Have
you ever wondered about what life will be like in heaven after we die? If so, you’ll
be interested in what Jesus has to say about the subject in the passage from
Luke 20:27-38.
The
Sadducees’ question about the resurrection was a ridiculous one because the
Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. Their question was designed to
draw Jesus into an argument based on Old Testament law. Deuteronomy 25:5
commanded a man to marry his brother’s wife if the brother died. If they had a
son, the son was to be named after the deceased brother. The Sadducees asked
which of the seven brothers would be married to the widow in the resurrection.
The
question reflected the common attribute toward women at that time. Women were
seen as being no better than property. They had few rights and could be
divorced by their husbands for petty reasons. Widows were in an even worse
situation if they had no sons to look after them.
Jesus
was quick to poke holes in the Sadducees’ logic. They were talking in human
terms, but Jesus and God always talk in heavenly terms. Remember that God’s
ways are not our ways and sometimes his ways are hard for us to understand.
Heaven is a Godly concept that we can’t easily understand. Jesus does not give
us a definite description of what heaven is like, but he does tell us that life
in heaven will not be a continuation
of life here on earth. Therefore, there will be no marriage, no property or
worrying about property. Jesus also says that the only part of our earthly life
that will continue in heaven is that we will continue to be children of God.
When we die, we will fall into his arms and he will never let us go.
In
our earthly life, marriage and procreation are necessary for life to continue.
In our heavenly life, we will never die, so we will never have to worry about
property and who will inherit our property after we die. We can’t prove the
resurrection with rational arguments. We can’t understand things we have not
seen. We have to accept them by faith, just like we have to accept God’s Word
by faith. Even the world’s greatest preachers have trouble understanding the
Word of God. Billy Graham once had a struggle with the truth of God’s Word, but
one evening he knelt by a tree stump and declared to God that he would accept
God’s Word by faith.
Jesus
commented on the Sadducees’ rejection of the resurrection by referring to
Moses. The Sadducees only believed in the first five books of the Old
Testament, including the books written by Moses. These books did not talk about
the resurrection. When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, he said, “I am
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” If there was no life after death, God
would have said, “I was their God,” instead of “I am their God.” The phrase “I
am” proves that our soul survives physical death and implies that the dead in
Christ will rise when he returns.
The
Gospel message is not about a continuation. It is about a new life. Jesus’
death and resurrection makes this new life possible. It is better that anything
our current life can offer. It is a new birth, a new age, the unveiled sight of
God. Heaven is God’s responsibility, not ours. Our responsibility is how we
live our lives here and now. We have no idea what’s coming in the next life, no
way to imagine how the next life will be even richer than the life we know now.
We can’t let go of today’s relationships and trust God to give us new
relationships. That limits our ability to accept the good news of eternal life.
All life is under God’s direction, so everything we do needs to be seen in
light of what God does in our world.
When
we stop worrying about life after death, our lives will take on a new direction
and a new energy. We will see the world with eyes that see God at our side as
we face life’s challenges. It is
appropriate that we are hearing this reading at this time in the church year.
Three weeks from today we will enter the season of Advent, which begins a new
church year. As we conclude our church year and look toward what is to come,
our readings focus on what is to come. Christian faith is about living, loving
God and loving people.
It’s
sometimes hard for us to believe in the big things in life when we have so many
little issues and struggles that we let take up lots of space in our lives.
When we are obsessed with the little things in life, it’s not easy for us to
step back and understand everlasting life. We can only imagine what heaven will
be like. Some people imagine it as a beautiful place with endless good times.
Others imagine it as a place where there will be no sickness, old age or pain.
Our ability to imagine what heaven will be like is our way of expressing our
faith that our loved ones are alive and well and are getting along with each
other.
For
example, C.S. Lewis, who wrote “The Chronicles of Narnia”, once told the story
of a woman who was thrown into a dungeon. Her only light came from a barred
window high above. She gave birth to a son, who had never seen the outside
world. He couldn’t reach the window to see outside, so his mother told him
about green fields and waves crashing on the shore-but he couldn’t imagine what
she was describing. Eventually, she persuaded the guards to give her some paper
and charcoal so she could draw pictures to show her son what the outside world
was really like-but what the boy came to understand was that the outside world
looked like black lines on a white piece of paper.
The
reality keeps returning to us, and it is stark. We have to let go of today’s
relationships and trust God to give new relationships. Otherwise, our ability
to accept the good news of resurrection and life after deaths is limited. Our
loved ones are buried in a cemetery. Their gravestones are in a line, and mark
the names of our loved ones along with the dates of their births and deaths. We
wonder where they are and what they are doing. At times like that, we can turn
to the Scriptures for comfort, especially the passage we heard today.
Those
who are willing to give their lives to God now will find that God will be there
for them when the journey of their earthly life is over. We are to love one
another just as God loves us and share God’s love for people in a way that
excludes no one. In effect, marital love is extended and perfected, so that
what’s best about human beings in this life is made available in an even better
way to all of us in the next life.
If
God is our God, and we are his people, death is not the end of the story. It is
the beginning. Someone once said that “today is the first day of the rest of
your life” and that will be especially true on the day we die. When we die, the
Lord will not abandon us. He will be there to greet us. To be absent in the
body is to be present with the Lord. We have Christ’s promise of the reality of
the resurrection through Christ’s own death and resurrection. Because he lives,
we too shall live. Living without the doctrine of resurrection, or the hope it
offers, cheapens this life.
The
Gospel passage is about the next life. It’s about what happens after we die,
especially if we are followers of Christ. For the Sadducees, death was the end
of life’s journey. Jesus reveals that God is a god of life and not a god of
death. For believers, death is just the end of one phase of life and the
beginning of a new, glorious life-a life that we can only barely begin to
understand now and will completely understand when we sit at the Master’s feet.
Christ’s resurrection glorified life, and the hope of the resurrection for
believers glorifies them. The resurrection gives us hope.
In
order for us to receive the hope and glory of the resurrection, we have to
repent. Repentance gives us hope for the future. Paul argued that the process
of resurrection and repentance began with Jesus’ bodily resurrection.
Resurrection is the start of a new life in heaven with Christ. Our dead,
physical bodies will be raised spiritually to a new life.
In
order for us to understand the resurrection, we have to expand our ideas about
who and what God is and what we can do. We can’t limit God with our own limited
human reasoning. God continually surprises us. The future he has planned for us
is a glorious one that is far more than we can imagine and different from what
we can imagine.
Bibliography
1.
Jude
Siciliano, O.P., “First Impressions, 32nd Sunday, Year C”. Retrieved
from www.preacherexchange.org
2.
Larsen, B. &
Ogilvie, L.J. : The Preacher’s Commentary
Series; Vol. 26: Luke (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1983)
4.
MacArthur,
J.F. Jr. : The MacArthur Study Bible,
NASB (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 2006)
11.
ESV Study Bible. Part of Wordsearch 10 Bible software
package.
12. Lectionary Homiletics, Vol. XXIV,
No. 6 (St. Paul, MN: Luther Seminary; 2013)
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