November 7, 2010 Luke 20:27-38 “The Resurrection: A

Whole New World”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

They sound like a modern opposition party, these Sadducees, having waited in the audience for Jesus
to finish his speech so they can ask their question, the one they’ve worked on for a week to make
Jesus look bad. They’ve thought of all the possible answers and they’re sure that there’s no way for
Jesus to wriggle out of the spot they’ve put him in. It’s like the reporter asking the candidate, “When
did you stop beating your wife?” These Sadducees aren’t looking for an answer, aren’t trying to
understand Jesus’ position on biblical interpretation, aren’t trying to engage in a rational discussion.
They’re the Democrats trying to put the Republican on the spot. They’re the Tea Party group trying to
make the Democratic opponent say something that will lose her votes. They don’t really care about
the answer as long as they damage Jesus, because they don’t believe in the resurrection anyway.
They’re just trying to make Jesus look foolish.
This morning’s passage is the third attack on Jesus in the 20th chapter of Luke. Throughout this
chapter, Jesus was teaching in the temple, telling the good news. First, the chief priests and scribes
came with the elders to question Jesus. (Which was only fair. Jesus was in the Temple, and thus on
their turf.) They asked him, “Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Who is it who
gave you this authority?” Jesus told them he’d answer their question about authority if they’d answer
his question. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origins?” These
religious leaders refused to answer Jesus because they knew that if they said John’s authority came
from heaven then Jesus would ask them why they didn’t believe John, and if they said John’s authority
came only from people, the crowd would stone them because the crowd thought John was a prophet
sent by God. Because they wouldn’t answer Jesus, Jesus then refused to tell them from where His
authority came.
Next, these same chief priests sent “spies,” perhaps unknown lay men, to ask Jesus, “Is it lawful for us
to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” They thought that if Jesus said they should pay the taxes, he’d
lose the support of the people, especially the Galileans who were very anti-Rome. But if he said,
“Don’t pay the taxes,” he’d be in even worse trouble because then Rome would arrest him for leading
a tax revolt. Of course, we know that Jesus got out of the priests’ little trap by saying, “Show me a
denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?” When they said, “The emperor’s,” Jesus said to
them, “Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are
God’s.” At that point, the chief priests and their crowd realized that they weren’t going to be able to
trap Jesus into saying anything that they could use asked him, so they became silent.
When they gave up, however, the Sadducees took over the attempt to trap Jesus. The Sadducees were
also of the priestly class. Many/most of them were aristocratic and very wealthy. The Sadducees
worked with Rome, and may even have supported Rome as a way of protecting their wealth. The
Pharisees were more opposed to Rome because they saw Romans as pagans.
The Sadducees were also theologically very conservative. They believed that Scripture consisted only
of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, not only included the prophets and the writings in their Scripture but
also believed in the authority of the oral tradition from Moses. Theologically and politically, the
Sadducees were the conservatives while the Pharisees were the liberals. Both groups, however,
wanted Jesus out of the way, because Jesus pointed out their weaknesses, pointed out how they wanted

