THE LIVING DIFFERENCE

Readings: Psalm 98, Exodus 3:1-6, 2 Thessalonians. 1-5,13-17, Luke 20:27-38
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, 7th November 2010

A printable PDF file of this sermon can be found here.

Some Mormons believe that if you are a faithful Mormon then after you die you are resurrected to the third or celestial heaven, where you are given a kingdom for yourself and your family. There you will rule, as a god like being whilst you populate a separate planet of your own.

One form of Islamic belief is that heaven is filled with earthly pleasures, a paradise of sensual delights. Other belief systems suggest that when you die you are sent back again to this earth, maybe as a human or maybe as an animal. Still others see life as circle that only reaches it’s end once the soul has achieved a sense of oneness with Creation.

For sure these questions of eternity and after-life have vexed many minds over many centuries. In Jesus day there were Pharisees and teachers of the Law and Essennes and Herodians and Greeks and Romans, all of who had very different ideas about what happened after death. And amongst them there were also the Sadducees. The Sadducees did not believe in Resurrection. As the joke goes… that’s why they were ‘Sad –You - See.’

They believed in the Scriptures, but only the books of Moses. They figured that once God had given the commandments, everything else was unnecessary. Just get back to the ‘true’ bible and things will change. One thing they were convinced that their bible didn’t teach was that there would be any kind of resurrection from the dead for those who believed.

The Sadducees saw Pharissees as over burdened with laws and far too sure that they alone knew the purpose of God. They saw the temple authorities as tied up with the politics and ceremony of the day. They saw the common people as… well…‘common’. And they didn’t like Jesus. His popularity was a threat to their respectful position and His teaching about God seemed dangerous.

So they come to Jesus with a trick question about marriage. According to the Levitical law in Deuteronomy 25:5 (one of the books they did believe in) if a man died childless, his brother must marry the widow and beget children to carry on the family line.

‘O.K Rabbi’, they say, ‘answer us this one’. This guy marries a girl, dies, so, as the law says, his brother marries her, then he dies and so and so on right through all the brothers.” “If there is a resurrection” they challenge, “Whose wife will she be in the after-life?”

Jesus, as He often did, turned the question around and left them with more questions than answers. In the first part of His answer Jesus cautions the Sadducees not to think of heavenly things from an earthly perspective. Constructing imaginary scenarios and trying to logically think of what heaven may be like, on the basis of the life they were experiencing on earth, was doomed to failure.

We too can construct heavens in our imaginations, heavens based on our likes and dislikes. Do we really want to sit on a fluffy white cloud, strumming a harp in the company of overfed cherubs and anaemic looking angels? There has to be more to it than that! So Jesus throws some powerful word pictures our way. He firstly, no doubt in response to their question, plays with the idea of marriage.

Marriage, He explains, is something that belongs to this life on this earth. Marriage, as Scripture elsewhere affirms, is a high and holy calling; relationships between husband and wife are a reflection of the relationship of Christ to the church. But only a reflection.

Relationships with people in heaven are to be more beautiful, more committed, with greater depth and intimacy than anything you may experience on earth. To make a comparison between that heavenly situation and the too-ings and fro-ings of earthly relationships was wrong.

Not only was marriage not going to be happening in heaven but neither was death. Verse 29 ‘for they cannot die anymore’. The same would apply to the bearing of children. Jesus scolds the Sadducees for their lack of appreciation that life on earth was not life in heaven and suggests that they were indeed foolish if they thought they could work the one out on the basis of the other. But He doesn’t leave it there. He also takes issue with them on their understanding of the Scripture.

He doesn’t take issue with the fact that they only thought the first five book of Moses were Scriptures worth taking note of, rather that they hadn’t grasped the significance of what was contained in those first five books. They claim that in those Scriptures there was no reference to any kind of resurrection.

Jesus takes them on a bible study in the Book of Exodus, the passage about Moses and the burning bush. In the passage, Jesus points out that Moses calls God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was impossible that God should be the God of the dead. Therefore Abraham and Isaac and Jacob must be the living. God was God of the living! So there was such a thing as the resurrection. Their own Scriptures said it was so. The Saduccess are silenced by this answer.

At the end of the day the Sadducees were left looking foolish because they thought they knew more about the Scriptures than Jesus did. They argued about the concept of resurrection with somebody who was about to exemplify for all time and all people the real thing.

For ourselves, who profess Jesus Christ as Savior, we do well to hear His perspective on the after-life. He assures us that if we put our faith and trust in Him, then something immeasurably worthwhile, indescribably wonderful, awesome, majestic, beyond anything earthly words, pictures or thoughts can adequately describe, is awaiting us on the other side.

Jesus uses an enigmatic phrase; ‘sons of the resurrection’ to describe those who seek to make their ultimate destination God’s Kingdom. I like that phrase. Let it sing through your mind a little. ‘Sons and daughters of the resurrection’ Imagine jumping out of bed in the morning with that attitude coloring your day.

“I am a resurrection person. The things I do today are not confined by the boundaries of death, decay and time. I am a resurrection person. The life which I will live today is part of a life that will never be diminished. The things I do today are making a mark, not only on the passing things of this life but in eternity.

I am a resurrection person. Though I may face defeats, God will turn them to victories, though I may face failures, God will use them to build my character, though I may face darkness, God will lead me with His light, though I may face suffering, God will heal all my infirmities in His good time. I am a resurrection person. Every moment in time that ticks by, bringing age and eventually death is but a glorious moment that is bringing me closer to my final destiny, my eternal home, my Fathers house; I am a resurrection person, I am an Easter person and Hallelujah is my song!

Belief in the resurrection makes a difference. A living difference to every moment you live on earth. Just occasionally the awareness of that glorious Kingdom does seep through to us. Don’t fight it. Embrace it. Listen to Jesus. Keep learning what His Words teach us. Trust in God, that in His hands, saved by grace, through faith, you’re safe.

And to God be the glory. Amen.