Silent Procession Of The Cross
Drama
Voices Of Repentance
Lenten Midweek Vespers
Worship Bulletin
Silent Procession Of The Cross
We Enter God's Presence
Hymn
"In The Cross Of Christ I Glory" (vv. 1-2)
Invocation
P:
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
C:
Amen.
The Psalm
Psalm 100
P:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
C:
Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
P:
Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
C:
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
P:
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
All:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Hymn
"In The Cross Of Christ I Glory" (vv. 3-4)
We Hear God's Word
The First Lesson
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
"Do not be stiff-necked any longer."
L:
This is the Word of the Lord.
C:
He is our God, our praise who has performed awesome wonders.
The Holy Gospel
Matthew 3:4-12
"Sadducees [were] coming to where he was baptizing."
P:
This is the gospel of the Lord. What is its fruit of repentance?
C:
Its fruit of repentance for me is to follow not just the letter of God's Law, but its spirit.
Children's Sermon
Hymn
"The Savior Calls"
Sermon
"The Voice Of A Sadducee"
We Respond To God's Word In Faith
The Apostles' Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Offering
Offering Voluntary
"Go My Children With My Blessing"
Prayer Of The Day
P:
Awesome and mighty God,
All:
You are the Creator of heaven and earth. As one baptized into your holy triune name, take away my stiff-neck and proud spirit. Enable me to show forth fruits of repentance with acts or kindness toward the fatherless, the foreigner, the widow, the hungry, and the hated, showing the world that you are indeed a loving God. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.
Pastoral Prayers
Response
P:
Lord, in your mercy,
C:
Hear us, O Lord.
Lord's Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
We Depart With God's Blessing
Benediction
P:
Flee from the coming wrath!
C:
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
P:
The Almighty and Merciful Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless and preserve you.
All:
Amen.
Closing Hymn
"Lord, Dismiss Us"
Silent Recession Of The Cross
Lent Week 2
Children's Sermon
... Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
--aHebrews 9:28
Items Needed: a large carving knife and a cross
Welcome back, children! This is the second full week of Lent. During these weeks, we're learning about repentance from John the Baptist and what he told those who came to him for baptism. Repentance is turning from our sins, believing in Jesus, and doing things God's way.
One of the people who came to John for baptism was a Sadducee, a ruler of the people who was also a priest. Sadducees didn't believe in eternal life and resurrection. That's why they're "sad you see." That's just a little joke. As priests, Sadducees would sacrifice animals in the temple as God's Law told them to do. Maybe they used a knife like this one. (show the knife but don't let children hold it) To kill an animal, they would cut its throat so its blood would flow out. They believed this turned God's anger away from them.
They were doing what God said to do, but in the New Testament, we are told that animal blood can never take away our sins. Animals were sacrificed to remind us of our sins and show us we deserved to pay for them with our own blood. But God loves us too much to let that happen. That's why he sent Jesus. Jesus' death on the cross is the sacrifice that pays for all our sins so we can be forgiven and not die but have eternal life.
I brought a cross (let children see it) to show us how Jesus died. He was nailed to it. When he bled and died there, all our sins were paid for forever. No more sacrifices of animals or anything else needs to be made. I'm surely glad about that, aren't you? All we do is say "Thank you," to God for the gift of his Son. Let's say thank you to God right now.
Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus for my sins. Because of him I am forgiven and have a home in heaven. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Lent Week 2
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Hebrews 9:28; 10:4
Matthew 3:4-12
Sermon
The Voice Of A Sadducee
Of all the people who came to John for a baptism of repentance, perhaps I am the least likely. I am, after all, a priest, and as a priest, I am thought by most to be closer to God than anyone. I even thought so myself until I heard John's preaching and met Jesus. I am Zadok, a priest and a Sadducee.
Like the Pharisees, we Sadducees have a long and noble heritage, even longer and nobler than the Pharisees. We've never really liked each other. You might say we merely tolerated each other. Ours is a relationship of mutual dependency and barely concealed disdain. They need us. We need them. Without the Pharisees, through whom everything must be approved, we Sadducees would not hold the high priesthood. If they don't like someone, that person doesn't get appointed, or perhaps that person gets removed.
