Death & Taxes (Afternoon)
Download MP3Alright. Good afternoon. Oh, no. This crowd. Good afternoon.
Dwight Castle:Good afternoon.
Dwight Castle:Thank you. Love it. Today, we are going to be diving back into the book of Mark after a 2 week break. We will be in Mark chapter 12. You can begin turning there now or you can look in your worship guide.
Dwight Castle:Now I want you to finish my sentence here. The only 2 certainties in life are Death and taxes. Death and taxes. You are in the right place. That's what we get to talk about today.
Dwight Castle:I see all those smiles dissipating. Don't worry. The good news as we talk about taxes, politics, death, is that Jesus also talks about a third certainty and that is the resurrection. So we are going to look at this passage now. If you will look at Mark 12 verses 13.
Dwight Castle:And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, teacher, we know that you are true and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them or should we not? But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, why put me to the test?
Dwight Castle:Bring me a denarius and let me look at it. And they brought one and he said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's. Jesus said to them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him.
Dwight Castle:And Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question saying, 'Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There were 7 brothers. The first took a wife, and when he he died, he left no offspring. The second took her and died, leaving no offspring. And the third, likewise.
Dwight Castle:And the 7 left no offspring. Last of all, the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the 7 had her as wife. Jesus said to them, is this not the reason you are wrong, Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
Dwight Castle:For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong. This is the word of the Lord.
Dwight Castle:Thanks be to God. Will you pray with me? Lord, our prayer tonight is simple. We come to you poor and needy, and we ask you to teach us. We ask that you will open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts to your spirit, so that we will hear the power of your word and be changed.
Dwight Castle:And Lord, I ask now that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart will be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. Now after I graduated from college, I moved overseas for a time. I moved to Northern Ireland to do mission work, actually through Joel Brooks and his ministry, UCF, that he ran before Redeemer started.
Dwight Castle:Now I don't know what exactly I expected of being a missionary, but I can tell you with great certainty, the reality was very different from what I expected. I think though I wouldn't have said it at the time and most of us probably wouldn't say this, we kind of hold missionaries up in this high regard, thinking it's kind of this glamorous work, but the reality was very different for me. Northern Ireland is in the UK, and if you don't know, it rains all of the time there. The days were short in the winter months. I was lonely, I was homesick, I was in a long distance relationship that took all kinds of strains on me, and though I did expect persecution, I didn't expect it to be from other Christians.
Dwight Castle:We actually endured a church split while we were there. There were all kinds of challenging things and don't get me wrong, it was also really good and important work. The Lord did amazing things while I was there, despite us often. It was much different than I thought however. My expectation of what my experience would be was different from the reality.
Dwight Castle:It was more complex. It challenged my understanding of what I thought missions was about. Now that is what is happening here in Mark in this text. People are being faced with a different reality of who Jesus is than what their expectations were. He's more complex, less predictable, he can't really be put neatly into these boxes.
Dwight Castle:He doesn't fit into any social party or political party. It doesn't matter if you are one of his disciples or one of his enemies, you are continually confused by what Jesus is doing. And in today's passage, we are going to see that Jesus in particular doesn't seem to think that the things that we do are the most important. The things that we think have the most value, that last the longest. Jesus is gonna shatter those expectations as well.
Dwight Castle:He's like a surgeon, he's going to dissect our hearts, and he's going to cut out the idols in which we so often put our hope and our identity. He's gonna redirect us back to the eternal God. Now, it has been a few weeks since we've been in Mark, so I wanna remind you of what's going on in this time. Jesus is actually in the week of his death. He has entered the city where he will die and he is setting his face to the cross and the people don't really know it, though they're anticipating a messiah, they're looking at him and they don't even recognize him because he looks differently than what they thought he would be.
Dwight Castle:He's entered the city as a king would, but in a different way, not riding on a noble steed, but on a humble donkey. Now in the passage prior to this one, he has another run-in with the religious leaders. There's a scene, they're not only questioning his authority, who are you, who do you think that you are? But they're also, Mark makes it clear, trying to destroy him. Now, they realize because of his popularity with the crowds, they can't just outright arrest him, so they're trying to find a more subversive way and today in this passage, they come to Jesus with 2 different questions.
