It is remarkable how trivial issues can soon become so important, leaving us lost in a fog of irrelevancy and missing what is really important.
The Sadducees reveal exactly how lost in the fog they are. Here are educated men who only desire is to try and discredit Jesus. And how do this supposedly educated group of religious leaders try to discredit Jesus – with a long, confiluted and highly unlikely senario.
These men had spent time coming up with THIS – a women who gets married and whose husband dies, and she marries his brother who also dies, and so on.
In Matthew’s telling of this encounter, Jesus says to the Sadducees after they had finished outlining their senario You are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.
These are powerful words – Jesus is telling those who have spent a lifetime reading, studying, debating and digesting the scriptures that they are utterly wrong and they actually do not know the scriptures at all.
They had lost sight of what was important.
Theology can do that if we are not careful. We focus on one area, or on one thing and it becomes all encompassing. This can also happen in our lives – our circumstances can so easily crowd out what is important.
This was the danger with Job. Here he is in the midst of complete calamity – he has lost his family – he has lost his business – his income and he is certain his life will soon be lost. His body is rotting – and his friends are accusing him of having offended God. How easy would it have been for Job to have lost his perspective and his focus and who would have blamed him.
And yet what does he say – in the middle of his suffering he proclaims a great declaration of faith – For I know that my redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How wonderful is this – what a prayer! What a faith.
That is all the perspective we need – that our redeemer lives and we will see him. God is God. His promises endure forever. His forgiveness and grace have been poured out upon all who know him and trust in him.
So, as we pray and worship let us ask God to help us keep perspective – let us not get lost in irrelevancy – let us hold onto what is really important and not let the unimportant overwhelm us.
Luke Fourteen Thirty Three 