“God is Not the God of the Dead but of the Living”
Luke 20:27-40
11/11/07
Today’s Gospel text, with it’s emphasis
on the resurrection, might seem to fit better among the readings for
the Easter season rather than at this time when we are approaching the
end of the Church year. But the fact that we’ve just
experienced the death of one of our members and the fact that at the
end of the Church year our readings traditionally focus on
Christ’s return and the resurrection of the body both serve to
make this text most appropriate for us today on this 24th Sunday after
Pentecost. We are again reminded that our loved ones who have
died in the Lord are neither dead nor lost, but that they are alive and
with the Lord right now, and we are also reminded that we ourselves
have the same hope of the resurrection of our bodies and the life of
the world to come through faith in Jesus Christ.
As for the text we have before us today, Jesus
answers two questions about that life of the world to come. The
one has to do with marriage and the other has to do with the
resurrection. The words of this text are very simple to
understand, as Jesus discusses both of these topics in a very
straight-forward, plain way. The questions are raised when some
Sadducees come to Him with a bizarre hypothetical situation in which a
woman ends up having several husbands in her lifetime. Their
question is, if there is a resurrection, whose wife will she be in the
next life? Of course, the Sadducees weren’t really seeking
any information from Jesus. Their question was meant to trap Him
in order to prove somehow that His teaching of a resurrection from the
dead was something that was contrary to what Moses taught in the
Law. You see, as the text says, the Sadducees were a religious
sect of the Jews who neither believed in the existence of angels nor
the resurrection of the body. Unlike the Pharisees, who
acknowledged them both, the Sadducees believed that only the first five
books of the Bible called the Pentateuch (which is Genesis through
Deuteronomy) written by Moses were inspired Scripture. And
apparently, they found no evidence in them either for the existence of
angels nor for the resurrection. But in the Gospel according to
St. Matthew Jesus tells them that they were wrong, because they were
ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God. Angels
are clearly spoken of in Genesis in the account of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorra and also in the account of Jacob’s vision of a
ladder stretching from heaven to earth upon which the angels of God
ascended and descended. And Jesus points out that the
resurrection of the dead was something that was also clearly taught in
the Pentateuch where God says to Moses from the burning bush, “I
am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”
But Jesus takes care of the question about marriage
first by pointing out that “those who are considered worthy to
attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry
nor are given in marriage, because they can’t die
anymore.” They’ll be equal to angels, sons of God,
and sons of the resurrection. So, no matter how many spouses you
might have in this life, you’ll be married to none of them in the
next. Marriage is a gift that God has given us for this life, and
that for the main purpose of producing children, because we die in this
life. In the O.T., if a man had no male heir, his name would die
out with his death. To prevent this from happening God had
commanded that his brother should take his surviving widow as a wife,
in order to provide a son for his deceased brother to keep the family
name alive. Today we are not under this commandment; it was given
specifically to Israel. And yet, if no one in the world had
anymore children, the human race would soon become extinct. God
instituted marriage between a man and a woman in this life for the
purpose of preserving the human race. Plus, through the children
produced by marriage God has also given us the Seed He promised to Adam
and Eve - our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Since we won’t die in heaven, there will be no
need for marriage, no more need for producing children there. The
only marriage that will exist in heaven is the marriage between Christ
and His Bride, the Church, for whom He gave His life on the cross, in
order that, as the Apostle Paul writes, “He might sanctify her,
having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He
might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or
wrinkle of any such thing, that she might be holy and without
blemish.” Individually, we will live forever as sons of
God, sons of the resurrection. Jesus says we’ll be like the
angels. He doesn’t say we’ll be angels, which is
something that television shows often try to get us to believe.
But we’ll be like angels in the sense that we won’t be
married and we’ll live forever. We won’t be
sexless. If you’re a man here you’re going to be a
man there; if you’re a woman here you’re going to be a
woman there. After all, it’s the whole you who has been
redeemed by Christ, not just a part of you. So, no marriage in
heaven. It is an earthly estate and blessing that God gives us in
this life.
When Jesus finished answering the Sadducees’
question on marriage, He then addressed the issue that they
didn’t raise, but which was lurking behind this question on
marriage, and that is whether the dead are in fact raised at all.
The Sadducees said “No,” but Jesus points out their
ignorance of the Scriptures when He reminds them of what God told Moses
from the burning bush. There God had said, “I am the God of
Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Now, by
the time of Jesus Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for
centuries. But arguing from these words of God spoken at Mt.
Sinai, Jesus proves from the present tense of the verb “to
be” that there is a resurrection. God doesn’t say,
“I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” but “I
am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” From this Jesus
argues that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all
live to Him (the “all” here being Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob). In other words, if God is the God of the living, what
does that say about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? They’re
alive. God is still their God even now, thousands of years after
their death; therefore, they live.
Now what does all this mean for you and me?
Maybe Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were considered “worthy to attain
to that age and to the resurrection from the dead,” but what
about us? What does Jesus mean when He talks about those
considered to be worthy of the resurrection and the life of the world
to come? Does our worthiness depend on how many good deeds we do,
how sincere our faith and love are, or how holy and godly we
live? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob might have been able to boast in
such things, but their worthiness wasn’t determined by these
either. Instead, as the Scripture says, they believed God’s
promises to them, and God declared them righteous. The same goes
for you and me. Our worthiness before God doesn’t depend on
us and our works, but on God who makes us worthy of the resurrection of
the dead and the life of the world to come by faith in Jesus Christ,
who was crucified for our sins and rose again bodily from the dead, so
that we who believe in Him just as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did might
also be raised from the dead and live forever with Him and all the
saints in the age to come.
Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you too are sons of
God. God, who put His Name on you at your Baptism, sprinkled you
with the blood of His Son, and cleansed you from all unrighteousness,
says of you, “I am your God. I have made you worthy to
stand before me, having clothed you with my Son and His
righteousness.” And with such words spoken to you you can
know for certain that you have eternal life right now, that you will go
to live with Jesus when you die, and that you won’t be abandoned
to the grave, but that you will come back from the dead on the Last Day
just as your Lord did from His grave. His resurrection is the
greatest proof that there is a bodily resurrection of the dead to
come. He is called the firstfruits of those who have fallen
asleep, which means that all who belong to Him and have fallen asleep
in the faith will participate in His resurrection when He returns for
us.
What comfort does this give us, then, concerning
those who have fallen asleep in the faith before us? What does
this say about Bernie Mau, for example? Bernie is alive today,
standing in the presence of the Lord who bought him with His own blood,
and he’s worshiping God with us as we with angels, archangels,
and all the company of heaven laud and magnify our Lord’s
glorious Name. God is still Bernie’s God; therefore, Bernie
lives, as do all who have died in the faith, as you will also even
though you die. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the
life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
God is the God of the living, not the dead.
Once you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You could not
bring yourself back to life. But God made you alive with Christ
and raised you up with him. In your Baptism you were united with
Christ in His death so that you might be united with Him in His
resurrection. Because God has made Himself your God you have
eternal life in Him right now and can look forward to the resurrection
of the dead and the life of the world to come. It may not be
Easter, but today is the day of our Lord’s resurrection, and
because He lives, you will live also. Amen.