God of the living

He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.

Mark 12:27

There is so much more to this story than Jesus silencing His Sadducee critics. It’s more than a shrewdly played theological argument that shattered the liberal mindset of a sect of Jews that denied an afterlife. Jesus is giving hope and that hope was at the heart of His ministry and was His ultimate mission. Jesus would eventually be crucified and then be raised from the dead three days later to make certain for all who believe the reality of the resurrection.

When you think about the Sadducee’s scenario that they presented to Jesus, it is so cold-hearted. A widow loses seven husbands in succession, all brothers, one at a time, over her lifetime. There is no tragedy in the tone of the Sadducees as they lay out their weird scenario. There is just absurdity. And Jesus points it out, telling them in effect from the start, “You are just wrong”. Human experience is not the stuff of philosophical/theological thought experiments. Death and life, love and loss, time and eternity aren’t algebraic equations. The Sadducees missed knowing both the Word of God and the power of God. It showed most in their calloused setup question.

Jesus rebukes them shrewdly. They have got it all wrong. Marriage is an earthly design, not an eternal heavenly experience. And their core belief of denying the resurrection is shattered by scripture in its earliest and simplest expressions. Jesus points out that in God’s presence, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob existed in the present tense as God spoke to Moses from the burning bush. Resurrection is real. Eternity is our destination. God’s saints reside in His presence after earthly death. There is hope in the resurrection. Jesus would die and be raised Himself to guarantee that truth for us!

God of the living,

You know how this truth comforts and strengthens us in the face of death and losing those we love most. I come to You quite encouraged in the true and certain hope of eternity with You and Your holy ones redeemed in Jesus our Lord! It is a glorious certainty! And I long for its completion in Your time.

Amen