Twentyfourth Sunday After Pentecost 2010

Twenty fourth Sunday After Pentecost
11/6/10
Luke 20:27-40
Bror Erickson


[27] There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a 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 widow and raise up offspring 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 b considered 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 anymore, because they are f 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." [39] Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well." [40] For they no longer dared to ask him any question. Luke 20:27-40 (ESV)


“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. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

This is such a profound point that Jesus makes that it makes a person wonder. According to this verse our dead, those who have died in the Lord are not dead at all but living! For God is not a God of the dead but of the living. Jesus mentions that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are living, are raised. He puts the Sadducees to shame, but he also fights against the ever present Platonic idea that the soul is immortal, and that it is the souls and not the body that lives with God in heaven. No, we live body and soul, and body and soul live with God in heaven. Jesus claims that if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have not been raised, then the Lord, (by the way the LORD, here is Jesus so he should know) cannot be their God, because he is the God of the living only.
Now let’s unpack this a bit. Leading up to this profound point is a dialogue with the Sadducees, who don’t make many appearances in Luke. In fact this is the only one. And they seem to be testing Jesus to see if he is one of theirs or not, in agreement with them that is, over against the Pharisees. The Sadducees believe in neither the resurrection or angels, and they only regard the first five books of Moses as being canonical. They are the theological liberals of the day. Jesus might not have much time for the Pharisees and their legalism, but he has less time for these clowns and what they think passes as a test question. Oh they think they have this whole idea of the resurrection in a bind with this question about whose wife this woman might be in heaven, since apparently she was not able to have children on earth, and married into an unlucky family with boys that die young. “Whose husband will she be in heaven? Hah! See the resurrection is impossible!”
Jesus’ response is quick. How do you know that everything isn’t changed up in the resurrection? Just because you marry and are given into marriage here, doesn’t mean any of that is going to happen in heaven. Certainly no one is going to be given into marriage the way this woman was given into marriage seven times, because there is no death in heaven, and neither do they marry. Well you can see what this does to the eternal family concept of Mormons, if they took the Bible as seriously as they claim.
Marriage is something concerning this life, not the life to come. What heaven will be like is somewhat a mystery, but the things that concern us here are not necessarily the things that will concern us then.
But Jesus turns to those texts that they find authoritative, and proves the case for the Resurrection. The Lord is the God of the living, not the dead. Jesus Christ is Lord, (Philippians 2:11). This is precisely what Romans 10, 1 Corinthians 12, and Philippians 2 are getting at when they identify Jesus Christ as Lord. He is YHWH, the great I am who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. And He is God of the living not the dead.
Now death and living have a little more meaning than whether or not a man is breathing or not. You can be perfectly alive and well by any medical sense of the term here on earth and be dead according to Christ. If you do not have eternal life as a result of faith in the death and resurrection of Christ, you are dead in you trespasses as Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 2. So we are made alive in Christ.
This happens primarily through baptism where Paul tells us in Romans Chapter 6, that we are buried with Christ so that Jesus as he was risen from the dead, we too might walk in the newness of life. So having been baptized we are given life in Christ. A free gift. And on account of this life, this life of faith, and faith and baptism go hand in hand, this faith that was given to Abraham and sealed with his circumcision, just as You were given faith that was sealed with baptism, you are raised to live with Christ the Lord for all Eternity. This isn’t on account of what you have done, but what Christ has done for you. He died and rose again.
And once you have eternal life you cannot die, but you live. So it is that those who have passed, fell asleep as it so often says in scripture, are not dead though they be buried, or cremated, but are a live even now living with the Lord Jesus Christ God of God’s. And we need not worry how this can be. With God all things are possible. God is not bound to our timeline of past, present and future, But he lives outside of time, even as he guides time, but where time and eternity meet, on the last day of time, then we witness the resurrection a resurrection that happens in time and eternity. And with that resurrection we too will be raised with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the blest to recline at the table of the lord with all who come from the east and the west. All who died in the Lord that they might live to eternity.
Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord Amen.