Text: Luke 20 :27-38
I walked into the home. I knew what I would find, at least what had happened there. A man had died, a husband, a father. Of course, there was sadness. But I sensed something else.
I sat down with the wife and asked her if she had a pastor or priest. No. she I then asked. Do you have any kind of beliefs? She said, no, nothing like that. Then I knew what I sensed when I walked into that house. Not just the sadness that death brings, but a dark kind of hopelessness, the hopelessness of unbelief.
I walked into the room. There lay my mother. We had flown all night to get there. She was barely alive. The Alzheimers was finally about to claim another victim. I spoke to my mother whose faith I knew. I prayed for her and then I left. That night came the call. She was gone. Tears were not far behind those words.
A few days later, I stood in another place. A small church in New York. There I had the privilege of ministering to family and friends with something that helps God’s people to rise above our natural grief. It helps us deal with those pictures in our mind of how bad off our loved one was. As we think about those who fall asleep in Christ, we have a very special kind of hope.
And that brings us to what happened in our Gospel. It’s kind of a strange thing. But not that unusual for our Lord. His enemies come out to confront Jesus, to show he’s wrong. You might think this would be just another religious argument. But no. Here we can listen to our Lord and say with hope in our hearts:
I believe in the resurrection of the body
and the life everlasting.
I. Man’s wisdom questions and denies it.
II. My Lord Jesus proclaims it
III. God’s Holy Word teaches it.
It was Tuesday of Holy Week. Jesus was teaching in the temple courts. Many people had welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday. But the religious leaders were now determined to find a way to kill him. In two days, they would succeed in arresting him. In three days, they would succeed in getting him crucified.
Luke tells us, that on this day, some Sadducees came out to question Jesus. Here it helps to know something about them. They were one of the religious groups that made up the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. The High Priest was a Sadducee who by now ran the temple like a profit making business.
Luke tells us something important about them. They said, there is no resurrection. In fact, they were like some liberal preachers today. They did not believe in life after death. It’s right now, that counts.
As far as the Bible was concerned, they only accepted the Torah as God’s Word, the first five books of the Old Testament. Not the words of the prophets. Not Isaiah, not Daniel, Only Moses. Only 5 of the 39 books we call the Old Testament.
So this day the Sadducees weren’t looking for spiritual guidance. They wanted to discredit Jesus. They wanted to show that a belief in the resurrection was foolish. Here it’s not important that we spend a lot of time understanding how they tried to set Jesus up. It’s more important you see what they intended. ‘After seven husbands, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be?’ They must have said with disdain dripping from their lips. Resurrection, no such thing.
It seems to me to me these Sadducees serve as an example. Not an example to follow but one to beware of. For they show us where man’s wisdom leaves people. It leaves people with this short life and nothing more. It leaves them starring down a big black hole called death. It leave us with a gnawing uncertainty about what we will face on the other side. For man’s wisdom, this world’s way of thinking, questions and denies the resurrection and the life.
And I don’t have to tell you. There is a Sadducee who lives inside each of us. He’s with us now as we hear God’s Word, questioning, bringing doubt. He’ll be with us as we approach death’s door. Yet thanks be to God. In spite of what man’s so called wisdom would tell me, I believe as you do. I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. For my Lord Jesus proclaims it.
It’s interesting how Jesus made use of their words. They intended to trip him up. But here as in other times, Jesus used their question to hold up a wonderful truth. There is a resurrection of the dead. There will be a resurrection to life just as Job confessed long before: And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God (Job 19:26)
Here Jesus describes that life to come. He says, we will be like the angels. By the way, he doesn’t say, we will be angels like you sometimes hear. He says we will be like them. How so? After all, angels are spirits, not flesh and blood like you and me. Jesus tells us how. In the life to come, our relationships will be different than they are now. Like the angels, we will not marry or be given in marriage. For marriage is for this life only.
And I realize that when we come to these words of Jesus, we might feel troubled. I’ve heard people say, I don’t want to think about that. I can understand. I’ve felt that way myself.
But remember what Jesus says here. They are God’s children. In other words, in the life to come, we will ALL be family. We will ALL be united as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. And no one will be left behind. No one will feel lonely or left out. We will ALL be family in the best sense of the word.
And we will be like the angels in another way. Like the angels, we will never, ever face the prospect of sickness or death again. No longer will our eyes fill with tears. No longer will words like cancer and heart disease trouble us. No more will we have to struggle with grief. For we will live, no more to die.
But did you notice who can look forward to that? Jesus said. Those considered worthy. Did you hear that? Those considered worthy!
Wait a second. Doesn’t the Bible say, there is no one righteous, not even one. Doesn’t the Bible say, All have sinned and fall short. So how can you or I or anyone be considered worthy of the resurrection?
There is only one way. The way of grace. To believe in this One standing here in the temple courts. The eternal Son of God who became your brother. He lived each day of his life for you, being the kind of person we will never be. There is only one way. To believe that he went to a cross where he offered his perfect life for you. That there he took upon himself your punishment and mine. So much did he love us.
And so here is the good news for us unworthy sinners: Jesus says…my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:40) Did you hear what your Lord proclaims? Eternal life. He will raise us up, all those who have taken their last breath with faith trusting in him. So yes, I believe. I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
Yet why should I take Jesus at his word when the Sadducees seemed to make more sense. Why should I walk by faith and not by what my eyes plainly tell me. For dead is dead and there seems to be nothing more. So why take Jesus at his Word? Jesus rose. Jesus lives. And because he has risen, you and I can know. We will follow. Every one who falls asleep in him will live body and soul, Saints Triumphant. My Lord Jesus proclaims it.
But there is another reason that Jesus points to. These Sadducees could have known it without him telling them. For what did Jesus do here? He pointed them back to Moses, the one prophet of God whose words they accepted. So I believe in the resurrection for another reason as well. God’s Holy Word teaches it.
Notice something here. The Sadducees quoted Moses to make Jesus look foolish and so too a belief in the resurrection. What did Jesus do? He took the very same book, Exodus, to show what God clearly teaches. You remember. Moses went up the mountain where God spoke to him from a burning bush that did not burn up. He said to Moses, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Jesus then told the Sadducees that those words were full of meaning. Moses showed that the dead rise, he told them.
How so? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were long since dead and buried. But in these words, God spoke of them as alive, not dead and gone and just a memory. Their souls were with the Lord in heaven just as the souls of our loved one who have died in Christ.
But here Jesus points beyond that. For God is not the god of people whose bodies will stay in the grave. As Jesus says here: He is the God of the living. He is the God of people who will live as we were meant to, body and soul at the resurrection, Saints triumphant! God’s holy Word teaches that and so I believe it.
So we go to the cemetery where we commit the bodies of those we love. Or we gather for a memorial service. Someday our turn will come. But this we know. Through our tears we can say. I believe in the resurrection. And we can know. All is well. All is well in Jesus Christ who is the Resurrection and the life. Amen.