Pharisees control every aspect of the religious life of the people. We, the rightful religious leaders, chafe at this arrangement, but we accept it. After all, it has given us the position and influence we need with the Romans to become the wealthy and aristocratic party that we are. But, we are not mere leeches. It is our reasoned voice and close relationship with the Romans that has so far kept their armies from totally destroying our country and temple. Without us there'd be no Pharisees, no law, no nothing. The Pharisees know this and so they tolerate us. Without us there'd be no one to protect the temple, and if there were no temple, how could God's Law be kept, a Law that requires the daily sacrifices and offerings we priests make before his altar? The Pharisees don't like our privileged caste and our rather secular beliefs, but if they are to obey the Law they claim to cherish, they have to put up with us. As I say, it is an unpleasant but necessary relationship, or at least I once thought it was necessary. Now I realize that Christ is the only sacrifice that really matters and that through him, all of God's people are priests, not just people like me, Zadok.
I have claimed that the heritage of the Sadducees is longer and nobler than that of the Pharisees. That's because only one born into the priestly tribe of Levi, the tribe of Moses, can be a Sadducee. By divine right we inherit our place and role among God's people. No Pharisee can make that claim. While the Pharisees may aspire to be the followers of Moses, we are his blood relatives. We are the descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. As priests we looked after the souls of Israel and were stewards of the Law of God for a thousand years before there was even one Pharisee. Perhaps you can understand our resentment.
Now, to be perfectly honest, not every descendant of Levi and Moses is a Sadducee. John who baptized me was the son of a priest, but neither he nor his father Zechariah were Sadducees. You see one only needs to be a Sadducee if he wishes to become rich and powerful, something John had no interest in. As a Levite, John was my relative and no Pharisee. It is perhaps for those two reasons I was drawn to him. At least it made worthwhile a trip into the desert to hear him.
Reluctantly, I must admit that our movement as a sect within Judaism has only been in existence about as long as the Pharisees. Our origins go back to the time of the Maccabees, the priestly family that purged Greek influence from our land and religion. At first, we priests cooperated with the scribes and students of the law who sought to restore the true worship of God. But more and more they sought to impose portions of the scriptures and traditions that we felt were less valuable. We held that the Torah alone, the first five books of Moses, were to be obeyed. Other books were good reading, but didn't have the same weight.
But it is from just such books, the prophets and the writings, that the Pharisees developed their doctrine, along with the commentaries compiled by the rabbis. It is in these books that the Pharisees find their distinctive beliefs about a spiritual world of angels, of predestination, of the bondage of the human will, of divine judgment at the end of the ages, of resurrection to eternal life or damnation.
Sadducees have considered all this to be myth and speculation and contrary to the Torah. Angels are simply appearances of God. Human will is utterly free to determine its own destiny. Surely God is far too busy to plan every detail of our lives. Sadducees think that talk of an afterlife is foolishness. After all, who has ever returned from the dead proving anything else? Death means annihilation of body and soul. To be "gathered unto the fathers" is merely to join them in the grave, not in some paradise called "heaven."
I must say, that is how I once believed, but no longer. You must understand that coming to John for baptism and living a penitent life did not mean I suddenly knew and understood all the implications. When John baptized Jesus and announced him to be, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," I really had no idea what he meant. Perhaps he was declaring Jesus to be the rightful high priest and a rival to Caiaphas. By all I could see and hear, Jesus was certainly a more worthy candidate for the office. Caiaphas never once was concerned with anyone but himself, with his position and power, but Jesus was different. While Caiaphas flattered Roman occupiers and sought favors, Jesus was out among the people, preaching good news.
This good news was that in himself, God's kingdom had come. Again and again, he demonstrated it was so. People sick with all sorts of diseases were healed by his word and loving touch, even lepers. No Pharisee or Sadducee would have touched them. The demon possessed and epileptics were freed. Jesus refused no one who came to him; tax collectors, prostitutes, Roman soldiers. If they needed healing, he healed. If they needed forgiveness, he forgave.
And his teaching made far more sense to me than that of the Pharisees. They believed it wrong to pay taxes to Rome. No true Israelite and Messiah would support giving money to the very Gentile dogs who oppressed God's people, they thought. Sadducees, on the other hand, though hating the tax as much as anyone, knew the Romans would get it out of us one way or another. If we didn't pay up, they'd loot Jerusalem and the temple and take our people away as slaves. So we paid and encouraged the people to pay as well. What else could we do?
