In verse 30, we come to the climax of events Jesus predicted in this chapter. It is here, with “the sign of the Son of Man” appearing in the sky that the curtain comes down on human history. When this happens and everything we have ever known is vaporized, when heaven and earth “pass away,” Jesus and his words will be the one remaining, stable reality (v. 35).

When preaching on this passage, a good number of ministers manifest a triumphant attitude, as if the coming of Jesus is all about the vindication of our faith in him. We are given the impression that what matters most is on the day of the Lord, is that we will be proven right and everyone else proven wrong. We could accept this sort of interpretation (and attitude) if our love for Jesus did not tell us that he intended to communicate a deeper and more important message.

Do you remember how Matthew’s gospel opened with Jesus’ genealogy? What was Matthew telling us? That charting the advance of human history, we could discern how it was moving toward “Jesus the Messiah” (1:1). This is the same message we find here in chapter 24. History has a goal, the universe has a center, our lives have a purpose, and all of it comes back to Jesus Christ our Lord.

Dear Lord, is it not true that our greatest frustrations arise when we imagine ourselves to be at the center of the universe? We expend too much energy trying to control everything and everyone around us. May we learn in the depths of our souls what it means to say, Jesus Christ is Lord. Let us imagine the day when everyone on earth clearly sees that You are the eternal center of the universe so that we can have the freedom to give up trying to occupy that position and find our true place under Your care and in Your service.

Looking ahead, Jesus predicted a period of suffering and gave his disciples emergency response instructions for specific crises. He knew that many people would be deceived, which is not surprising, for in times of turmoil people prefer to embrace a present lie than a future promise.

Perhaps the most convincing education is personal experience. We tend to believe what we see with our own eyes. But Jesus warned that people would produce “signs and wonders” to trick others into following false Messiahs and false prophets. For those of us who long to witness a genuine miracle, this can be a bitter pill to swallow. But it is better to live without ever seeing a miracle than to live and die holding on to a false god that performs many wonders.

A miracle gives us a connection with God across the gap between heaven and earth, divine reality and human experience. But so does faith, and that is the bridge Jesus wants us to cross. If he repeats the command, “do not believe” (i.e., the false reports of his coming, vv. 23 & 26), it is because he wants us to believe in him and place our trust in him alone.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for watching out for us. Thank You for looking ahead and then preparing us for the future challenges we will have to face. Thank You for going before us, clearing a path for us to follow. If we go through our entire lives without ever receiving one miraculous answer to our prayers, we are content so long as we have You at our side, now and forever.

Jesus did not predict a happy or blissful future for his disciples. With the world on fire, they could expect to get burned. Jesus described coming events as one world crisis after another. Then, in a matter-of-fact way, he added, “[They] will kill you” (v. 9). Had I been there, I probably would have interrupted him and said, “Excuse me, Lord. What did You just say?”

Jesus never runs out of surprises. In particular, the verses quoted above run counter to what good Evangelical Christians would expect him to say. They would expect something from Jesus like, “Put your trust in Me and you have nothing to fear. Disaster may come to the world, God’s judgment will fall on the nations, and he will bring history to a close, but you will be protected.” In other words, we expect Jesus to say, “The one who is saved will endure to the end” rather than the other way around.

We will probably never understand why God has not make life easy for his children. Jesus did not seem overly concerned that his disciples would go through hard times, but he was very concerned that they remained anchored in him. It was not that Jesus wanted his followers to suffer, he just wanted them to love him more than life.

We confess, O Lord, that we have a small view of life. To us, life means this brief span of mortality. You, however, see a horizon that recedes into infinity. In Your eyes, we are more than the sum total of what we can achieve or acquire in our lifetime. Help us to be less attached to, and enamored with the temporal things of this world and more anchored in the eternal–more anchored in You.

We can hear sorrow in Jesus’ voice as he looks to the horizon of Jerusalem’s future and predicts disaster (v. 36). Even though he was persecuted and rejected by Israel’s religious leaders, the Lord did not relish the brutal fate that was going to catch up to them. He did not denounce Jerusalem with the fiery vengeance of an angry prophet, but grieved over them as a brokenhearted father who wanted all of his children to run to his home for shelter.