Dwight Castle:2 different traps, I like to think of them almost as 2 riddles, really. The first is a political one with social implications. The second one is a theological question, but they're both lose lose scenarios for Jesus. On the surface, it looks like there is no way for him to win. No matter what he says, he's going to make someone angry, But I mean, that's kind of the point of a riddle, right?
Dwight Castle:It's kinda to trick someone. You're not actually usually asking a legitimate question with a legitimate answer, and I know this because riddles are a popular thing in my house right now, and I told my kids that I would tell you their best riddle they've given me recently. Okay? So are you ready for this? You're locked in a room with a piano and no windows.
Dwight Castle:How do you get out? Anyone? Use the keys! Right? There it is.
Dwight Castle:Perfect. That's what my world is now. How about this one? I remember this from growing up in my Christian home. This is a classic Christian riddle, could Jesus, could God create a rock so heavy that even he can't lift it?
Dwight Castle:This is a lose lose. If you say he isn't powerful enough to create a rock, he's limited as a creator. If he can, but he can't lift it, he's limited in his strength, right? It's a lose lose and that's the kind of nonsense that the religious leaders are bringing before Jesus today. So, we're gonna look at each one of these 1 at a time and then we're gonna try to figure out why did Mark put these 2 together.
Dwight Castle:So riddle 1, Jesus is approached by Pharisees and Herodians. Now already out the gate, this smells funny, right? Because these two groups are not allies, they're opposing groups. The Pharisees were Jewish religious leaders who were dogmatic about tradition and law, about their religion. Herodians were a political group of people who supported Herod and thus by association, Rome.
Dwight Castle:Now, not only were they not allies, but they were actually opposed most adamantly on this particular topic that they bring before Jesus today. The Pharisees represented the Jewish disdain for the Roman oppressors. Rome lorded over them the fact that they were in charge and the Jews hated it, so the Pharisees, along with all the rest of the Jews, hated taxes, but the Herodians towed that party line, they were in favor of the tax. So why are they together here? They both hate Jesus.
Dwight Castle:The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? They band together and they are trying to trap Jesus, they're gonna scheme on how to bring him down because if Jesus says that they shouldn't have to pay the taxes in defense of the Jewish people, all of the assumptions about Jesus' political intentions will be confirmed. He will be labeled an insurrectionist, he's there to overthrow the Roman oppressors. If Jesus says, yes, you need to pay the taxes, then he is a supporter of Rome and he loses all of his Jewish support. Now to add to this kind of political religious tension, there's actually a historic precedent here that is important for the audience.
Dwight Castle:They know that there has been a past record of messiahs who claim to be the savior of the Jews. They enter the city in a triumphal entry. They go into the temple and clear it, and then the next thing they do is gather their followers and say you don't have to pay taxes to the Romans anymore. This is what some Jews, the zealous Jews, were hoping Jesus would do, only he instead of being killed like all the others would actually succeed. Maybe he was their political savior.
Dwight Castle:The Romans also wanted Jesus to take this route because then they could just crush him, right? So this is the setting of the first riddle. It is a public high stakes lose lose for Jesus. I mean, Mark uses language here of them trying to trap him, the same language you would use of a hunter trapping prey. Jesus' life is in danger here.
Dwight Castle:How he answers is important. Now they attempt to cloak their intentions with flattery, they are buttering Jesus up. Look at what they say here in verse 14. Oh teacher, we know that you are true. You don't care about anyone's opinion.
Dwight Castle:For you're not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. They use this phrase, Jesus isn't swayed by appearances. Now the literal translation of this phrase is, Jesus, you don't look at people's faces. So unintentionally, they're actually identifying that Jesus looks beneath the surface. He looks at the heart.
Dwight Castle:Because this is true, Jesus does not fall prey to their trap. In fact, he tells them he's not even gonna play their game. So how does Jesus respond? It's brilliant, really. It's a Jesus juke, right.
