Luke
20:27-40 NIV
27 Some of the
Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a
question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for
us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must
marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now
there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The
second 31 and then the third married her, and in
the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally,
the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the
resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age
marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of
taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will
neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die;
for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are
children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning
bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the
dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
39 Some of the teachers of the law
responded, “Well said, teacher!” 40 And no one
dared to ask him any more questions.
Look!
Look
back, look forward, look around. Look into my tomb, look beyond my tomb, look
back to my tomb, or look through my tomb… I don’t know what to think. It’s so
confusing!
People are
looking around all the time. People want to know what is in the future. People
can see the past but have no idea what the future may bring. We think we can
plan for the future, but many times something unplanned takes place.
The
Sadducees were wealthy priests for the most part. They were conservative and
relied on the five books of Moses for guidance and law. Most everything was cut
and dry and planned. But in order to question Jesus with a point of the law,
they approached Him with a question.
And it
seems true then as it is today; we always want to make familiar what we know to
match what we do not know. We take for granted that what we see, here and now,
will be seen the same in the future and in heaven as well.
Paul gives
us a hint on how we set our minds on the here and now…
Philippians
3:18-19 NIV
18 For, as I have often told
you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of
the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is
destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their
shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.
We look to this earth. We
look to this life and try to relate everything to only here in our own time. We
can understand here and now. The future and heaven are beyond what we can
imagine, so we resist anything we can’t see or understand. The future and
heaven can’t be trusted by so many people of today.
This heaven and eternal
life stuff is some weird stuff to think about. It may even scare us a bit.
As an angel appeared to
Moses in the burning bush and God called to Moses…
Exodus
3:6 NIV
6 Then he said, “I am the
God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at
God.
What did Moses see?
What did Moses think? Moses was hearing God and seeing an angel in the burning
bush. It’s so confusing! All of this God stuff, angels, fire, burning bush, and
the voice of God. What’s up?
But it’s all about the
point of view.
All summer long, it
seems, we have been travelling along with Jesus and His disciples as He
approaches Jerusalem. Jesus is bound to do the will of God. Jesus is teaching
His disciples and us as we have looked at all of these passages from Luke, and
it’s always been a bit weird, but now Jesus seems to be teaching some really
weird stuff. Jesus has had us look at the Kingdom of God from here to there and
now from there to here. And it's something to grasp and think about that is
beyond us. It’s something that causes us to stop and rely on what God has been
doing all along. What choice do we have?
It's all about point of
view.
In this reading from John, Jesus
attempts to put our wondering and wandering minds at ease about heaven and God’s
Kingdom.
John
14:2 NIV
2 My Father’s house has many
rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to
prepare a place for you?
It’s easy to understand the confusion
of the Sadducees. Sure, maybe they were also trying to trap Jesus in a
definition of resurrection, but maybe not. They brought forth a real-world
situation that applied to the laws that they could understand and wanted to
know what would happen in heaven with this kind of thing that we deal with on
earth.
And then, Jesus points out the
obvious. Duh! In heaven we won’t need to procreate children, so it doesn’t
matter what happened with the wife on earth without child. After all, in heaven
and here as well, we ARE the children. That doesn’t mean that in heaven
marriage will end. Jesus doesn’t say that, so we can’t assume that to be the
case.
So, if we’re caught looking back to
earth from heaven with earthly eyes, we may just not have a clue.
Jesus is teaching how the resurrected life
IS NOW AND to come.
Let’s look at John once again… this is
when Jesus is speaking to Martha, the sister of the about to be raised to life,
Lazarus…
John
11:25-26 NIV
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection
and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they
die; 26 and whoever lives by
believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
See it? Jesus is the resurrection. He
is the resurrected life NOW and to come as well.
Our earthly reasoning and our earthly
values and desires won’t always apply in heaven.
It’s all the point of view. And Jesus
has the point of view we need.
And Paul attempts to put that point of
view into words. Listen to this…
Romans
8:38-39 NIV
38 For I am convinced that
neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height
nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There will be evil in this
world. Yet even so, Jesus has come and will come again. Ever since the fall of
mankind in the Garden of Eden, when God wanted to know, “Where are you?” ---
God has been hunting us down. God has been turning us around. God has found us
and has forgiven us and saved us. God has always been there near us and for us
to provide us the point of view… from a burning bush, to the cross, God calls
out my name, your name, and the name of ALL people. And nothing can separate us
from Him.
It's all about point of
view. All and everything. So… Look!
Praise God and give thanks
for all that has been done, and will be done… today… tomorrow and forever. Yes,
God sees the situation and has the point of view. Thanks be to God!
I leave you with this YouTube
music video that spoke to me this week…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqWEtfpTgo&list=RDzVqWEtfpTgo&start_radio=1
“Lord I Lift Your Name On
High”
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