24th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 27
Lectionary 32
November 11
Luke 20:27-38
"Life After Death"
27* There came to him some Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection,
28* and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the wife and raise up children for his brother.
29 Now there were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and died without children;
30 and the second
31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died.
32 Afterward the woman also died.
33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”
34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage;
35* but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage,
36* for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
37* But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
38* Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him.”
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the risen Christ. Amen
Job asks a question that has been asked, from the beginning of time and still is being asked today. In Job. 14:14 he asks, "If a man die, shall he live again?" "If a man dies, if you die, if I die, will we life again? That question has been part of the human predicament of sin since the fall of Adam and Eve in the third chapter of Genesis. It is a question that even in our modern scientific world begs to be answered. If a man dies, will he live again? Is there anything after death? Is there life after death??
These questions, the discussion concerning death is a difficult subject for us in this country to deal with. We have so shut ourselves off from death by having people die in hospitals, by having funeral homes be in charge of the dead body, by having the dead person look like they are alive by the modern means of burial, that death no longer seems real, nor part of the human experience of life. Death is a subject we reserve for funerals, but not for every day living.
But in Jesus day, death and the questions concerning life after death were very much part of their every day experience. The Sadducees believed that there was no life after death. They could not find in the books of the law any reference to life after death. But the Pharisees, the highly religious people, believed that there was life after death. These two groups were in constant struggle over this subject. Almost where ever these two groups met, this subject of death and life came up. Each group trying to persuade the listener their side was right.
So a group of Sadducees came to Jesus trying to see how he would react to their questions concerning life after death. They had been able to use this argument many times to defeat the Pharisee, so they decided to test this country preacher, to. see if they could trick him. Now in the laws of the Penteuch, or the first 5 books of the Bible, it is stated that if a woman’s husband dies and. they have no children, the husband’s brother would marry the woman so the family line would go on. The Sadducees take this problem to the absurd by saying this woman outlived 7 husbands and had no children with any of them. Then they ask their trick question, if heaven or after life is like this one, whose wife will she be, since all of these 7 men were her husband? The Sadducees came from the perspective that heaven or the after life is going to be like this one, so which husband would this lady live with for the rest of eternity.
Notice Jesus response: He knows what they are trying to do. He knows they are trying to trick him, so he answers them from a completely different point of view.
He says to them: “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage;
35* but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage,
36* for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
Notice what Jesus is saying, life after this one will be different. Since there is no death, there is. no need for marriage so don’t worry about .whose wife she will. be. That age is different. Jesus comes from a very, different point of view. He shows these people that life after this one is different, the human qualities of this life are not what matters in heaven.
Paul in I Cor. 15: 48-57 echoes Jesus words about the new life in heaven., He says: 48* As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.
49* Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50* I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51* Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52* in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
53* For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.
54* When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55* “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”
56* The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
57* But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
A poem by Frederick Knowles says it this way in the Tenant
"This body is my house--- it is not I;
Here in I sojourn till, in some fair sky,
I lease a fairer dwelling, built to last
Till all the carpentry of time is past;,
When from my high place viewing this lone star;
What shall I care where these poor timber are?
What though the crumbling walls turn dust and loam,
I shall have left them for a larger home.
That though the rafters break, the stanchions rot,
When earth has dwindled to a glimmering spot!!’
When thou, clay cottage, fallest, I’ll immerse
My long-cramped spirit in the universe.
Through uncorrupted silences of space
I shall yearn upward to the leaning face.
The ancient heavens will roll aside for me,
As Moses monarched the dividing seas. This body is my house-
it is not I. Triumphant in this faith I live and I die".
Notice a key word in Paul’s writing, Lo I tel you a mystery. He doesn’t try to explain howl God will do all these things. He doesn’t try to explain what heaven will be like, what life after death will be, he just believes that it is so.
Jesus comes from that same view point. He says it will be different from this life, but he doesn’t go into any details. He leaves that up to his father in heaven. Yes, there are some things that are better left to the wonder, mystery and awe of God. And one of those things is a description of heaven. Let us not be so concerned about what it will be like, but have the faith to trust in that promise of heaven for those who believe in Christ Jesus as the son of God.
Notice, after Jesus tells the Sadducees that heaven will be different, then he goes on to show them that indeed in the books of the law, the first 5 books of the Bible, which were the only scripture the Sadducees believed in, life after death is seen.
Jesus quotes from Exodus 3: 6 "He said also, ’I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. ’" Notice what Jesus is saying. If God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, these men must be living, because God is God of the living, not the dead. Notice, the verb tense, God says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham.......l am which means now in the present tense, in this moment. These men are alive in and through me, God is saying. Jesus turns the tables on the Sadducees, and uses their own scripture to prove to them that there is indeed a life after this one. God is still the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God is still the God of the living. Our text as printed doesn’t include the response of the Sadducees, but if you would read on, you would find they congratulated Jesus on his logic and his use of scripture. They were amazed that he could do what the Pharisees could not do, prove from scripture there was some reference to life after death.
Now, we can ask ourselves a question, what does all of this have to do with us, with the kind of life you and I live? As we read scripture, as we study scripture, we find that it has truths. in it that are universal, for all ages, what is the universal truth for us in this passage?
As we wrestle with that question, we come to the point that our lives can be lived with a certain amount of hope, a certain amount of daring, a certain amount of adventure, a certain amount of confidence. These qualities are in our lives because we know that this life in the scope of God’s grandeur is but a fleeting moment. We don’ t have to invest everything here... but we know that there is something more, something beyond but at the same time the promise of heaven lets us lets us invest our all in loving God and our neighbor.
A writer in the first century church put it, this way "Christians are not marked out from the rest of mankind by their country or their speech or their ,customs. They dwell in cities, each has his lot cast, fellowing the practices of the regions in clothing and in food and in the outward things of life generally yet, they manifest a wonderful and openly paradoxical character of their own spiritual state. They inhabit the lands of the birth, but
as, temporary residents thereof; they take their share of all responsibilities as citizens and endure all disabilities as aliens. They pass their days upon earth, but their citizenship is in Heaven."
Through Baptism, our citizenship has been made for, us. in heaven And because of that, there is indeed a paradox to our living on this earth. We can sort out our value system far better than the non Christian because we know the things that are of value in this life are not of value in the life after. So that gives our live a certain freedom to be concerned not with materialism, but with the spiritual values of life, to be concerned about dying to self and living with, for and in Jesus and my neighbor.. There lies my investment.
If a man dies does he live again. The answer to that question is a loud and postive yes. Through Jesus Christ you and I will live again.
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale November 5, 2007