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to do what they wanted to do rather that to do what God wanted them to do.
So now it’s the Sadducees turn to confront Jesus, to try and trap Jesus. They did this by asking Jesus a
question from Deuteronomy concerning the laws of marriage. This law stated that if a man died
childless, his brother must marry the widow and beget children to carry on the line. This law probably
wasn’t even being carried out in the time of Jesus, but because it was in the Mosaic regulations, the
Sadducees regarded it as binding – maybe only on others.
Whether or not this woman truly existed, the Sadducees used this extreme possibility to put Jesus on
the spot about heaven. “Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the
second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman
also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married
her.”
It’s true, isn’t it, that when we want to put someone on the spot, or when we want to point out the
weakness of a certain position, we think of the most extreme possibility and then hold that extreme up
as if it’s the norm. Because there may be one homeless person who could work but doesn’t because
he doesn’t like to work and would rather live in a shelter, opponents of homeless shelters bring up that
possibility as if all homeless people are that way. While I’ve never heard of anyone who enjoys
sleeping in a room with 60 other men, or who likes having one bathroom for those 60, or who likes
wandering around town in the cold all day until a shelter opens, I suppose there may be someone who
likes that kind of life. And because it’s a possibility, the opponents raise the possibility as an example.
In the same way, the Sadducees raised the possibility of one woman dying childless after being
widowed by 7 brothers.
What makes the Sadducees question even more absurd was that they didn’t believe in heaven. They
didn’t believe in an after-life, because, according to their reading of the Pentateuch, heaven wasn’t
mentioned by Moses, and therefore it didn’t exist. They were asking Jesus this question not only to
trap him and make him look foolish, but also to bring out the foolishness of the belief in the
resurrection.
Even though the Sadducees’ question is bizarre, Jesus answers, though his answer is in line with the
spirit in which they asked it. That is, Jesus answers them about the resurrection, telling them about the
difference between this age and the age to come, between this world’s concern with having children,
and the concern of the next world where we will all be children of God. He then goes on to give a
sophisticated theological argument from Exodus 3:6 where God said to Moses, “I am the God of your
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” God is not a God of the dead,
but a God of the living.
Two major points with regards to Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees and to all who scoff at the
resurrection. First, understand that the resurrection ushers in a whole new world, a world that’s far
different from this world. Heaven isn’t something we can really know in this life. We can talk about
streets of gold, but that’s simply an allegorical attempt to describe the wonder of the next world. The
Sadducees, and many today, think that heaven is an eternal extension of this world. “The woman
belonged to a series of men in this life; whose wife will she be in eternity? The resurrection, they
assume, is just more of the present time extended into eternity, this world as it is, but without end.”1

1 1. Willimon, William H., “Resurrection: A Whole New World,” Pulpit Resource,

Vol. 38, No. 7; Year C & A; October, November, December 2010, p. 26.
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Jesus responds that their assumptions are dead wrong. The resurrection isn’t just more of this world;
it’s a whole new world. Everything, including all of our social arrangements, our relationships,
everything, will be transformed in wondrous ways we can’t even imagine. Imagine the best of
everything and then multiply that a hundredfold or a thousand fold. Even then, we can’t imagine
heaven.
But understand, the resurrection isn’t just about the next world. Even more, the resurrection is about
today. “Death now rules the world through fear, violence, hatred and lies. But the resurrection is
God’s great announcement that all of that is a lie. None of death’s great power is so powerful after all.
Nearly two million Americans in jail, drug dealers preying on little children, thousands of young
people gunned down every year on the streets of America’s cities, wars attempting to set the world
right – that’s all a sign of death’s dominion. Yet the good news of the resurrection is that none of that
is finally real, none of that is the last word on our true situation.”2
The Sadducees believe that if there is a heaven, it was concerned only with what happens after death.
So too, many today. Heaven is irrelevant to the world today. Jesus says, “You’ve got it all wrong.
Yes, there is a heaven, but heaven begins today. Heaven begins with belief in God, and belief in me
as Savior.”
Which ultimate becomes the true question for all of us. Do we believe in heaven? Do we believe in
the resurrection? If we say “Yes,” then we’re asked to live differently from the way of the world. If
we say “Yes I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” then we’re asked to allow the Holy Spirit to
transform us into people who seek to bring about God’s justice to this unjust world, people who do
our very best to love even those who drive us up the wall.
We gather at the Table of our Lord Jesus Christ to remember the truth and power of His resurrection,
not just for that day in the future when we’ll be joined with the great cloud of witnesses to the truth of
the resurrection, but also to commit ourselves to change today, for the resurrection is today as well.
As we take the bread and take the cup may we rejoice that as we’re reminded in Revelations, “the
home of God is among mortals. [God] will wipe every tear from [our] eyes. Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away,” and all things
are made new.

2 2. Willimon, p. 26.
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