We are more resistant to God than we realize. If he comes to us in an unfamiliar form, if he says things we do not want to hear, if he challenges our cherished dogma, or wants to teach us something new, we dig in our heels and push against him. Only we do not realize we are pushing against God. We think we are driving away that annoying, crazy prophet. We may not kill and stone those who try to awaken us to God’s message for today, but we do reject, malign, and blackball them.

How sad for Jerusalem! They would effectively run Jesus out of the temple and then have all to themselves an empty shell. “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!” In winning this battle, they would lose everything.

Forgive us, Lord, for our smug criticism of the Pharisees and scribes because in their determination to preserve a religious tradition they lost sight of the God they claimed to serve. We have followed in their footsteps. We have drifted toward peripheral concerns rather than the “weightier provisions” of Your will. We have put more energy into defending what we believe than becoming the kind of people whose good works glorify You. We have learned so much and understood so little. Forgive us, and, for the sake of our Savior’s tears, draw us under Your wings.

The role of the media in our culture has resulted in a blurring of image and identity, of surface and substance. Public personalities who have created scandals do not try to live with greater integrity, they work on improving their image. How much can we learn about a product in fifteen seconds or analyze a political debate in one hour of television time? We know only the surface of things and that is all we want to know. It is also all we want to know about ourselves.

Jesus raised a bold and courageous protest against superficiality–notice the number of times he used the word hypocrites in this chapter! “Go to work on the inside,” he told his audience, “and the outside will take care of itself.”

Jesus had not given up on the Pharisees, but made an appeal to them to wake up to what they had missed, yet was so obvious. At least four times in this speech Jesus accused the Pharisees of being blind (vv. 16, 17, 19, 26). Their blindness was a typical trait of human nature: We cannot learn what we think we already know–our prejudice gets in the way. Unfortunately, what they had not seen would cost them everything (vv. 32-33).

O Lord, may You ever find us open to seeing new things and learning new ideas. May we be teachable. We are wrong about many things, but we cannot see how we are wrong. Patiently show us, enlighten us, and disciple us into Your truth. May we always remember that what God sees is different from what humans see, because we look only on the appearance whereas God looks into the heart. Lord, Jesus, make our hearts beautiful for Him.

Remarkably, Jesus told the crowds and disciples to do as the Pharisees taught when they took the teacher’s chair in the synagogue, yet the point of Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees was precisely their interpretation of the Law of Moses–for example, Sabbath-keeping, purification rituals, fasting, and so on. On a positive note, however, the scribes and Pharisees did demonstrate a great devotion to the Scriptures.

The first of Jesus’ criticism of the scribes and Pharisees was that they did not live up to what they taught and, furthermore, they placed heavy burdens on people they themselves were unwilling to help carry. Religion will always have its people who say the right words, but do not live the truth, people who play for a human audience and love positions and official titles, people who are more image than substance.

Is living for God a heavy burden? Is a righteous life a heavy burden? Is it not sin and guilt that are the heavy burdens? But there is a way that some people define Christian duties and obligations that make it a burden–a bundle of rules.

We give You thanks, Lord God, for what this teaching tells us about the Teacher. There are times when we are bent over with a great burden that we must carry–and we have enough of them without the added load that religious people would place on us. Jesus, who invites those who are “heavy laden” to come to Him, gets under our burdens with us and carries them as if they belonged to Him. Yoked with Him, Jesus is forever with us, our closest Companion, our Savior.

Until now, Jesus had been answering questions put to him in the temple, but in this passage he asked the Pharisees a question. Reading this episode, we sense that Jesus enjoyed presenting a riddle they could not solve. His question seems to take them by surprise, as though they had never considered the logical problem entailed in David referring to the Messiah as his son (Ps. 110:1).

The way Jesus stated the problem, it sounds as if either they were wrong or David was wrong. In their culture, where the ancestor was always considered to be greater than the descendant and honor moved only one direction generationally, it was impossible for the Messiah to be both David’s son and David’s Lord.

The book of Matthew opens with an introduction to “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David” (1:1). But once we get through Jesus’ genealogy “according to the flesh” (Ro. 1:3), we discover he was conceived of the Holy Spirit (Mt. 1:20). Therefore, he is also “the Son of God” (Ro. 1:4). Jesus’ riddle brings to the surface a secret regarding the Messiah. Jesus led them into this quagmire because there was only one road  out–a new understanding of the Messiah.