Dwight Castle:He evades, he kind of gives this non answer answer that kind of satisfies and doesn't satisfy everyone at the same time. One commentator says that Jesus' response is deliberately ambiguous and provocative, right. Now in the counseling world, there's a difference between a presenting problem, which is the thing that you come to someone with, and then the underlying problem, which you typically have to dig beneath heart. This isn't ultimately about taxes, it's about idols of power, control, fear and submission, and Jesus is not gonna stay on the surface. He confronts the things that we all put our hope in.
Dwight Castle:Now Jesus wisely doesn't just give this yes or no as they want him to. He says this, he says, bring me a denarius, k? Now you don't know it yet, but Jesus is flexin' here, right? He is about to throw some punches, and he does this because this particular coin is very important, right. This coin, a denarius, is one that is issued by the Romans, it's their currency and it's the one that was required to pay this tax, and the whole purpose of this tax was to make sure the Jews knew that they were under the Romans' thumbs.
Dwight Castle:That's it. And so they had to use this particular Roman coin to pay this tax that acknowledged Rome was their overlord, and on this coin, there was a picture. Jesus says, whose picture is it? They say Caesar. What the coin said in particular was Tiberias, son of divine Augustus.
Dwight Castle:On the other side it said, high priest. So I want you to picture this, okay? You've got Jesus then holding this coin that says the son of the divine God, the high priest. Jesus, the great high priest, the true actual son of God, is holding this blasphemous coin. Now most Jews didn't even want to have this coin and that's how Jesus is flexing on him.
Dwight Castle:He says, hey, anybody have one of those blasphemous coins around here? I don't. And everybody's like, Yeah, I got one here. Right? And so, here Jesus, you know, I don't know.
Dwight Castle:Here. He's like, Yeah, so whose picture is on that? He's kinda treating them like children, this would be something I would say to my children, right? Okay, we're fighting over a toy, whose toy is it, whose name is on it, right? Oh it's Caesar's.
Dwight Castle:Give back to Caesar, what's his? Now there's an intentional shift in the language here. The Jews asked Jesus, do we have to give this? Kind of assuming it's theirs and it was optional for them to give it to Caesar, and Jesus changes the wording, he says, give back to Caesar what is his. Jesus has not only uncovered their hypocrisy, but he is pointing out to them subtly, hey, don't you live in this society?
Dwight Castle:Do you enjoy the roads? Do you enjoy the water system? Do you enjoy the structure of economy? Do you benefit from these things? Do you even carry around the currency of these people that you hate?
Dwight Castle:If you benefit from these societal blessings, you should also contribute. So give back to Caesar what is Caesar's. Now Jesus doesn't go into all the details here about what it means to have a posture towards government and authority, but Paul does in 1st in Romans 13 and Peter does in 1st Peter 2, and they tell us that all authority is established by God and should be honored. Paul specifically says that when we submit to the governing authorities, we are actually submitting ourselves to God. He specifically says even paying taxes.
Dwight Castle:He doesn't give any caveats, he doesn't say this depends on how much you agree with the leaders, it doesn't matter how godly their character is, it doesn't matter if their policies or party aligns with you or if you like them or not. He simply says that we are called to submit to the established structure, because in so doing, we are submitting ourselves to God. Let's put some skin and bone on this. If Donald Trump wins this election, and you voted for Kamala Harris, you are commanded by God to pray for Donald Trump. On the flip side, if Kamala Harris wins, and you are completely wrecked by this, you are obligated before God to pray for her and honor her as your leader.
Dwight Castle:Now that's a hard word for some of us in here, isn't it? But before anyone in Jesus' crowd or this crowd gets too angry, Jesus has more to say. His punchline is coming. Not only should they give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but they should give to God what is God's. Now when Jesus asks whose image is on this coin, he's also making a clear reference to the creation story.
Dwight Castle:He is saying, God has created man in his own image, even Caesar himself is an image bearer of God. God is ultimately the creator and the owner of everything. Now, this is something that would have had to sit with those people because he's holding up 2 different things here. This reminds me of a story a few weeks ago. My family went to North Carolina where I'm from and we had a massive castle family reunion.
