Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, November 10, 2019
Today’s Scripture is a theological debate between the Sadducees and Jesus. They team up together to pick a fight, ridicule Jesus’ teaching, and put him to public shame and disgrace. This is a great follow up to last week’s sermon about laughter. To them bodily resurrection is a joke. They tell a hypothetical story of a woman who loses seven husbands in this life and then asking whose wife will she be in the life to come. They straw-man Jesus’ teaching about life after death. They are pushing resurrection to what they see as logical absurdity. I have to admit, it makes for a hilarious plot for a heavenly bachelorette show: seven prospective husbands, all brothers, all married to her in the previous life, which one will she choose?
Jesus does not take the bait. He does not engage in their intellectual game of “gotcha.” Instead, he masterfully turns the tables around. Marriage is relevant to us in this life, Jesus says. But our relationship to one another and to God will be completely transformed in the life of the world to come. You cannot compare apples to oranges. Life on earth is not the same as life in heaven. Our identity in time and space is not the same as our identity in eternity. Our thinking is limited because our minds are bound by time and space. We get ourselves into trouble when we try to understand the holy through the profane—the eternal through temporal. We think God’s truth is foolishness because it defies human reason. We don’t believe because we cannot easily explain. We have yet to discover how the resurrection has any relevance now.
One reason I believe that Jesus is more than carpenter, rabbi, or prophet is how he uses Scripture. He takes something very simple—how God identifies himself in the burning bush: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” And then he adds his divine insight: “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” I asked Anna, our church secretary, to include the two verses after because the words make me laugh: “They no longer dared to ask Jesus another question.” They threw a curve ball; Jesus hits it out of the park. They try to stump the teacher; the teacher stumps them. They now silently reflect on the simple but profound truth of the resurrection so beautifully revealed in how God identifies himself.
We need God’s perspective on our lives. God’s perspective on our earthly lives is very different than ours. He is not bound by time and space. God sees life where we see death. Ancient history for us is but as yesterday to God. Those we speak of as “passed away” and “no longer with us” are now with Jesus in glory. God sees gain where we see loss. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are children of the resurrection thousands of years before Jesus’ resurrection. How much more are we children of the resurrection now? God is in the eternal now. We can only understand God and ourselves through the lens of the Gospel—the temporal through the eternal. God calls us to trust him in death and life even though now we cannot see the other side.
Here is Jesus assurance: Those who are the fathers of our faith for us in the past are God’s children of the resurrection in the eternal now. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not our great-grandfathers. They are our brothers in Christ. God does not have any grandchildren. He is Heavenly Father to the whole human race from the dawn of creation to Jesus’ return...just as Jesus taught us all to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Here is a mind-blowing truth: When Jesus died he put death to death for all the generations that preceded him and all of those who follow. Scripture says Jesus is the Lamb of God who was slain since before the creation of the world (Rev. 13:8)
Similarly, when Jesus rose again from the grave he brought life and light to those who preceded him in death and all those who follow. Scripture calls Jesus “The firstborn of creation—the firstborn of the dead” (Colossians 1:15; Rev 1:5). We are adopted through the water, Word, and Holy Spirit of baptism. Sin and death are drowned and buried by the death of Christ. We are also raised there through faith by the same powerful work that raised Jesus from the dead (Col 2:12). Jesus’ words are so reassuring—so powerful: “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”
Moments from now, we will witness Samantha’s baptism. She is daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, and sister to us. She is a child of the resurrection now through the same water, Word, and Holy Spirit. This is the miracle of Baptism: not how we see it but how God sees it. Many years and many generations may still come and go. Samantha, you, and I may become mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents and part of an ancient history and past to those who follow us...if Jesus delays his return. We may become part of a passing generation and even forgotten. But we are not lost to God. We are now and forever daughters and sons of the resurrection.
For thus the Father willed it,
Who fashioned us from clay;
And His own Son fulfilled it
And brought eternal day.
The Spirit now has come,
To us true faith has given;
He leads us home to heaven.
O praise the Three in One! (“From God Can Nothing Move Me,” LSB 713 v. 7)
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