life in the resurrection (a sermon on Luke 20:27-38)

What a strange story we have here from Luke, don’t you think? Some Sadducees, who were religious leaders, are meeting with Jesus once he has arrived in Jerusalem, and it’s not a friendly meeting. The Sadducees were a group of religious leaders that did not believe in the resurrection, because the portions of Scripture they ascribed to did not seem to mention it.

So, with this belief firmly in place, they ask Jesus a question about an exaggerated hypothetical scenario about the practice of Levirate marriage. Levirate marriage can be found in Deuteronomy 25. The word “Levirate” comes from the Latin word for brother-in-law. The practice of a man marrying his deceased brother’s childless widow was meant to ensure that the family name would be remembered. The practice also served to protect women, because widows in the ancient world would have no means of earning income, and no real status in society. This law about Levirate marriage comes in the midst of a few chapters in Deuteronomy which describe laws for a variety of situations, laws that were meant to ensure good community life.

The Sadducees, though, didn’t really care about any of this. They were more interested in tricking Jesus, in making Jesus look foolish and lose credibility in front the people. As usually happens when a group of religious leaders set out to trap Jesus, the encounter doesn’t end well for them.

Using the story of the burning bush from Exodus, Jesus shows that there is proof of resurrection: though Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are dead at this point in the narrative, God speaks to Moses about them in the present tense. God is a God of the living, and not of the dead. So when God says, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” those men must be living, if God is their God. This argument seems to settle the issue. The two verses after the end of our reading point to this: “Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.”

Photo by Andrew Ruiz on Unsplash

Even if the Sadducees didn’t care about Jesus’s thoughts on resurrection, there were probably others straining to hear his answer to the question. Even now, questions about death, resurrection, and heaven are still present in many forms. Books like “Heaven Is For Real”, “The Five People You Meet In Heaven”, and “The Shack,” were wildly popular, even turned into movies. Needless to say, we are curious about questions of life and death and life after death.

People about whom we care deeply are no longer with us. Death is a very real presence in our world. We have ideas floating around in popular culture about what heaven is like – streets of gold, angels resting on clouds with harps, Saint Peter at the pearly gates. But, for a people who pride ourselves on knowing and certainty, we’re stuck. Because we don’t know, can’t know, what heaven or life after death are really like.

We’re not completely stuck in the dark, though. There are some things we can know.

One thing we can know is that heaven and resurrection life is qualitatively different than life as we experience it now. Life with God is not just the best version of what we can imagine. Life with God is better than anything we can imagine. When the Sadducees are asking questions about marriage in the resurrection age, they’re asking the wrong question. Their vision of heaven and resurrection life is limited by their view of life now. Jesus makes clear that resurrection life is totally different from what we expect.

Another thing we can know is that we are children of the resurrection. In the waters of baptism, each of us has been joined to Jesus in dying to sin so that we have the promise of being joined with him in a resurrection like his. As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 6: “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” This is a promise we can cling to in the face of death and in the face of the perils and disappointments and grief of this age. God’s promises are sure. We have hope.

A third thing we can know is that God cares about our physical bodies, both in this age and in that age. Certainly Jesus’ resurrection is a central part of our faith, and his bodily resurrection points to our own eventual bodily resurrection. After his resurrection, Jesus ate with the disciples, showing that his body was real, and he wasn’t just a ghost. Every week in the third article of the Apostles’ Creed we say this: We believe in the resurrection of the body. Our resurrected life is not about some ephemeral soul that flies out of us the moment we draw our last breath. Resurrection is about reality, about fleshy bodies of real people. God is not just concerned with our souls. God has created and cares for our whole selves, body and soul.

New life and restoration and liberation and resurrection and love and relationship are all important to God. So many stories in Scripture point to these characteristics, and we can imagine and hope and pray that our resurrected life holds all these best things God provides.

There’s a poem I’d like to share with you, by Gerhard Frost. It’s based on Jesus’ last words on the cross, but I think it can help focus our questions about what heaven will or will not be like.

She held her father’s hand as they boarded the west-flying plane. Skipping along the carpeted ramp, her feet hardly touching the floor.
“Where are we going?” he asked her affectionately.
“To Grandma’s!” was her instant reply.
She did not say: “To Bozeman or Billings or Portland.”
She saw a face, not a place.
… “Father,” Jesus said. He too saw a Face. In dying, he found his way home: “Into your hands—your future, your presence—I commit my spirit.”
Perhaps heaven isn’t a place, but a Face.

The Sadducees were asking Jesus about the status of relationships in our resurrected life, but it seems that they were focused on the wrong relationships. Even if we can’t imagine how this would be the case now, more important than our relationships with friends and family members is our relationship with God, and the promise that we will be with God. This verse from Romans, often read at funerals, highlights God’s promise beautifully: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What will life in the resurrection be like? We can only wonder at this mystery, but God meets us in our questioning, our wondering, and our concern. What we can be sure of is that in that age, as well as this one, we will not be separated from the love of God.

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For a lighter, more humorous take on this text, read on for a glimpse of TV's hottest new game show - "This Resurrected Life!"

In the hypothetical Saturday Night Live version of this Scripture passage, the opening scene might quickly cut away from Jesus and the Sadducees to the set of a game show. A woman stands next to the host, with his exaggerated smile and microphone. Grinning straight at the camera, he welcomes the audience to “This Resurrected Life” and begins to introduce the day’s guest.

“Let’s give a warm welcome to Mary! She was married to not two, not three, but seven brothers in life, each dying childless before she herself died. Which one will be her husband in this resurrected life? Join us for today’s show!” The camera zooms in over the his shoulder as a man steps out from behind a curtain, and the host continues:

“First up is husband number one, Bruce! Oh no, Bruce - we have video footage of you chewing loudly at every meal. Mary, will Bruce be your husband in this resurrected life?!” She shakes her head and jams down on the buzzer. ERRRRR. The floor beneath Bruce suddenly opens, and he disappears, flailing, through the hole. The host chuckles and announces, “Husband number one, you are NOT the resurrection husband!”

“Next up is husband number two. Paul, it says here that you never once did the dishes - is that true?! Mary, will Paul be your husband in this resurrected life?” Again, the buzzer wails, and Paul drops suddenly through the opening in the floor. “Husband number two, you are NOT the resurrection husband!”

On it went - Mark had snored incessantly, leaving Mary sleep-deprived for the entire two years they were married. Tom barked orders and left his dirty sandals all over the house. John was nice and all, but they had nothing in common and Mary was allergic to the smell of his pipe. One after another they fell through the floor, buzzer echoing around the stage.

Finally it comes down to the last two. Husbands number six and seven step out from behind the curtain, looking both nervous and hopeful. The host booms into the microphone - “So, Mary - what’ll it be? Which man will be your husband in This Resurrected Life?!”

She turns and whispers something in the host’s ear, and his eyes widen. “Well! This is certainly a first! Folks, you won’t believe it, but Mary says she’s choosing...neither! After a lifetime spent being passed along as the property of seven husbands, she’d rather spend her resurrected life catching up on her rest and spending time in the presence of God as a child of the resurrection! Congratulations, Mary, and we hope you enjoy your resurrected life!”


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