Once the Pharisees and supporters of Herod came to Jesus and asked him, "What is your opinion, is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" They were hoping both to trap Jesus and embarrass us. If Jesus said, "Pay your taxes to Rome," the people would reject him as the political Messiah they thought him to be. If he said, "Don't pay your taxes," the Romans would arrest him and probably kill him as an enemy of the state. Either way, the Pharisees would be rid of him. But do you know how Jesus answered? He took a coin with the likeness of Caesar on it and said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." It was masterful! In such simple words he showed that there are really two kingdoms, one of this world and another of God. Jesus is king of God's world, a world that wants the hearts of men, not their coins. I couldn't help but laugh at this resounding defeat for the Pharisees.
Then it was our turn to be humiliated. As I've already said, we Sadducees rejected any concept of an afterlife. We also differed with the Pharisees in how we understood marriage law. According to Moses, if a man died without giving his wife a child, the man's brother had to marry her and hopefully give her a child on behalf of the dead man. In the Sadducee's view, this could only be done if the first marriage hadn't been consummated, in other words if it were only an engagement and not a real marriage. Otherwise, it would be incest. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed the law applied regardless of whether the marriage had been consummated.
Hoping to discredit both Jesus and the Pharisees, as well as make believers in resurrection look foolish, a Sadducee told a story and concluded it with a question. "Teacher," he said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be...?" They really thought they'd gotten Jesus with this one, as well as the Pharisees. But Jesus amazed us all, and convinced even me. "You are in error," he said, "because you do not know the scriptures."
Imagine telling the Pharisees they didn't know the scriptures! "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven," said Jesus. That comment was aimed at us who didn't believe in angels. Then Jesus went on, and this clinched it for me. "But about the resurrection of the dead -- have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
Do you get it? Do you understand? Jesus is quoting from the Torah, the only book we Sadducees really believe! Why did I never notice this before? If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all dead, and not just dead but annihilated, God would have said, "I was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." But that's not what he said. He said, "I am their God!" That means they are alive today thousands of years after their deaths, enjoying life in God's presence.
I'd heard John say Jesus was the Lamb of God and thought it had something to do with the priesthood, but I misunderstood. Jesus was no mere replacement for Caiaphas, the high priest. No, Caiaphas was in the same league as a tax paid to Caesar, a worldly token, like a coin, compared to the high priesthood of Jesus. Caiaphas, as high priest, was content merely to see that a supply of lambs was furnished to the temple for the sacrifices. As such he was little more than a butcher. But Jesus is a high priest who gives himself as the lamb. That's what John meant when he called Jesus "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."
It all came together for me on the day Jesus was crucified. As he hung there suffering unimaginable agony, he prayed for Pharisee, Sadducee, Roman, for all of us. He prayed, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." Then he spoke once more of eternal life, saying to the believing thief crucified beside him, "Today you will be with me in paradise." Soon after that he prayed his last prayer, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit," and then he died.
Next, the unimaginable happened, an earthquake! There was hardly any damage, except to the curtain in the temple, the curtain concealing the Most Holy Place. It was ripped right down the middle! Anyone could look right in there and see the place of God's presence. What could it mean? It meant my service as a priest wasn't needed anymore, that's what it meant! No longer would any other priest or I be required to offer daily sacrifice. The only blood that mattered had now been shed, the blood of Jesus. Through the blood of Jesus, the true Lamb of God, every believer is welcome in God's presence.
Life has changed so much for me since John's baptism and the day I followed Jesus. After his resurrection, I began to sense his Spirit in my life. Privilege and money don't mean to me what they once did. I've discovered nothing's more fun than giving away what I don't need to someone else who does need it. Once death was truly my enemy; it depressed me. It doesn't anymore. Sometimes I'm afraid as I think of it, but not as I once was, not since I learned that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the thief, all of them, are all very much alive and waiting to welcome me into heaven's joy. And Jesus is there with them, arms wide, ready to embrace me, but not just me, you also.
Prayer
Living Savior, you came to give your life that we might have life. Help us find joy in the forgiveness of our sins and the certain hope of eternity with you in paradise. In Jesus'aname we pray. Amen.