We cannot answer all of Your questions, Lord Jesus, but still we enjoy the opportunity to learn more about You. For the same reason we are not afraid to ask You questions. We consider it unfortunate that the Pharisees used questions like weapons rather than \a means of receiving the best theological education in the history of humankind. Lord, we respect You, admire You, revere You, and love You.

The interrogation of Jesus in this chapter was not a quest for truth, but an ongoing attempt to “trap Him in what He said” (v. 15). His enemies kept dangling a baited hook in front of him, asking him trick questions, and hoping he would slip up and say something that would get him into trouble with the authorities or make him unpopular with the people.

There was a bright side to this bantering, however, in that it gave Jesus the opportunity to clarify and expand on important spiritual issues. Of all the issues Jesus addressed, none was more important than the “great and foremost commandment.” According to Jesus, every requirement of God in the entire Scriptures–Law and Prophets–was summed up in the two commandments to love God and to love one’s neighbor. After this dialogue, there could be no more question regarding the greatest commandment, because all the others were themes and variations on these two.

Oh Lord, we are tempted to congratulate ourselves because we know the greatest commandment. But for You, it has never been a matter of knowing what God desires most from us, but doing what He desires. It is as if You were looking us in the eye and saying, “If you want to live, then love. Love the Father by surrendering your heart to Him, and love others by treating them the way you wish to be treated. . . . So, why are you still sitting there?”

The logic behind the Sadducees’ question was flawed. In the legal clause they cited, a younger brother was responsible to provide an heir for his deceased older brother in order to keep his name alive (De. 24:5-6). This was a legal arrangement made on behalf of the older brother and did not preclude the younger brother from marrying a woman of his choice and raising children in his own name. Therefore, if the older brother and the woman were reunited in resurrection, she would be his wife as before.

Jesus, however, sidestepped the technicalities of the law and said something unexpected and unknown: Resurrected people do not marry (v. 30). The most intimate relationship between humans on earth does not exist in heaven. Could this have something to do with the church’s marriage to Jesus? (2 Cor. 11:2; Ep. 5:25-33; Rev. 19:7-9).

There were two reasons why the Sadducees were mistaken regarding the resurrection: First, they did not understand the Scriptures and, second, they did not understand the power of God. Where do the Hebrew Scriptures teach the resurrection? Jesus pointed to a reference we may have read a hundred times and yet never seen resurrection in it. At the burning bush, God identified himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob–the three patriarchs of Israel who had died in the world yet still lived in God.

The criterion for resurrection is relational! Those who belong to God continue to live in him. This is the very purpose for Christ’s coming (Jn. 3:16).

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for setting the Sadducees straight. As for us, we do not want to be mistaken regarding the Scriptures and the power of God. We do not want to have a lot of information about our Father but no experience. We want to know His power as well as His word. So, please, set us straight too.

The Pharisees had set out to lay a trap for Jesus. Their plot and the intention behind it is a tribute to Jesus’ integrity. If he had been a heretic or a criminal, there would be no need for plots and tricks. All they would have to do is use his own words and actions against him.

The idea of trying to catch Jesus in a trap suggests an image of hunters rigging a net or snare to catch a large and powerful animal (picture a lion bound with ropes). It is sad to think of Jesus tied to a post or thrown into a cage.

Using questions for bait, the Pharisees posed a conundrum that was sure to throw Jesus for a loss regardless of how he answered. Should they pay taxes to Caesar, the Emperor of an oppressive and pagan kingdom in which he was worshiped as a god? To say yes would compromise the purity of Jesus’ spiritual teaching as well as outrage the crowd who deeply resented Roman taxation. But to say no would certainly bring the wrath of the Roman government down on Jesus’ head.

But Jesus cannot be trapped or tricked. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s,” he says, and the Pharisees turn tail and run. Those who attempt to attack Jesus end up wounding themselves.

We are amazed at Your wisdom, Lord Jesus, and how you turned the enemies’ weapons back on their own heads. But have we also come to You and asked, “What is lawful?” when the real question is not moral but relational? In every situation and regarding every decision, teach us to ask, “To whom does this belong? To whom am I obligated?” and most importantly, “To Whom do I belong?”