Lenten Reflection – Day 44 of the Great Lent
Tuesday of Holy Week – Two Traps, Two Truths
St. Matthew 22:15-33
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (22:21)
Yesterday Christ wept over Jerusalem and cleansed the Temple. The tears of a God who sees what is coming. The overturned tables of a God who loves the house of prayer too much to let the merchants stay. The religious leaders asked “by what authority?” and Christ refused to answer because the question was not honest.
Today the traps begin.
Tuesday of Holy Week is the day of questions. In Matthew’s account, the entire day is a series of attempts to corner Christ. The Pharisees send their disciples with a question about taxes. The Sadducees follow with a question about the resurrection. Later the Pharisees will try again with a question about the greatest commandment. Every question is a trap. Every trap fails. And every failure reveals something about the God who is walking toward the Cross.
The men who are asking the questions will, by Friday, have what they want. Christ will be arrested. Tried. Condemned. Crucified. The traps that fail on Tuesday will succeed on Friday. Not because the questions finally worked. Because the arrest will bypass the questions entirely. They could not defeat Him in argument. So they will defeat Him with soldiers.
But Tuesday is not Friday. Tuesday is the day Christ stands in the Temple and answers every question with a wisdom that leaves His enemies silent. And in the silence, the truth speaks.
The Pharisees’ Trap: Taxes to Caesar (vv. 15–22)
“Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone’s opinion, for You do not regard the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?’
“But Jesus, perceiving their wickedness, said, ‘Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.’ So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, ‘Whose image and inscription is this?’ They said to Him, ‘Caesar’s.’ And He said to them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left Him and went their way.” (22:15–22)
The Pharisees plot. The word is sumboulion elabon. They took counsel together. This is not spontaneous. It is coordinated. And the coalition they assemble is extraordinary. Pharisees and Herodians. Two groups that despised each other. The Pharisees were religious nationalists who hated Rome. The Herodians were political pragmatists who collaborated with Rome. They agreed on nothing except this: Jesus must be stopped. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. For one day. In one question.
They begin with flattery. “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone’s opinion.” Every word is calculated. They are building a cage of honesty around Him. If He is true and does not care about opinion, then He must answer the question honestly. And any honest answer will destroy Him.
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
The trap is elegant. If Christ says yes, pay the tax, He loses the crowd. The Jewish people despised the Roman tax. It was a daily reminder of occupation. A teacher who endorses the tax is a collaborator. The crowd will abandon Him.
If Christ says no, do not pay the tax, He loses His freedom. The Herodians are standing right there. They will report Him to the Roman authorities as a political agitator. Sedition. Rebellion. Arrest.
Yes or no. Either answer destroys Him. The trap has no exit.
“Show Me the tax money.”
Christ does not answer the question. He asks for a coin. They produce a denarius. The coin of the Roman tax. And Christ asks a question of His own.
“Whose image and inscription is this?”
Eikōn. Image. The same word used in Genesis 1:27 in the Septuagint. “God created man in His own image.” Kat’ eikona theou. The word is loaded. Christ is not just asking about a portrait on a coin. He is setting up a theological revolution in a single sentence.
“Caesar’s.”
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
The coin bears Caesar’s image. Give it to Caesar. It is his. The metal, the stamp, the inscription: Caesar’s. Return it.
But you. You bear God’s image. You were made kat’ eikona theou. In the image of God. The image stamped on you is not Caesar’s. It is God’s. And if the coin that bears Caesar’s image belongs to Caesar, then the person who bears God’s image belongs to God.
Give Caesar his coin. Give God yourself.
The answer escapes the trap by transcending it. The question was political. The answer is theological. The question was about money. The answer is about identity. The question was either/or. The answer is both/and. Pay the tax. And give yourself to God. The two are not in competition because they operate on entirely different levels. Caesar can have the coin. God gets the person. And the person is worth infinitely more than the coin.
St. John Chrysostom, in his Homily 70 on Matthew, teaches that Christ’s answer is not a political philosophy. It is an anthropology. The question “whose image is this?” applied to the coin reveals something about the coin. Applied to the human person, it reveals everything. We are God’s coin. Stamped with God’s image. Inscribed with God’s name. And the proper response to the question “whose image is this?” when asked about our own face, our own soul, our own life, is: God’s. And if it is God’s, render it to God. Give ourselves entirely. Hold nothing back. Caesar can have the denarius. God gets you.1
For Tuesday of Holy Week, this question cuts to the bone. Forty-three days of fasting. The question the fast has been asking from the beginning is the question Christ asks the Pharisees. Whose image do we bear? Whose inscription is written on our heart? To whom do we belong?