Silent Procession Of The Cross
We Enter God's Presence
Hymn
"In The Cross Of Christ I Glory" (vv. 1-2)
Invocation
P:
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
C:
Amen.
The Psalm
Psalm 100
P:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
C:
Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
P:
Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
C:
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
P:
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
All:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Hymn
"In The Cross Of Christ I Glory" (vv. 3-4)
We Hear God's Word
The First Lesson
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
"Do not be stiff-necked any longer."
L:
This is the Word of the Lord.
C:
He is our God, our praise who has performed awesome wonders.
The Holy Gospel
Matthew 3:4-12
"Sadducees [were] coming to where he was baptizing."
P:
This is the gospel of the Lord. What is its fruit of repentance?
C:
Its fruit of repentance for me is to follow not just the letter of God's Law, but its spirit.
Children's Sermon
Hymn
"The Savior Calls"
Sermon
"The Voice Of A Sadducee"
We Respond To God's Word In Faith
The Apostles' Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Offering
Offering Voluntary
"Go My Children With My Blessing"
Prayer Of The Day
P:
Awesome and mighty God,
All:
You are the Creator of heaven and earth. As one baptized into your holy triune name, take away my stiff-neck and proud spirit. Enable me to show forth fruits of repentance with acts or kindness toward the fatherless, the foreigner, the widow, the hungry, and the hated, showing the world that you are indeed a loving God. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.
Pastoral Prayers
Response
P:
Lord, in your mercy,
C:
Hear us, O Lord.
Lord's Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
We Depart With God's Blessing
Benediction
P:
Flee from the coming wrath!
C:
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
P:
The Almighty and Merciful Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless and preserve you.
All:
Amen.
Closing Hymn
"Lord, Dismiss Us"
Silent Recession Of The Cross
Lent Week 2
Children's Sermon
... Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
--aHebrews 9:28
Items Needed: a large carving knife and a cross
Welcome back, children! This is the second full week of Lent. During these weeks, we're learning about repentance from John the Baptist and what he told those who came to him for baptism. Repentance is turning from our sins, believing in Jesus, and doing things God's way.
One of the people who came to John for baptism was a Sadducee, a ruler of the people who was also a priest. Sadducees didn't believe in eternal life and resurrection. That's why they're "sad you see." That's just a little joke. As priests, Sadducees would sacrifice animals in the temple as God's Law told them to do. Maybe they used a knife like this one. (show the knife but don't let children hold it) To kill an animal, they would cut its throat so its blood would flow out. They believed this turned God's anger away from them.
They were doing what God said to do, but in the New Testament, we are told that animal blood can never take away our sins. Animals were sacrificed to remind us of our sins and show us we deserved to pay for them with our own blood. But God loves us too much to let that happen. That's why he sent Jesus. Jesus' death on the cross is the sacrifice that pays for all our sins so we can be forgiven and not die but have eternal life.
I brought a cross (let children see it) to show us how Jesus died. He was nailed to it. When he bled and died there, all our sins were paid for forever. No more sacrifices of animals or anything else needs to be made. I'm surely glad about that, aren't you? All we do is say "Thank you," to God for the gift of his Son. Let's say thank you to God right now.
Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus for my sins. Because of him I am forgiven and have a home in heaven. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Lent Week 2
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Hebrews 9:28; 10:4
Matthew 3:4-12
Sermon
The Voice Of A Sadducee
Of all the people who came to John for a baptism of repentance, perhaps I am the least likely. I am, after all, a priest, and as a priest, I am thought by most to be closer to God than anyone. I even thought so myself until I heard John's preaching and met Jesus. I am Zadok, a priest and a Sadducee.
Like the Pharisees, we Sadducees have a long and noble heritage, even longer and nobler than the Pharisees. We've never really liked each other. You might say we merely tolerated each other. Ours is a relationship of mutual dependency and barely concealed disdain. They need us. We need them. Without the Pharisees, through whom everything must be approved, we Sadducees would not hold the high priesthood. If they don't like someone, that person doesn't get appointed, or perhaps that person gets removed.
