Distracted Focus: Mark 12:18-27
There is nothing in life worth losing the joy that comes from knowing we have eternal life with God. Don’t get me wrong. There are many cool things God created in this world. I love my wife. I love my job. I love mentoring people and talking about spirituality. I love the beauty and artistry of woodworking. But all those things are enhanced by the joy that comes from knowing God wants to be in relationship with me forever.
The Sadducees step up to test Jesus. A couple of details are necessary to understanding the depth of their trap. The Sadducees only believed the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible, we used for discerning God’s truth. If it couldn’t be proven by analyzing Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy they didn’t think it was a part of God’s truth. This meant they didn’t believe in many things, the resurrection of the dead being one of them. To the Sadducees, the resurrection of the dead was not scriptural.
The Sadducees’ question relates to the teaching of Deuteronomy 25:5-10. In reply, Jesus once more starts with a rebuttal question. This question serves a different purpose than the prior two. Here, Jesus uses the question to shift the focus of the Sadducees query. The Sadducees seemed to want to talk about divorce, but Jesus wants to talk about a topic with greater impact on life than marriage. As significant as marriage is, Jesus wants to talk about our relationship with God and eternal life instead.
Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6, which is where Moses meets the burning bush. Jesus plays the doctrinal game of the Sadducees. They only respected the teachings of the first five books of the Bible; Jesus meets their need and uses scripture from Exodus.
Jesus wants to help the Sadducees understand a flaw in their belief system. They are so concerned about the legalism for this life they have completely missed an important teaching about eternal life. Marriage is important; Jesus does not deny the importance of marriage. The rules about how a family should come around a widow who has not produced an heir, though, pales in significance to the joy derived from knowing we get an opportunity to spend eternal life with our creator.
Jesus shows the Sadducees they’ve allowed themselves to become focused on the wrong things. Their scrutiny of the minutia of life allowed them to become blind to a far greater dynamic of life. Their legalism stole them away from the life of joy God intended.
God wants us to follow His ways. He wants our obedience. It is important to know God’s ways. Yet, our study of God’s ways should not become so focused on the nitty-gritty details that we miss the big picture. There is nothing in life worth losing the joy that comes from knowing we have eternal life with God.
