Expect the Unexpected…

One of the conundrums of life is the oft irrational hostility towards the Christian faith. Yes, sadly some professing Christians have carried out terrible abuses. But the big picture is that over the centuries God’s people have shown care and compassion for the poor and the needy – exemplifying a facet of the public ministry of Jesus – seeking the welfare of the city (Jeremiah 29:7). Ironically, but perhaps not surprisingly, the media in all its forms chooses to overlook such welfare. I say ‘not surprisingly’ because people in every generation want to cut down anyone who threatens them. The Jewish leadership felt threatened by Jesus of Nazareth. So much so that they endeavored to trap him with gotcha questions which could discredit and destroy him. This was increasingly evident during the days before the Passover – at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. In Luke chapter 20, verse 25 Jesus had responded to the question, ‘Teacher, … is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?’ with ‘… Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’.  Confounded by his answer they were silenced (Luke 20:26). Nevertheless, despite this unexpected setback, the aggressive questioning continued. This time the Sadducees, another group of Jewish leaders, pressed him on the subject of the resurrection. The Sadducees were conservative aristocrats. The high priests were drawn from this group. Willing to work with the Roman authorities, their privileges were protected. However, they were treated with suspicion by Jewish loyalists and pious Jewish people. In his Antiquities Josephus tells us that the Sadducees only accepted the written Scripture, not oral tradition which the Pharisees accepted (xiii.297; xviii.16). However, the Sadducees denied life after death and therefore, resurrection. This was the question on which they challenged Jesus (Luke chapter 20, verse 28). Using the law that required the brother of a man who died childless to take his brother’s wife in marriage (levirate law), the Sadducees framed their question. Yet, given that there are only a few recorded occasions of levirate marriage – one being that of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 4:5, 21) – and that the practice seems to have been dropped by the time of the New Testament, their question was more hypothetical than real. They posed the situation of seven brothers successively marrying the same woman. None of the marriages produced any children. In turn they asked Jesus whose wife the woman would be in the resurrection (20:29-33). Implying there could be no answer to their question, they used it to argue there could no resurrection. But Jesus responded: ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage’ (20:34). His implication is clear. Given the successive marriages portrayed by the Sadducees, Jesus affirms the norm and the appropriateness of marriage between a man and woman. Significantly, in saying this he also confirms the creation order of Genesis 2:24. But he didn’t stop there. He continued by contrasting our present experience and that in the life to come: “Those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage…” (20:35). In a tightly worded sentence he affirmed the reality of life beyond death and also the resurrection. ‘Life in the age t