November 7 2010    Reading:  Luke 20.27-40

Theme: The resurrection of the Lord

Last year, May 2009, at the court of justice in Yangon in Burma, there was a moment of intense drama. Aung San Suu Kyi was in court again. Suu Kyi is the leader of a great democracy movement in Burma which started in the 1980s. Within a year it was stopped dead in its tracks by the Burmese army. A general election was declared in 1990 but when Suu Kyi’s democracy party won it outright, the army refused to accept it. For her peaceful efforts to improve conditions in Burma for the poorest, Suu Kyi has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest, detention without trial, mostly at her dilapidated home in Yangon.

Aung San Suu Kyi was in court again.

Last year, one night in early May, there was a knock at her door. When a friend opened it, there was a complete stranger standing there, who said he was ill, and tired, and could he stay for a while......... Suu Kyi said that she let him stay, because she did not want him to get into trouble for visiting her, or get the guards round her house into trouble. After two days the stranger felt better, and left. It was then the security forces caught and arrested him. The authorities in Burma will look for any pretence to continue her detention, and so Suu Kyi was charged with welcoming an anauthorised visitor. She appeared in court, according to the papers, with spectators packing the galleries, and answered the judges' questions concisely and with care.

But because great issues are at stake here - issues of justice, and freedom,

it was a moment of intense drama.

There in the Temple court, as we read in Luke’s gospel, there are great, great issues at stake, these are moments of intense drama.

In the Temple courts in Jerusalem a series of dramatic discussions takes place.

The Lord Jesus and His disciples are in the Temple courts. This bustling, crowded, place, has a courtyard set aside for spectators to sit it is a place used by the religious authorities for debate, discussion, speeches, in the shade of the great Temple buildings. Here at the heart of Israel, in Jerusalem, the crowd sits listening in rapt attention to the words of Jesus. But there are great issues at stake here. The authorities, we read in the gospel, seek to arrest Jesus and put Him to death on any pretence they can find, and so a series of leading questions are put to Him, about His authority, about the payment of taxes to the Romans. This is a trial. The trial and testing of the Lord Jesus, that began three long years before in the desert continues, and will continue in Pilate’s presence and Herod’s palace to the very Cross itself.

It is now the turn of the Sadducees to question Jesus: with a rather strange question, as to whether or not there is a heaven. The Sadducees did not believe there was such a thing. The question the Sadducees put to Jesus is this: a woman married seven times, so whose wife will she be in heaven ? It is hardly seems a serious question, and was quite likely a real old chestnut. But there are deep issues in this question to do with the Law, and with the power of God. There is also ridicule, and contempt in this their question, and perhaps the Sadducees were expecting anger, or confusion, or silence from Jesus in the face of such a question. All part of the authorities’ attempt to discredit Jesus, an attempt to diminish His authority.

Here stands the Lord Jesus, in the Temple courts, then, on trial,

But, there were those there who must have recognised who He was:

We see, as we look at Jesus standing there in the Temple courts, on trial,

that this is Who He is..............

He is the Servant who says, in the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 50:

The Sovereign Lord has taught me what to say, so that I

can strengthen the weary. The Lord has given me understanding, and I have not

rebelled or turned away from him.........their insults cannot hurt me because the Sovereign Lord gives me help. I brace myself to endure them. I know

that I will not be disgraced, for God is near, and he will prove me innocent. Does

anyone dare to bring charges against me? Let us go to court

together! Let him bring his accusation!

The Sovereign Lord himself defends me - who, then, can

prove me guilty?

We see, as we look at Jesus standing there in the Temple courts, on trial,

that this is Who He is..............

He is the Servant who says, in the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 50

The Sovereign Lord has taught me what to say, so that I

can strengthen the weary. The Lord has given me understanding,

The Sovereign Lord himself defends me

and we hear it in His reply.........

“in that age ........in the resurrection from the dead ......... they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. Those who are there are God's children, they are children of the resurrection. For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, ........... and to him all are alive."

the contrast between the thinking of the Sadducees and the reality of which Jesus speaks could not be greater,

the distance between the way the Sadducees think, in such utterly worldly ways, so earthbound in their thinking.......

and the reality of the resurrection of which Jesus speaks could not be greater,

For you see, in a few short words, the Lord Jesus, the Lord of truth and life, lifts the whole discussion up, lifts our gaze away from this earth; away from this age.