Pharisees control every aspect of the religious life of the people. We, the rightful religious leaders, chafe at this arrangement, but we accept it. After all, it has given us the position and influence we need with the Romans to become the wealthy and aristocratic party that we are. But, we are not mere leeches. It is our reasoned voice and close relationship with the Romans that has so far kept their armies from totally destroying our country and temple. Without us there'd be no Pharisees, no law, no nothing. The Pharisees know this and so they tolerate us. Without us there'd be no one to protect the temple, and if there were no temple, how could God's Law be kept, a Law that requires the daily sacrifices and offerings we priests make before his altar? The Pharisees don't like our privileged caste and our rather secular beliefs, but if they are to obey the Law they claim to cherish, they have to put up with us. As I say, it is an unpleasant but necessary relationship, or at least I once thought it was necessary. Now I realize that Christ is the only sacrifice that really matters and that through him, all of God's people are priests, not just people like me, Zadok.
I have claimed that the heritage of the Sadducees is longer and nobler than that of the Pharisees. That's because only one born into the priestly tribe of Levi, the tribe of Moses, can be a Sadducee. By divine right we inherit our place and role among God's people. No Pharisee can make that claim. While the Pharisees may aspire to be the followers of Moses, we are his blood relatives. We are the descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. As priests we looked after the souls of Israel and were stewards of the Law of God for a thousand years before there was even one Pharisee. Perhaps you can understand our resentment.
Now, to be perfectly honest, not every descendant of Levi and Moses is a Sadducee. John who baptized me was the son of a priest, but neither he nor his father Zechariah were Sadducees. You see one only needs to be a Sadducee if he wishes to become rich and powerful, something John had no interest in. As a Levite, John was my relative and no Pharisee. It is perhaps for those two reasons I was drawn to him. At least it made worthwhile a trip into the desert to hear him.
Reluctantly, I must admit that our movement as a sect within Judaism has only been in existence about as long as the Pharisees. Our origins go back to the time of the Maccabees, the priestly family that purged Greek influence from our land and religion. At first, we priests cooperated with the scribes and students of the law who sought to restore the true worship of God. But more and more they sought to impose portions of the scriptures and traditions that we felt were less valuable. We held that the Torah alone, the first five books of Moses, were to be obeyed. Other books were good reading, but didn't have the same weight.
But it is from just such books, the prophets and the writings, that the Pharisees developed their doctrine, along with the commentaries compiled by the rabbis. It is in these books that the Pharisees find their distinctive beliefs about a spiritual world of angels, of predestination, of the bondage of the human will, of divine judgment at the end of the ages, of resurrection to eternal life or damnation.
Sadducees have considered all this to be myth and speculation and contrary to the Torah. Angels are simply appearances of God. Human will is utterly free to determine its own destiny. Surely God is far too busy to plan every detail of our lives. Sadducees think that talk of an afterlife is foolishness. After all, who has ever returned from the dead proving anything else? Death means annihilation of body and soul. To be "gathered unto the fathers" is merely to join them in the grave, not in some paradise called "heaven."
I must say, that is how I once believed, but no longer. You must understand that coming to John for baptism and living a penitent life did not mean I suddenly knew and understood all the implications. When John baptized Jesus and announced him to be, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," I really had no idea what he meant. Perhaps he was declaring Jesus to be the rightful high priest and a rival to Caiaphas. By all I could see and hear, Jesus was certainly a more worthy candidate for the office. Caiaphas never once was concerned with anyone but himself, with his position and power, but Jesus was different. While Caiaphas flattered Roman occupiers and sought favors, Jesus was out among the people, preaching good news.
This good news was that in himself, God's kingdom had come. Again and again, he demonstrated it was so. People sick with all sorts of diseases were healed by his word and loving touch, even lepers. No Pharisee or Sadducee would have touched them. The demon possessed and epileptics were freed. Jesus refused no one who came to him; tax collectors, prostitutes, Roman soldiers. If they needed healing, he healed. If they needed forgiveness, he forgave.
And his teaching made far more sense to me than that of the Pharisees. They believed it wrong to pay taxes to Rome. No true Israelite and Messiah would support giving money to the very Gentile dogs who oppressed God's people, they thought. Sadducees, on the other hand, though hating the tax as much as anyone, knew the Romans would get it out of us one way or another. If we didn't pay up, they'd loot Jerusalem and the temple and take our people away as slaves. So we paid and encouraged the people to pay as well. What else could we do?
