Better Things to Think About

 Read Luke 20:27-38 and hear Jesus’ answer to a question posed as a “gotcha”.

       Years ago, I looked forward to going to heaven to ask God a question.  I was irked about something and wanted to know why.  As I grew in my faith and learned more about Heaven, I realized heaven is perfect, and there nothing will worry or frustrate me.  Church, we tend to apply our limited knowledge to all situations and that’s precisely what we find the Sadducees doing – yet they are doing it to intentionally make Jesus look foolish.

      Sadducees are often lumped together with the Pharisees because they both saw Jesus as a threat to their status and power, yet they were very different.  In part, this was a theological test, and the Sadducees chose to challenge Jesus, confronting him about the resurrection, angels, and afterlife.

       Let’s take a moment to think about heaven; and what we can expect. Scripture unwraps some of the facts: there is no sun or moon there, it’s lit all the time, it is the glory of God which gives light. There are no tears, sorrow, anger or pain.  In heaven there is no deafness, lameness, or blindness.  We are told that there is music.  There is a pure river of water proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and on either side is the "tree of life".   There is a city, a main street lined with gold, twelve gates which are made of pearls and walls of jasper.  There we will be able to sit at the table with loved ones and with the Fathers and Mothers of Faith.  It will be perfection and joy--and that the joy will transcend our earthly experience.  Scripture implies that it is a place far greater than anything we can comprehend.   

      The Sadducees avow the laws of the Old Testament regarding marriage and espouse the responsibilities of men to their brothers’ wives.  They use the concept of caring for the widows to raise the question of resurrection.  In short, the Sadducees concocted this ridiculous scenario asking Jesus, if a brother dies and another brother marries the brother’s wife and so on, who’s the spouse in heaven?  The stage is set; this earthly conundrum is the springboard for explaining God’s relationship with humanity.

     Maybe never having considered this before you are now wondering, what is the answer?  Jesus knew this was not their real question so he responded succinctly saying, “Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage...They will have better things to think about…” (v. 35, MSG).  Their bone of contention was about the doctrine of resurrection.  In a few verses, He used scripture to remove their blinders and enabled some of them to realize their faulty thinking.  They were using a set of rules and making assumptions that were not applicable to life in heaven.  They failed to acknowledge God’s power or employ His Word.  

      As implied, we must remember that life in heaven is not like life as we know it.  There is life after this life, but it is different, Heaven is not a continuation of earth. We will be us – a perfected us.   While we do not know a lot about life in heaven, scripture tells us that we will know our family members.  And in that perfection, our focus will be on God.  Just like environmental issues or matters of money will not consume our eternity, in this text Jesus is explaining that neither will marriage in an institutional sense.  In Heaven, there will be far greater things to concern our minds.  

     Then he explained, using only the authoritative words of scripture from the Torah that to be alive to God affirms that life is perpetual, death is not the end.  It is important to notice the present verb tense Jesus spoke in regarding God’s relationship with Abraham, Isaac, Moses and Jacob.  God is the God of each, for all are alive.  God is the God of the living; God is actively in relationship with everyone.   

     Children of God, made in His image, we are children of the Resurrection…not because of anything we have done, only because of God’s grace; it is strictly through the redemptive act of Jesus we are made righteous.  Search Scripture starting with 1 Corinthians 15:22, Colossians 3:1-3 and Romans 8:11 to conclude that with life in Christ, death does not have the final word.  In other words, Christ’s resurrection is the foundation of ours.  In resurrection, believers are alive, eternally; present with God and alive in God. 

      Like the Sadducees maybe you find yourself putting Jesus in a box, making assumptions.  In this text we are reminded to defer, search, and study Scripture. Church, this is a matter of life and death; belief in the resurrection determines our eternity.  While we don’t know a lot about death or heaven, what we do know is when we do die and do believe, we will be with our Savior, see our Father, and we will live forever and ever.  We are raised to life immortal.  And all God’s people say, amen.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Kerry

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