On Day 29, the potter had power over the clay. On Day 37, the Spirit cried “Abba, Father” in us. On Day 38, the fruit of the Spirit was growing. Today the question beneath all of those days is made explicit. Whose image is this? We are stamped with the image of God. We belong to God. The fast has been an exercise in rendering to God the things that are God’s. And the thing that is God’s is us – you and me.
The Sadducees’ Trap: The Resurrection (vv. 23–28)
“The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying: ‘Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.'” (22:23–28)
The Pharisees have retreated. The Sadducees advance. A different group. A different theology. A different trap.
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They accepted only the five books of Moses as authoritative Scripture. And since Moses (in their reading) said nothing explicit about resurrection, they rejected it. They were the theological liberals of first-century Judaism. Sophisticated. Wealthy. Connected to the Temple aristocracy. And thoroughly materialist.
Their question is designed to make the resurrection look absurd. A woman married to seven brothers in sequence (following the levirate marriage law of Deuteronomy 25:5–6). All seven die. She dies. In the resurrection, whose wife is she? The scenario is ridiculous. It is meant to be. The Sadducees are not seeking an answer. They are performing a reductio ad absurdum. They want the crowd to laugh at the resurrection. To see it as the naive belief of unsophisticated people.
The question treats the resurrection as the continuation of the present life. More of the same. The same marriages. The same relationships. The same social structures. Just extended indefinitely. And if that is what the resurrection is, then yes, it is absurd. Seven husbands for one woman is a logistical nightmare in this life and an impossibility in the next.
The Sadducees’ error is the error of every person who tries to imagine eternity by projecting the present forward. Who thinks heaven is this life with better weather. Who imagines the resurrection as this body with fewer ailments. The Sadducees have made the resurrection too small. They have squeezed it into the box of the present world. And in the box, it does not fit.
You Are Greatly Mistaken (vv. 29–33)
“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.’ And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.” (22:29–33)
Christ’s answer has two parts. Both devastating.
Part one: you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
Two failures. Not one. Intellectual failure: they do not know the Scriptures they claim to master. Spiritual failure: they do not know the power of the God they claim to serve. The combination is fatal. Without the Scriptures, you have no framework. Without the power, you have no experience. The Sadducees had studied the text and missed its meaning. They had worshipped in the Temple and missed its God.
“In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.”
The resurrection is not the extension of the present. It is the transformation of the present into something entirely new. The categories of this life (marriage, social structures, biological reproduction) do not carry over unchanged. They are transformed. Transcended. The resurrection body is not this body with minor improvements. It is this body transfigured. Like the angels. Not disembodied. Not ghostly. Like the angels. Embodied differently. Alive differently. Related differently.
On Day 35 (Samiyo Sunday), the blind man received eyes he had never had. Christ did not restore old sight. He created new sight. The resurrection is the same kind of act applied to the whole person. Not restoration. Creation. New life. New embodiment. New relationship. The Sadducees could not imagine this because they had made the resurrection too small. Christ says: it is bigger than you think. Bigger than your categories. Bigger than your questions. Bigger than seven brothers and one woman.
Part two: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Christ quotes Exodus 3:6. From the burning bush. From the five books of Moses that the Sadducees accept as authoritative. He meets them on their own ground and defeats them with their own Scripture.
The argument is precise. God said to Moses: “I AM the God of Abraham.” Not “I WAS the God of Abraham.” Present tense. At the burning bush, Abraham had been dead for centuries. Isaac had been dead for centuries. Jacob had been dead for centuries. And God said: I am their God. Present tense. Right now.
“God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
If God is Abraham’s God right now, then Abraham is alive right now. If God is the God of Isaac right now, then Isaac is alive right now. If God says “I am” rather than “I was,” then the patriarchs are not past tense. They are present tense. They are living. Somewhere. In God. And the resurrection is not a future hope. It is a present reality. Abraham is alive because God is his God. And God does not preside over corpses.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his commentaries on this passage, teaches that Christ’s argument from Exodus 3 is the deepest statement about the nature of God’s relationship with His people in the entire Gospel. He says: the relationship between God and the human person does not end at death. If it did, God would say “I was Abraham’s God.” The present tense means the relationship persists. Death does not sever it. The grave does not interrupt it. Abraham died. And God is still his God. Which means Abraham is still alive. Because God does not maintain relationships with non-existent beings.2
On Day 41, Lazarus walked out of a four-day-old tomb because Christ said “come forth.” Today Christ explains why the tomb could not hold Lazarus. Because God is the God of the living. Because the relationship between God and a human person is stronger than the tomb. Because God does not say “I was your God.” He says “I AM your God.” And the I AM, spoken in the present tense over a dead person, is the resurrection.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Hymns on Paradise, writes that the resurrection is not an event that happens to dead people. It is the nature of a God who does not let go. Ephrem says: God held Abraham’s hand before Abraham was born. God held Abraham’s hand during Abraham’s life. And God held Abraham’s hand through Abraham’s death. The hand was never released. The grip never loosened. And a hand held by God cannot remain in the grave. Because God’s grip is the resurrection. The power of God is not a force applied to corpses. It is a relationship that refuses to let death have the final word.3
What Tuesday of Holy Week Means
Tuesday is the day of questions. And every question reveals more about the questioner than about the One being questioned.