Once the Pharisees and supporters of Herod came to Jesus and asked him, "What is your opinion, is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" They were hoping both to trap Jesus and embarrass us. If Jesus said, "Pay your taxes to Rome," the people would reject him as the political Messiah they thought him to be. If he said, "Don't pay your taxes," the Romans would arrest him and probably kill him as an enemy of the state. Either way, the Pharisees would be rid of him. But do you know how Jesus answered? He took a coin with the likeness of Caesar on it and said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." It was masterful! In such simple words he showed that there are really two kingdoms, one of this world and another of God. Jesus is king of God's world, a world that wants the hearts of men, not their coins. I couldn't help but laugh at this resounding defeat for the Pharisees.
Then it was our turn to be humiliated. As I've already said, we Sadducees rejected any concept of an afterlife. We also differed with the Pharisees in how we understood marriage law. According to Moses, if a man died without giving his wife a child, the man's brother had to marry her and hopefully give her a child on behalf of the dead man. In the Sadducee's view, this could only be done if the first marriage hadn't been consummated, in other words if it were only an engagement and not a real marriage. Otherwise, it would be incest. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed the law applied regardless of whether the marriage had been consummated.
Hoping to discredit both Jesus and the Pharisees, as well as make believers in resurrection look foolish, a Sadducee told a story and concluded it with a question. "Teacher," he said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be...?" They really thought they'd gotten Jesus with this one, as well as the Pharisees. But Jesus amazed us all, and convinced even me. "You are in error," he said, "because you do not know the scriptures."
Imagine telling the Pharisees they didn't know the scriptures! "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven," said Jesus. That comment was aimed at us who didn't believe in angels. Then Jesus went on, and this clinched it for me. "But about the resurrection of the dead -- have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
Do you get it? Do you understand? Jesus is quoting from the Torah, the only book we Sadducees really believe! Why did I never notice this before? If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all dead, and not just dead but annihilated, God would have said, "I was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." But that's not what he said. He said, "I am their God!" That means they are alive today thousands of years after their deaths, enjoying life in God's presence.
I'd heard John say Jesus was the Lamb of God and thought it had something to do with the priesthood, but I misunderstood. Jesus was no mere replacement for Caiaphas, the high priest. No, Caiaphas was in the same league as a tax paid to Caesar, a worldly token, like a coin, compared to the high priesthood of Jesus. Caiaphas, as high priest, was content merely to see that a supply of lambs was furnished to the temple for the sacrifices. As such he was little more than a butcher. But Jesus is a high priest who gives himself as the lamb. That's what John meant when he called Jesus "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."
It all came together for me on the day Jesus was crucified. As he hung there suffering unimaginable agony, he prayed for Pharisee, Sadducee, Roman, for all of us. He prayed, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." Then he spoke once more of eternal life, saying to the believing thief crucified beside him, "Today you will be with me in paradise." Soon after that he prayed his last prayer, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit," and then he died.
Next, the unimaginable happened, an earthquake! There was hardly any damage, except to the curtain in the temple, the curtain concealing the Most Holy Place. It was ripped right down the middle! Anyone could look right in there and see the place of God's presence. What could it mean? It meant my service as a priest wasn't needed anymore, that's what it meant! No longer would any other priest or I be required to offer daily sacrifice. The only blood that mattered had now been shed, the blood of Jesus. Through the blood of Jesus, the true Lamb of God, every believer is welcome in God's presence.
Life has changed so much for me since John's baptism and the day I followed Jesus. After his resurrection, I began to sense his Spirit in my life. Privilege and money don't mean to me what they once did. I've discovered nothing's more fun than giving away what I don't need to someone else who does need it. Once death was truly my enemy; it depressed me. It doesn't anymore. Sometimes I'm afraid as I think of it, but not as I once was, not since I learned that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the thief, all of them, are all very much alive and waiting to welcome me into heaven's joy. And Jesus is there with them, arms wide, ready to embrace me, but not just me, you also.
Prayer
Living Savior, you came to give your life that we might have life. Help us find joy in the forgiveness of our sins and the certain hope of eternity with you in paradise. In Jesus'aname we pray. Amen.
