God of the Living

Text: Luke 20:27-38

Focus: Resurrection

Function: To help us hope.

Form: Bible Study

Intro: I want to introduce the passage by examining a relevant passage to this one from the book of Hebrews. I love Hebrews chapter 12 when the author talks about the difference in hope between the new and the old covenants of God. It is the difference between the Old and New Testament.

I wonder at times if the change in the covenant is a change in the establishment of mercy instead of judgment as God’s primary way of relating to humanity.

In Hebrews 12, the author tells about how in the Old Testament when the people drew near to God, they drew near to the smoking mountain that isn’t to much different than the image we get in the movie The Ten Commandments.

It was an awesome sight. But the movie did not capture the terror the people felt when they heard God. I don’t know if you are aware of it, but the first time God spoke the 10 commandments, according to the text, God spoke them aloud from the mountain and the entire population heard it. They were so terrified that they asked Moses to be the priest and face God instead of them. And Moses went up the mountain where God carved the words onto the tablets of stone.

So, in Hebrews 12, when the author is trying to let people know that now that we are made clean through the blood that Jesus shed for us, he tells us that we no longer need to be afraid to come into God’s presence.

Let me read the words. Hebrews 12: ¹⁸You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, ¹⁹and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.

That is the fear of God that they experienced in the Old Covenant with God. But in the new covenant, the access to God is worded this way:

²²But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Now don’t get me wrong, God has always been merciful and everyone who has ever had a relationship with God, it appears from scripture, has gotten there because of God’s love, not their own goodness.

And this isn’t God 2.0, the second version. This is just God relating to humanity with hope instead of terror. Maybe it was because the terror thing just didn’t work very well. I don’t know, I do not have the mind of God.

However, there is something in those last few verses that goes with this text. Jesus corrects one group of Jewish leaders in this passage in a fairly outstanding way as Jesus explains from Christ’s perspective images of things like heaven, eternal life and the joy that God celebrates in heaven with God’s children who get restored to God’s family.

In the text, we get a glimpse into 1^st Century theological debates among the academics.

Among the leaders, the Pharisees believed in angels, the resurrection and heaven.

On the other hand, the Sadducees were less inclined to believe in the supernatural elements of the faith.

And we find Jesus in the middle of these people ministering to all of them. Now, there is no mention whatsoever as to whose faith is more legitimate or better. Jesus does correct the Sadducees in this text, but correcting religious hypocrisy seems to be something that Jesus did often to both groups of religious leaders.

We preach about the unconditional love and mercy that Jesus demonstrated to the poor, those outside the community, the stranger, the foreigner and those that the religious people considered to be undesirable because their sins were deemed worse than others. This inclusion is God work and it was indeed good news to those who were kept in fear of the judgment of God

Jesus hated the hypocrisy and strongly condemned those kinds of actions. However, the reason was not to exclude the Sadducees, Pharisees and other religious hypocrites, but to change the nature of the faith itself into a faith that widens the circle of God’s love. And both groups, those who believed in the supernatural and those who were skeptical were included.

Another thing you may not realize is that hell is never mentioned in the Old Testament. It is important to understand that at the time of Jesus’ ministry, the Roman boot of oppression was starting to get a little bit long and it would not be long until the entire nation would revolt against Rome.

The people were in pretty bad shape and one of the things that sprung up around this particular time of hardship brought on by the Roman occupation was apocalyptic literature.

That is literature that tells of great tragedy, destruction, war, famine and a period of punishment by God. In that literature, the concept of hell was invented.

At the time of Christ, that kind of literature inspired several other people who also claimed to be the Messiah to rise up and try to start a revolution. Also, It appears that Daniel’s prophecy of seventy weeks might have predicted the approximate time that the Messiah would be born. Many of the Jewish people were actively looking for the Messiah to deliver them.

It was a desperate time and although there were several other men who claimed to be the Messiah, men who led large groups of people with the promise that they would save the Jewish people all faded away into obscurity. Well, except Jesus who actually did what these others wanted to do.

And with these men were these accompanying stories of coming destruction and retribution toward Israel’s enemies. I suppose the appeal of hell was the comfort people might find that God cares enough to punish those who have hurt them.

So, when Jesus started telling them to walk a second mile with their oppressors bags, or to love their enemies, bless them and never return violence with violence, evil with evil, insult with insult, or curse with curse, the crowd was not to happy about that kind of justice. It just didn’t seem fair to them.

Jesus confronted the human paradigm of violent retribution. He disarmed its power and gave the faithful a different way of coping with their enemies. He gave them the Jesus way of living simply, peaceably and together.

And for some, a peaceful path will not suffice.

I wonder if at times in Christianity, we have been to comfortable with the idea of God the judge who cannot wait to give retribution toward evil. Personally, I gauge my own level of forgiveness toward others by imagining them with me together in heaven finally settling our differences. I hope my enemies make it to heaven, because if there isn’t room for them, how can I imagine there is room for me?

Even though hell is not mentioned in the Old Testament, Jesus spoke often of it. Many scholars believe that as the level of pain that was being endured by the Jewish people during the occupation kept increasing, He knew that they were hearing the other false Messiahs and prophets who were trying to excite the crowds with violent images of the enemies destruction. In Jesus’ ministry of teaching people to love others, Jesus had to defend the concept of mercy.

Destruction and retribution toward one’s enemies is not consistent with Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness. And although He speaks of consistently wicked people being punished for their evil deeds, we sense that Jesus was relating to the pain the people were sensing, validating God’s love for them and then trying to help them see that violence and retribution are not the answer.

The New Covenant, the New Testament is a covenant of mercy.

So what does that about heaven, hell and what was happening in popular Jewish theology at the time of Christ have to do with today’s text?

Well, as we have already established this morning, the Jewish theological societies were divided about the resurrection.

And in this passage, we get a glimpse into Paul’s faith and insight into it. Now I remember that Paul recalls the incident of a vision where he sees heaven and it is just so wonderful that he is not able to describe it.

When I read those verses “the Spirits of just people made complete” I rejoice inside.

I love this description of heaven because it is such a contrast to the image of destruction.

I find it more like a celebration, a living city, a place of life. And I love the fact that the image works for both here on earth and there in heaven.

When I read how we have come to the spirits of the just made complete, I get the idea that this is what God has created us for.

God has destined us to be whole. To be complete.

Yes, it is and was an huge difference in what the Jewish people hoped for. They wanted a God who would get even with their enemies on their behalf.

And Jesus gives them whole new way of looking at them.

Look for the living, not the dead. Look for life and not destruction.