The Pharisees’ question about taxes reveals their fundamental confusion about identity. They think the most important question is political. Whose side are you on? Rome or Israel? Caesar or God? Christ says: the question is not whose side you are on. The question is whose image we bear. And we bear God’s image. So give yourself to God. The politics will sort themselves out once the identity is clear.
The Sadducees’ question about the resurrection reveals their fundamental confusion about God. They think God operates within the categories of the present world. Marriage. Social structures. The continuation of the familiar. Christ says: God is bigger than our categories. The resurrection is not more of this. It is the transformation of this into something we cannot currently imagine. And the proof is in the grammar. “I AM the God of Abraham.” Present tense. The dead are alive because God does not let go.
For us on Day 44, the two questions address the two deepest anxieties of Holy Week.
The first anxiety: the political one. What happens when the world demands our loyalty? When Caesar asks for the coin? When the systems of power require our compliance? Christ’s answer: give Caesar what is Caesar’s. The coin. The tax. The external compliance that keeps us alive in an occupied world. But do not give Caesar what is God’s. Our soul. Our worship. Our identity. Our image. Caesar can stamp his face on a coin. Only God can stamp His image on a person. And the person belongs to God.
The second anxiety: the existential one. What happens when we die? What happens to the people we love who have died? Is the grave the end? Christ’s answer: God is the God of the living. The relationship does not end at death. Abraham is alive. Lazarus is alive. The people we have prayed for during this fast who have gone before us are alive. Because God does not say “I was their God.” He says “I AM their God.” And the I AM is the resurrection.
Tuesday gives us both answers on the same day. Because both questions are asked on the road to the Cross. And the Man who answers them will, by Friday, be dead. And by Sunday, the answer He gave the Sadducees will be demonstrated in His own body. The resurrection is real. Not because of an argument. Because the God who said “I AM the God of Abraham” will say “I AM” from inside an empty tomb.
For Our Journey Today
Render to God what is God’s. The coin bears Caesar’s image. You bear God’s image. Today, let us ask ourselves: what am I giving to Caesar that belongs to God? Not money. That is Caesar’s. Our attention. Our worship. Our deepest loyalty. Our identity. These bear God’s image, not Caesar’s. If we have been rendering to the world what belongs to God, today is the day to take it back. Give Caesar the coin. Give God our own selves.
Refuse the small resurrection. The Sadducees’ error was making the resurrection too small. A continuation of the present with the same problems and the same categories. Today, refuse the small resurrection. The resurrection the fast is pointing toward is not “my life with fewer sins.” It is an entirely new creation. New eyes (Day 35). New body. New relationship with God. New everything. Do not squeeze the resurrection into the box of the present. Let it be as big as God intends it to be.
Trust the present tense. “I AM the God of Abraham.” Present tense. If someone you love has died, they are not past tense to God. If something in you has died during this fast, it is not past tense to God. The God who says “I AM” over Abraham says “I AM” over every dead thing. And the present tense is the resurrection. Today, pray for the departed. Not as though they are gone. As though they are alive. Because the God who is their God right now is the God of the living.
Lord Jesus Christ, who stood in the Temple on Tuesday of Holy Week and answered every trap with a wisdom that left Your enemies silent, give us that wisdom today. When the world asks for our loyalty, help us remember whose image we bear. We are not Caesar’s coin. We are God’s creation. Stamped with the image of the Trinity. Inscribed with the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we belong to You. When the grave asks for our hope, help us remember that You are the God of the living. Abraham is alive because You are his God. Lazarus is alive because You called his name. And we will be alive because the I AM does not let go. The hand that held us before we were born will hold us through death and out the other side. You do not say “I was your God.” You say “I AM your God.” And the I AM is the resurrection. Render to God what is God’s. We render ourselves. Today. On the Tuesday of the Passion. Three days before the Cross. And forever after. By the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Evangelist Matthew, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Tuesday of Holy Week. The day of questions. The Pharisees asked about taxes and learned about identity. The Sadducees asked about the resurrection and learned about God. Whose image do you bear? God’s. Give yourself to God. Is the grave the end? No. God is the God of the living. Abraham is alive. And the Man who said this on Tuesday will prove it on Sunday. From inside an empty tomb.
