. This is the Tradition of Abraham – a 100 year old man whose 75 year old wife gives birth to a son. This is the tradition of a people, enslaved in Egypt, and liberated by a God who cared about them. This is the Tradition of Amos and Hosea who laid into the corporate wealth and greed that slowly sapped the life out of 8th century Israel. It reminded them that just because you weren’t on the top of the heap that you still mattered to God. This was the Tradition of Malachi who starts his message off with a reminder from God himself – “I have loved you!” he says, and what is our response? “How have you loved us?”
This tradition held together a conquered people. They had rebuilt their Temple, they had fallen back in love with their God. But now, they thought. We’re done. All we need to do is preserve this Temple, and we’re Ok!
But you see they had forgotten that you only have to preserve dead things. Their tradition was one of LIFE! You embalm a corpse. But, if you just try to preserve a living being, that’s all you’ll end up with – a dead body. A corpse, that never changes.
Very simply, the trap that the Sadducees fell into was the trap that saw the form of their tradition, but denied its life. Paul talks about men in 2 Timothy 3:5 who “had a form of godliness, but denied the power therein.” He has two words of advice about such men – AVOID THEM!
These “sophisticated” Sadducees thought they knew it so well.
I’ll tell you what ultimately happened to them. In 70 AD, the Romans destroyed their Temple. And, when that was gone, they disappeared from the scene. That’s why the later Gospels don’t even mention them. Their counterparts – the Pharisees – had their synagogues, and they eventually became what we think of as modern Judaism, but the Sadducees, who simply had their dead traditions, simply disappeared.
Of course, that said, if the problem with Pharisees was that they were hypocrites and the problem with Sadducees was that they were tradition-bound embalmers of their faith – people whose spiritual superiority drained their faith of life, I sometimes wonder if there aren’t actually more Sadducees than Pharisees today.
But, you really can go to the other extreme – the one the Sadducees feared that the “Resurrectionists” were. You know the kind of people I’m thinking about – the ones who think Christianity is so heavenly-focused that it’s of no earthly good?
One of my vices is watching the Simpsons. I think it’s a funny show, but if you watch it carefully, you’ll also find it is one of the best reflections of what the world thinks we’re all about. There was one episode where Bart is in Sunday. The rest of his class is asking whether or not their pets are going to heaven. Bart then asks, “What if you’re a really good person, but you get into a fight, and your leg is cut, and it gets all gangrene, and they have to amputate it. Will your leg be there waiting for you in heaven?” The exasperated Sunday School teacher replies, “For the last time, Bart, yes!”
You know, it’s funny on TV to see the how fixated the world is on heaven – but even in my normal work life, I see it. When people find out I’m in seminary, people usually want to ask me about heaven. They want to know if we do anything other than play harps on clouds all day. They want to know if Lucifer really is the most beautiful angel, and if he really was cast out of heaven. They seem to want to ask me about everything about heaven and nothing about the here and now.
You know, Peter wrote a book of the Bible, and in it he asked what I think is a much better question. He said, “Seeing that all things are going to end up this way, what manner of life ought we live?”
You see, I’m an engineer, and so for me, I love the practical questions. Maybe its just how I’m wired, but I know that all the questions I ever had about heaven are going to be answered the moment I get there. We simply don’t have much information about heaven, and so pretty much anything that I’d say about it would be speculation anyway.
I’ll tell you – so often I have to answer those questions with “It’s not really in the Bible.” The thing about Lucifer, for instance, the Bible actually doesn’t say a thing about it. What we know about him actually comes from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It’s a tradition that doesn’t come from the Scripture. Oh, and the thing about playing harps all day – as best as I can tell, that comes from Bugs Bunny!
You know, in the Bible, I can only think of 3 chapters where most of the action is in heaven. There are about 1200 chapters in all of the Bible – that means less than 1/3 of 1% deals with afterlife. Jesus talks about money, power, sex, laughter – a whole lot of other things far more than he does about the future.