Dwight Castle:I want you to picture what 75 castles running around can look like, pure chaos. We did all the things families do over a family reunion and we were looking at family pictures at one point, and my sister, she got her kids to point to an old family picture from when I was growing up and try to identify who everyone is because everyone looked so different, right? Now this was very unfortunate for me because this picture happened to be from my awkward adolescent years. If we were the type of church that put pictures up on the screen, I would put it up right now. But let me describe to you what 11, 12 year old Dwight looks like.
Dwight Castle:Right? Big curly hair, kind of like a fro, massive circular glasses, a beaded necklace with a big old cross, an oversized stretched out collar sweater that showed like 3 inches of my undershirt underneath. It was awesome. Right? So my sister's pointing to, Who's that?
Dwight Castle:Who's that? And they get to me, and they have no idea who I am, apparently. My niece and nephew are like, Is that aunt Greta? The 101 year old deceased great aunt of mine? This is true, I was like, Yeah, this is real funny guys, everybody's loving that.
Dwight Castle:But my kids loved it, right? Everyone laughed and they loved looking at pictures, they loved looking at pictures especially of me and Stephanie from when we were babies. And that's because they couldn't tell half the time whether they were looking at themselves or us. That's because kids are made in the image of their parents, oftentimes strikingly so. We resemble each other.
Dwight Castle:Now when we look at other humans, we are to see that we are all made in the image of God. Even Caesar himself is an image bearer of the creator God. And Jesus uses this as a reminder that not only is that coin ultimately God's, but Caesar himself is. Jesus is clearly saying that everything in our lives is ultimately God's. So yes, submit to Caesar, but even more so, submit to God.
Dwight Castle:Suddenly, Jesus has changed this equation. He's taken this riddle from an either or trap to a both end answer. So, is the coin Caesar's or God's? Yes. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Dwight Castle:The state does have some authority, but it's limited because it's ultimately under the authority of God. Now once again, people's expectations are shattered by Jesus. Mark ends this section by saying that people are amazed. That's Jesus' form of a mic drop, right? So then we get to our second riddle.
Dwight Castle:Let's look at it. The Pharisees and the Herodians, they fail to trap Jesus with this political one, so the Sadducees try a theological riddle for him. Now who are the Sadducees? They are a religious group of aristocrats, they're influential people and what's important for us here is that they had a very rigid view of scripture. They only believed in the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch.
Dwight Castle:Now because there was no explicit reference in this to the resurrection, they didn't believe in it. They didn't believe in anything supernatural, angels or demons, resurrection, and so the question that they come to Jesus with here comes from Deuteronomy chapter 25, and it's about a man who dies and not having produced any offspring. The law is that his brother is obligated to marry the woman and to have offspring with her. Now let me ask you, who here is signing up for that, right? Anyone wanna reinstate that law?
Dwight Castle:It's a little weird for us, but when God gave that, he was doing it to care for and protect the widow and the family name. Now the Sadducees don't care anything about that. All they care about is trapping Jesus. I can just picture it, the mocking voice that they use. So Jesus in the resurrection, wink wink, whose wife will this be?
Dwight Castle:Because I mean, after all, she did have 7 husbands and I just love Jesus's response. He's not even gonna mess with them. He takes their eitheror question and he simply says, No, you're wrong. I mean what a great response. I was thinking to myself, What if I use this next time with my wife?
Dwight Castle:Dwight, did you somehow miss the overflowing trash can or did you just choose not to take it out? Nope, you're wrong Stephanie, that's just wrong, period. I don't think it's gonna go too well with me. But Jesus, he sees through their hypocrisy and he speaks to them with a stinging condemnation. Look at verse 24, here's what he says.
Dwight Castle:Is this not the reason that you are wrong? Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. So Jesus throws some punches here. He calls them out at being completely incompetent at their only job and in front of the people that they're supposed to lead. We see that Jesus isn't going to allow anyone to come into contact with him and leave the same.
