Today’s Scripture

 

Psalm 148       Exodus 3:1-15             2 Thessalonians 2:1-8, 13-17              Luke 20:27-40

 

            Today’s Gospel is an interesting reading, to say the least.  First of all there are the  Sadducees.  They were an aristocratic religious sect of Jews.  They accepted the five books of Moses.  They believed in the soul’s eternal life, but not the resurrection of the flesh.  We know this belief and knowledge of the resurrection existed in OT times from Job (I know that my Redeemer lives…in my flesh I will see God), and Martha’s confession at her brother’s (Lazarus) death.   The Sadducees also were in political opposition with the Pharisees in temple leadership.  At this time, they are the ruling party. 

 

            The other main point is Leverite Marriage.  This is the custom that if a married man dies childless, his brother takes that man’s wife to have a child in the deceased man’s name.  That provides for continuing the family name.  We find this in Judah’s family in Genesis, and in the Levitical laws to God’s people in the wilderness.

 

            The Sadducees approach Jesus with this hypothetical question, which husband will this woman have in the resurrection?  Yes, it is a trick question.  Jesus answers that heavenly life is not an extension of earthly life as we know it.  It is as if we were to speak of Uncle Harry and Uncle Art today smoking their cigars and playing Pinochle in heaven.  Or Uncle Harry coming back to Uncle Art in a vision stating that yes, there is baseball in heaven.  Get ready, you are scheduled to pitch on Tuesday. 

 

            If this were true, those aspects of heaven would be like a consolation prize.  Go has promised the greatest things, all perfect and holy in heaven.  If your life in heaven were limited to how you know life here on earth, you would not have the fullest of glories that God has for you in heaven.  Here on earth the perfect image he made you is lost in sin.  That image is restored in heaven.  Even in our marriages we live in sinfulness with the jealousies and unfulfilled ambitions.  What marriage and the other beauties of God’s creation do is point us to the perfection and holiness of the resurrection to eternal life.  Sin and God’s image are again separated.  Sin and all of it’ darkness and death are separated by that broad chasm explained in Lazarus and the rich man as Abraham explains no one can go from here to there or there to here. 

 

            The Sadducees that day were trying to shape and mold Scripture, i.e. God’s word and commands to fit their pre-conceived ideas.  God’s eternal kingdom is not like this world, it is beyond our pre-conceived ideas.  We are not bound to each other by marriage, by political affiliation, by jobs or hobbies, by age, even as brothers and sisters as we know ourselves here.  But we are joined together as the church, the assembly of believers, as God’s people, as Christ’s very bride.  He makes us glorious in his image again as we see him as he is (1 John 3:2).  We are brought together as one body as that one body, and as angels, beings that are God’s glory alone, doing what God gives us to do alone.  We will be holy, undying, doing only God’s will, and always joyfully praising him.

 

            It is as the hymn we just sang, and the preface to the Lord’s Supper.  We are singing Holy, Holy, Holy with the angels.  We are joined together with all the company of heaven, evermore praising him and singing Holy, Holy, Holy as all the saints adore him. 

 

            The blessings God gives us here on earth and especially the bond of marriage point us to that greatest blessing, eternal life with him in heaven.

 

            This is the greatest of miracles:  How can one rise from the dead?  How can one be saved by being forgiven all sins?  Jesus does it all, has already accomplished it all for you.

 

            God is God of the living.  He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who today live with him in eternity.  This was demonstrated at the transfiguration as Moses and Elijah were present with Jesus, in body and speaking with him as we all will be.  As we rejoice with those who have gone before, we know we will be joined with them in a way far beyond what we know today, and won’t that be wonderful?  That is God’s eternal kingdom.

 

That kingdom comes to us in Jesus.  God’s kingdom comes even without our prayer, and that is why we continue to pray in faith that this promise will be fulfilled, “Thy kingdom come.”  God’s kingdom is the complete victory over sin, death and the devil that Jesus has already won for us. 

 

            It is in faith in Jesus’ words that he will come again and his angels will bring us bodily to be with him in the clouds of heaven that we live today.  It is in this faith that we commit our loved ones to the earthly grave, knowing we will be joined together with imperishable bodies at the end of creation’s time.  That is the comfort and strength each one of you have as the moment of death comes either gradually or suddenly, for when we are at that weakest point, God has made you strong with his promise that no one can snatch you out of his hand, not even Satan at that weakest moment as it is by faith that you are saved.

 

            In Jesus’ undying love.

 

            Amen.