I will say that if you want to know about heaven, my favorite book on the matter is one written about 50 years ago. C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Great Divorce, in which he imagines a bus trip from hell to heaven. Along the way, he suggests that whether we go to heaven or hell is less about God sending us somewhere, and more about our inability to stand in the presence of a holy God without preparation. Since there is so little description of hell in the Bible too, I think he’s somewhat justified in suggesting that hell isn’t so much a place as a smallness. The people who end staying in hell do so because they lack any real substance – heaven is too hard for them. The choices they made on earth stuck them into a pattern of being that made them wholly too small for heaven. It’s a fun read – maybe an hour or so, but it’ll make you think. I’m not suggesting its Gospel any more than John Milton – but if you really want to speculate, it’s as good a place as any.
Anyways, I said I was an engineer. One of the great things about being an engineer is that you spend your day with people who as some really good questions. One day, he asked me, “What question is it that Christianity is trying to solve?” He’s not a Christian – He’s an agnostic. And, he loves asking that question, because so few people can answer it. Now, at the time I gave him a pretty long, convoluted answer and he was okay with my answer, but it really got me thinking. I asked a friend of mine – Jeff Willetts – you may remember him – the same thing. He said, Oh that one’s simple – Sin. Given that we are sinners, what manner of life ought we live? That’s why he’s my professor – ‘cause he can answer the good ones.
Very simply, we live in a world of Sin, and the Resurrection is the answer to that problem. You know so often we think about the Resurrection as the answer to punishment for sin, that we forget, no – it’s the answer to Sin now too. When you live because of the Resurrection, you know that it’s not just some future atonement. It changes your life now; it makes the now worth living.
Let me tell you a story about what I mean. It was 1942. That was the same year your church was founded. Over in Burma we were at war with the Japanese, and as you know, the Japanese of that time committed horrible war crimes. Perhaps one of the most infamous was the railroad from Thailand to Burma, which passed over the River Kwai. Conditions were horrible. Officers and enlisted men alike were forced into work camps that were death sentences. Nearly 400 men died for each of the 80 miles of railroad that were laid.
Conditions like that were even worse among the men. Reports were that the men were killing each other for the few scraps of vegetable left in the soup. Medicines were hoarded; they were protected like gold. Men behaved like animals, looking out only for themselves.
And so it was in that condition that Ernest Gordon found himself. He was only days away from death. His legs numb from disease and overwork, he was ready to be laid in the death house, where the stench of decayed and rotten corpses filled the air. He knew he would be gone in only a few days, even though he was only 24 years old.
But, only a few days before, the Word of God had come to the camp, and nothing would be the same.
You see, a few weeks earlier, at the end of a hard day of shoveling, the Japanese guard had counted the shovels. They were one short. He started screaming, “You all die! Confess! Who took the shovel?” No one stepped forward. He cried out again, “You don’t confess! You all die!”
Finally, one man stepped forward. The guards hit him, struck him, pounding his flesh until he was unrecognizable. He died from his wounds while his friends looked on.
Later that night, a recount of the shovels turned up the fact that actually all was accounted for. The unnamed man had simply volunteered to die for his comrades. Word swept through the camp. Someone had remembered the scripture – “Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.”
This was the beginning of what was called “the Miracle on the River Kwai.” Nothing happened all at once, but eventually men realized that the unnamed man had sacrificed himself in accordance with the Scriptures, and so they began to see what other Scripture they could remember. What they knew, they wrote down on scraps of paper and circulated them among themselves. As they pondered the power pent up in the holy words, things started to change. Men shared. They realized they had been in the presence of God, and nothing could be the same.
And so, when it came time for Ernest Gordon to give up, his friends decided that he should live. Instead of taking him to the death house, they hid him in the jungle. They fed him from their rations. They sold personal possessions to get him medicine. Instead of dying, he lived.
In fact, at the end of the war, Ernest Gordon was still alive. As a result, he chose to enter seminary, became a minister, and only in 2002. Ernest Gordon had found out first hand the power of God. He found out that the Scriptures do not lie – that He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.
I asked earlier what question you would ask of Jesus. A pretty good one might be, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Someone asked that of Paul once, and he said that the answer was pretty simple. “Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” If you want to do that, I’m going to open the altar here in a moment.
If you have already believed that, than I want to ask you a question – “Do you know the Scriptures? Do you know the Power of God in the present tense?” If you want to recommit to knowing the Jesus who is the author of your faith more fully, you can. Be in his word regularly. Come to know it. If you want to make a public commitment to do so, you too can come forward.
Let us pray…
As we sing our hymn of invitation, “#426 Victory in Jesus,” I pray that you will know his victory.