Dwight Castle:He's not gonna play the religious games, he's not gonna stroke their ego, he's not gonna let any of us off of the hook and ignore our sin and our idolatry in our heart. He's gonna call it out and purge it. Now, the gravity of this accusation should make us pause. They don't know the scriptures and they don't know the power of God. Could this ever be said of me?
Dwight Castle:Could this ever be said of you? I mean Jesus is after all talking to religious people, he's talking to people most like me, someone like a pastor. He's saying, yeah, you know a lot about God, but that's different from knowing God. We should hold this up as a mirror in front of us. Jesus is pointing at people like us sitting in the pews and saying, your heart is far from God.
Dwight Castle:They don't know the Word of God or the power of God, and those are connected. Because there is power in God's Word. When we know God's word, we have power for how to live. We have power to fight sin. We have power to discern truth from lie.
Dwight Castle:We have power to grow more like Christ. We have power to know him. Now I don't know about you, but this makes me want to know scripture more. It makes me wanna memorize it and study it. It makes me want to know it so well that when I'm cut, I bleed scripture.
Dwight Castle:Hear me, when the spirit of God illuminates the word of God in our lives, it will bring life changing power. So may we be people of the word? Now Jesus brings this weighty response to the Sadducees, and he gives two reasons to back up this accusation. He says first, you don't know anything about marriage or the resurrection because he says this statement, there is no marriage in heaven. Now, if this is the first time that you've thought about this, that might be a little bit surprising or unsettling for you, right?
Dwight Castle:Because marriage is awesome. I love marriage. I would love to stay married to my wife forever, right? So marriage isn't necessary anymore in heaven? Why?
Dwight Castle:He doesn't spell it out here. I had to kinda think about this one for a minute, but here's what I realized. Every good purpose of marriage that we have on earth is no longer gonna be necessary in heaven. Let's think about a few of them. The joy of companionship.
Dwight Castle:When we are in heaven, we will be with God and all of our Christian family, so we will have ultimate fulfillment with God and his people forever. Marriage is a sanctifying tool. We are made more and more into the image of Christ. When we are in heaven with Christ, we will be made full like him. Marriage is necessary for procreation, right?
Dwight Castle:We make more image bearers who can tell others about Christ. But in heaven, that won't be necessary. We won't need to make more image bearers to tell about Jesus because we will be with him. Marriage is a picture of the gospel for us here on earth, but when we know the gospel in full, in heaven, with Christ our groom, we won't need that picture anymore. What Jesus is doing here is that he is saying marriage, though important, is not as beautiful, not as wonderful as the resurrection.
Dwight Castle:Everything else fades in comparison. Marriage, as good as it can be here on earth, cannot be the resting place of our hope. If your ultimate hope is getting married or having the perfect marriage or the perfect spouse, it's a misaligned affection. It's a wrong priority. What we see here is Jesus is identifying the underlying problem.
Dwight Castle:Where is your hope? Where's your hope? I wanna ask us this today. If marriage isn't the thing that you might be tending to put your hope in, I wanna ask you, what is? What is the one thing that if just as Jesus said about marriage, if he said it about your one thing, that it's no longer gonna be necessary, would that devastate you?
Dwight Castle:What is that one thing that you might be putting your hope in? The reality is that thing is likely not gonna last either. If it's anything in this world, it will only disappoint and fade. We can lose jobs, power is fickle and ever changing, relationships ebb and flow, people get sick and die. Nothing on this earth will last.
Dwight Castle:If our hope is not securely rooted in what is to come after this life, then we are set up for a devastating fall. So where is our hope? Back in the text in verse 26, Jesus gives the second reason for this accusation that they don't really know God. It comes from Exodus chapter 3, which is conveniently in one of the first 5 books of the Bible so the Sadducees would be paying attention to this. He says, hey, remember that story where God talks to Moses from the burning bush.
Dwight Castle:He reveals himself to him. He says, I am the great I am. Now, Jesus gives this as a proof for the resurrection. He says, look, when God says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he is present tense saying, I am the God of the patriarchs. Now, the patriarchs had died long before.
