Last Sunday was All Saints’ Sunday. We not only baptized Astrid and welcomed her into the household of God, but we were also reminded that on that day, particularly, we are joined with the myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands who are gathered around the throne of God. In actuality, that happens every Sunday; but we are particularly aware of it on All Saints’ Sunday when we remember all those who have gone before, who are now, and who are yet to come. All the saints of God, those we know and those known only to God, are gathered together in one glorious and eternal moment around the Great I AM. In that eternal moment, we am.
That celebration in which we participated last Sunday, and in which we will participate, leads directly into today’s gospel and the Sadducees question about resurrection.
Resurrection is an interesting concept. Most of what we think or believe about resurrection, heaven, the hereafter, or whatever term you want to use, comes from literature, popular culture, or bad theology. Everyone in heaven being 33 years old forever, the rapture, St. Peter greeting people at the pearly gates . . . these are all ideas that were formed to get a grasp of what heaven might be like or who it might include. And most of those ideas are probably wrong. The reality, though, is that no one who came back from the dead has told us exactly what it is or will be like. So we grasp at ideas from what we do know, or what we hope it will be, as we try to make sense of it.
The Sadducees are trying to make sense of things. They are also, probably, trying to bolster their point of view. A brief history lesson.
Like Christianity, Judaism was (and is) not monolithic. That is, there were different groups who held differing beliefs. Sadducees were a priestly class (maybe deriving their name from Zadok whom King Solomon appointed as high priest) and priestly led, religious life was focused in and around the temple, theologically conservative, and held that only the Pentateuch (Genesis – Deuteronomy) was scripturally authoritative. They could find no scriptural basis for resurrection within those first five books.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, were a little different. It was originally a lay-led movement that focused on personal piety, localized faith practices (hence the rise of synagogues beyond the temple and operating independently), and held that the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Writings (so basically all of what we refer to as the Old Testament) were scripturally authoritative. It was within these additional books where they found support for a resurrection – such as Job 19:25-26 (I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.)
The issue of resurrection and the two differing ideas was a deeply contested topic between the two sides.
Let me back up a bit, here. Remember that Jesus has been intentionally moving toward Jerusalem ever since 9:51 when “he set his face to Jerusalem.” In the overall context of the story and this chapter, Jesus is now in Jerusalem. He’s not only in Jerusalem, but this passage takes place during Holy Week. He’s ridden into town on a colt. People have waived palm branches and proclaimed him as the king who comes in the name of the Lord. He’s gone up to the temple, overturned tables, and driven out the merchants and moneychangers.
Chapter 20 of Luke tells the story of Jesus being confronted by the chief priests, scribes, and elders in a variety of efforts to trap him, arrest him, and execute him. Today’s confrontation with the Sadducees may have been less about trapping Jesus and more about getting him to commit to one side or other of the resurrection debate and hopefully dividing his followers in an attempt to reduce his ever-growing popularity.
The question the Sadducees pose is one of those purely hypothetical “gotcha” questions that have no real answer and which an answer has already been determined by the questioner. It’s sort of like the grade school question I got asked at recess one time: “If God is all powerful, could God make a boulder so big that God couldn’t move it?”
Moses wrote that if a man dies before his wife can have children, then his brother is to take her as his wife. A man had a wife, then died childless. His brother then married her, and he likewise died. And so on and so on down through seven brothers, until finally the wife also died. In the resurrection, whose wife will she be?
First of all, it’s not an honest question because Sadducees don’t believe in a resurrection, so why ask the question other than to make Jesus look bad?
Secondly, and more importantly, it shows that they (like a lot of people today) don’t understand what resurrection is.
We might have ideas about what resurrection is, but most likely it’ll be incorrect. The widow of Nain’s son, Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus, and others, weren’t resurrected, they were resuscitated. Basing resurrection on what we know and/or see is basing our ideas on a doctrine that denies death. That’s what the rapture is all about – whisk me away to heaven so I don’t die. This question of the Sadducees assumes resurrection is simply a continuation of this life. And if this life is continued, then it can skirt death.
But a true resurrection theology says that even though we die, God gives us new life. Among other things, this is why Mary Magdalene and the other disciples didn’t at first recognize the resurrected Christ – because resurrected life isn’t a continuation of this life. It’s new. It’s different. And it’s a shared life with the Great I AM in such a way that we am.
The question of the perpetuation of marriage misses all that. In the resurrection life doesn’t need to be perpetuated as it does on earth because in the resurrection life becomes eternally unified with God. In the resurrection we are alive in the Lord. The Lord is the God not of the dead, i.e. those who need to marry, but the God of the living. In the resurrection, then, we am, just as God said, “I AM.”
The only thing I can confidently say about resurrection is that life is changed, not ended. In that change we will be alive in the Lord, living with all the saints and all the host of heaven, eternally unified with God. And that is good news.
Amen.
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