Questions about the Resurrection

Luke 20:27-40

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

The Sadducees were the religious elite, the priests, the politically influential (the Pharisees were more middle class and more likely to be lay people). The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. In fact, their theological understanding faith had little to no room for the miraculously.

Given the Sadducees’ theological bias, their question is intentionally absurd. They are not really seeking an answer; rather they are trying to belittle anyone who believes in the miraculous and in the resurrection of the body. Jesus avoids their question and turns instead to the question of the resurrection itself, which he affirms as real.

In the resurrection, those who are raised to new life are the children of God and they live forever. That they “cannot die anymore” (vs. 36) is also an allusion to the fact that sickness and pain and suffering (physical and emotional and psychological) do not exist in heaven.

But these are high sounding words, what proof does Jesus have? Moses, the great law-giver, the one who knew God’s presence in the burning bush, called the Lord the God of Abraham (present tense), the God of Isaac (present tense), the God of Jacob (present tense). But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all died by the time Moses was around, so why was Moses using present tense? Because while their life in this world was over; they were living the life to come. This life is wrapped up in the miraculous power of the resurrection. God does raise the dead, and it matters little to Jesus if the Sadducees believe that or not, he knew that the resurrection life is true.

PRAYER: 

We rejoice, O Lord, in the hope and promise of the resurrection. We rejoice in the hope that flows to us even now, that the dead in your Son Jesus Christ are alive with you. We rejoice that death is not the end, and that your reign of perfect harmony is yet to be revealed in the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.