Dwight Castle:So what does Jesus mean I am? We speak about people in the past tense. I was the God of them. But God is in active relationship with them still. He is still their God, that's because he is the great I am.
Dwight Castle:His covenant that he made with them is an eternal covenant. Though they have died, his covenant lasts past the grave, and one day, they will rise and be with him. He is currently the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Alright. So 2 riddles that are brought before Jesus.
Dwight Castle:What's the connection? Why does Mark put them back to back here? Both of these groups thought they knew who Jesus was. They thought they knew how he would respond, but their expectations were off. And they realized that no one is safe with Jesus, right?
Dwight Castle:Nothing is off limits with him. He's gonna poke and he's gonna prod through all the presenting problems down to our underlying idols in our heart. No matter what the topic is, politics, power, control, marriage, anything, Jesus is redirecting our heart so that we won't put our value and our identity and our hope in anything on this temporary earth. Now he doesn't say that these things don't have value. He doesn't say we shouldn't participate in them.
Dwight Castle:On the contrary, he says engage in these things, but do so in a way that recognizes it's all God's. He's not only reigning over it now, but he will for all of eternity. How can we apply this? Well, again, I wanna acknowledge that we are in the midst of an intense and fluid election season. It's certainly a sensitive and a critical topic that affects us all.
Dwight Castle:Over the next several months, decisions will be made, ramifications will play out in front of us, regardless of any way that it goes. And what we think and do as Christians matters. Jesus doesn't say disengage. We are to be active, informed, and responsible members of this place in which we are receiving so many benefits. But we should never mistake our ultimate identity to be in a political party or a certain leader.
Dwight Castle:I don't care who you're talking about, all of them will fail you. I've heard so much fact checking going on and so many promises, but every one of these leaders, they're just finite humans. They're going to break their word. They're not gonna be able to follow through on everything they've said regardless of their intentions. They can't fix every problem.
Dwight Castle:They can't eradicate every injustice, or cease all wars, or reconcile all budgets, or even stop sin and death. They can't do it. Jesus is saying don't put your hope in politics, in leaders, in control. Don't put your hope in marriage either. Maybe you have a great marriage, you never want it to end.
Dwight Castle:Maybe you have a terrible marriage and you do want it to end. Maybe you want to be married, that's a longing in your heart. Maybe you have no desire to be married, but maybe you're lonely and want more friends. None of these things are eternal, and none of them can bear that weight. Our hope cannot rest even in good relationships.
Dwight Castle:Our hope must be in the resurrection. Jesus is the only leader that we can look to. He's the only one who did come back from the grave. He's the only one who can raise us up to be with him forever. His marriage to his people is eternal.
Dwight Castle:His covenant is eternal. His rule is eternal. And this means that we don't have to fear what might come our way, we don't have to be afraid of sickness or death or loss or political, social upheavals and turmoil. We don't have to put our hope in these things. King Jesus is sitting on his throne and he's not going anywhere.
Dwight Castle:This should give us such confidence as God's people. We should be able to go engage in this world, to further God's kingdom, to represent him everywhere we go, and we can do it with courage and boldness and hope because our identity isn't in any of those things. Our identity is certain. We are citizens of God's kingdom and we are the bride of Christ. So, Lord, we pray this will be true of us.
Dwight Castle:Pray with me now. Lord, this word for us challenges us to put our hope ultimately in you, not in any person, in any entity, in anything. And we ask that you will do that work in our hearts and that we will have great joy and hope as we contemplate what eternity with you will be like. Lord, thank you that our hope doesn't have to be in any of the things that ebb and flow, that fade, that feel like it's out of control so often. Lord, our hope is certain.
Dwight Castle:It's in you. Thank you for reminding us of this. We pray that you will continue to remind us this week as we go about our days and our jobs and our relationships. Every time that we are tempted to put our hope in anything but you, we ask that by your spirit, you will remind us, that you will redirect our hearts towards you. Thank you, Lord, that you are faithful.
Dwight Castle:In your name, amen.