To the reality of the resurrection.

Now, there’s so much that could be said about the resurrection,

But, it is perhaps better to stay focussed

by speaking of just two things:

First, the reality of the resurrection as we see it in Jesus,

and second what that resurrection reality means for the world and ourselves

First, the reality of the resurrection as we see it in Jesus

Because that’s exactly what it is. A reality. Where do we see the reality of the resurrection ?

Well it has already appeared on earth, resurrection it is already here right in the history of this earth, in the resurrection of Jesus.

It is recorded, recorded in the Scriptures, in the pages of the New Testament,

The record is this: that for forty days after His resurrection, the Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples, He was recognisable, the wounds, the marks on His hands could be seen

He met with the disciples and spoke to them. In the days following He was seen by more than five hundred men and women.

Having once lived this frail, fragile, life of ours,

the witness of the New Testament is that Jesus has been raised from the dead,

transformed, transfigured, changed

and the disciples are witnesses of all this

This is not a ghost, or a spirit, but Jesus, as a human being, changed.

speaking with His friends the disciples, but transformed in human life and as a human being by the power of God. So looking at Jesus,

we can see something of the reality of the resurrection even though it is something that is beyond our thinking and our speaking. The resurrection that Jesus spoke of to the teachers of the Law took place when Jesus Himself was raised from death. And more than this, the New Testament says that by looking at Jesus risen from the dead

we see what we will be like,

when we are raised to life in God’s power..........

we will be recognisable, we will know each other......

but this frail, fragile, passing life of ours,

will be transformed, transfigured, changed, to a life that never ends.

When Jesus was raised from the dead and came to speak to His disciples,

this was so that looking at Jesus we see, catch a glimpse of what resurrection is like,

looking at Jesus we see what we will be like.

And that brings us to the second point............

what the resurrection reality of Jesus means for the world and ourselves

This is what the Word of God says, we read it in 1 Corinthians earlier on............

What does the resurrection of Jesus mean for the world and ourselves ? His resurrection obviously means a new beginning for the human race, a life no longer under the power of sin, no longer under the shadow of death. Or as Paul puts it, Jesus is the Second Adam. What does this mean ? Well, there was the old Adam, the one we are all descended from, we all took our cue from him so all of us, like him, are sinful, frail, liable to turn our backs on God. Jesus, declares the New Testament is the new Adam.

The new centre of human life, given to us by God.

Long ago, in the early seventeen hundreds, with so many people living in the wynds and closes, the courts, the high lands the water supply in the old town of Edinburgh was at breaking point. The wells, instead of containing fresh water, were simply filling with the water that was coming off the streets, polluted, instead of fresh water, they were sources of disease and sickness. The city council was faced with a crisis. At that point engineers discovered a full flowing, clear, spring of pure water away up beyond Dreghorn, in the Pentland hills, high enough up to provide a fresh water flow, for the city, enough water for wellheads all the way down the Lawnmarket, the High Street and the Canongate. Instead of the old polluted wells, sources of sickness and disease, a new source of fresh, clean, pure water.

Instead of the old polluted source of human life, God has given us

a new source of fresh, pure life in Jesus Christ.

For us to draw on, and live.

Jesus Christ has taken our old sinful human life - the old life of Adam,
to the Cross, says the New Testament, and put it to an end.
And Jesus offers Himself to us, to be the source of life for us,
He is the new Adam, from Him, and only from Him flows the clear, sparkling, refreshing living waters of life........holy, restored, re-created human life

See how great, the claim of the gospel is ? Perhaps much more far-reaching than we ever imagined. In the resurrection of Jesus is a transition which affects every age and every human being, you and me. Because Jesus offers us new life.

Jesus offers Himself to us, to be the source of life for us,
as the new Adam, from Him, and only from Him flows the clear, sparkling, refreshing living waters of life........holy, restored, re-created human life

AMEN