On Marriage and Resurrection
Rev Dr Mark Porizky
11/11/07
Luke 20:19-40
When the scribes and chief priests realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to lay hands on him at that very hour, but they feared the people.
So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor. So they asked him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are right in what you say and teach, and you show deference to no one, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, ‘Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?’ They said, ‘The emperor’s.’ He said to them, ‘Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.
Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 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. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’
Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 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. Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 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. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.
Usually when I meet couples for that very first session of premarital
counseling, I ask them some very loaded, tough questions, difficult questions
intended to knock them off balance, because I want to make them think. I want to
catch them off guard. I feel like it
is my job to call into question everything they think they know about
marriage.
I see that as my job, but I have to confess that I also take a certain
amount of perverse joy in doing that to poor, unsuspecting couples. I enjoy
surprising them, shocking them, asking them tough questions. But, I don't like
it when they do it to me.
As a rule, during my time together with couples preparing for marriage,
we sit down and go through the marriage ceremony. It's so familiar to most folks
that, usually, this is just an exercise mostly to talk about the mechanics of
the wedding – do they want special music or readings or when they want to
light the unity candle - those kinds of details.
But not too long ago I was going through the marriage service with a
couple and we got to the part, during the vows, where they say to each other:
"I take you to be my wife, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall
live." You know that part. Well, we got to that part and the groom to be
said, "Why do we say that?"
I thought to myself, "Why do we say that? Good grief! This guy must
be a little thick. Maybe we need to start the counseling all over again."
But, I didn't say that. Instead I said, "Well, these are your vows. Vows
are your promises to each other that this marriage thing is for the long haul.
In these vows, you are pledging yourselves to each other for the rest of your
life."
He said, "No, no, I mean, why do we say the 'as long as we both
shall live part?' We both believe in
eternal life, so why should death be the end of our marriage?"
"Oh, um, well, uh . . . From now on, I'll be the one asking the
questions around here!" It was an encounter that forced me to admit,
"I've never thought of that before. It's a good question."
Well, what about that? Will death end our marriages or will we somehow
continue that relationship in life eternal or will it even matter? What will
resurrection life look like? What kind of changes will the new world of
resurrection bring? And if we’re
still married into the afterlife, what about those people who remarry?
Does the resurrection create as many problems as it solves? That's
what the Sadducees wanted to demonstrate - that the resurrection is more trouble
than it's worth.
That's what the Sadducees think. The Sadducees believed that once you
were dead, you were dead. A priestly
class, aristocratic and wealthy, the idea of another life after death didn’t
make sense to them. The concept
wasn’t logical. There was no way
to prove it. Their sacred texts were
the Five Books of Moses exclusively and there was no assurance of resurrection
in those writings.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, did believe that there was something
more beyond physical death. They
studied the Hebrew Scriptures but they also respected the oral tradition that
offered a basis for the idea of resurrection.
Hence, the resurrection was an issue of debate during Jesus’ time.
Of those who believed in the reality of life beyond death, some thought
it happened immediately after physical death.
Others thought it would happen at the end time, when all people would
experience the resurrection at one time.
Then, as now, the whole idea of eternal life and resurrection was a
matter of faith, …and debate.
So the priestly Sadducees come up to Jesus and said, "Teacher, the
scriptures say that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, then his
brother is obligated to marry his widowed sister-in-law and have children so
that his dead brother can have heirs. Well, there once were seven brothers. The
first one got married, but died before he had children. The second brother
married his widowed sister-in-law and then he died, then the third brother
married her, and eventually all seven had married her, but had no children. Then
the wife died. Since, in this life, she had been married to all seven brothers,
in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?"
The question the Sadducees ask is one of the “how many angels can dance
on the head of a pin” types of question. It’s
taking a Biblical idea to a ridiculous extreme.
According to an Old Testament Law called “Levirate Marriage,” if a
man dies without an heir, it is his brother’s responsibility to marry his
brother’s widow and provide the dead brother with an heir.
The child that is born to the surviving brother and widow counts as the
child of the deceased husband. This
practice was known throughout the ancient world.
Now the question put to Jesus about Levirate Marriage and the afterlife
is meant to mock the resurrection and Jesus.
But Jesus doesn’t let that deter him.
Jesus answers by noting that their presuppositions are all wrong.
Essentially Jesus says, "You know, that's the dumbest question I've
ever heard. You know John Balwin?
John is a funeral home director. His father before him was a funeral home
director. His father before him was a funeral home director. Now, in the
resurrection do you think he will be a funeral home director? Of course not!
There won't be any need for funeral home directors in the resurrection, because
there won't be anymore death."
Well okay, he doesn't really say that. Instead he says, "In this
world, people get married. Marriage is a major preoccupation here, but not in
the world to come. In the resurrection of the dead you won't be concerned with
marriage or death. You will have better things to think about, believe it or
not. In the resurrection you will be with God. That's all you will worry
about.”
What we have here in this
confrontation is the sum total of all of Jesus' teaching about the resurrection.
You would think that we'd have more. You'd think that he would have told
parables, he would have left us more details about what the resurrection will
entail, but this is it. Other than a few passing references about his own
resurrection - like "destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it
up again" - this is all Jesus has to say about the resurrection.
It's not much. Jesus doesn't try to explain the resurrection. He doesn't
try to describe the details of the resurrection, so we still have a lot of
questions that are left unanswered about the resurrection. Such as: If our
bodies will be raised from the dead, what about cremation? What if somebody gets
eaten by a shark? What about those people who have lost arms or legs? What about
my old beagle, Wags, will he be included in the resurrection, or is it for
people only? Will we know each other? Will we be resurrected right after we die,
or will we lie in wait until Jesus comes again and be resurrected then?
Can you see why the Sadducees had a hard time believing in the
resurrection? There are a lot of unanswered questions. I imagine all of us have
had a hard time at one point or another with resurrection. That's because
normally when things in this world die, they stay dead. And, the only person who
has ever been bodily resurrected didn't tell us a whole lot about the
experience.
This makes the resurrection difficult to market.
The do-it-yourself, self-help culture of North America has so thoroughly
permeated our imaginations that we don't give much sustained attention to the
biggest thing of all: resurrection. And the reason we don't give much attention
to it is because the Resurrection is not something we can use or manipulate or
control or improve on. It is interesting that the world has had very little
success in commercializing Easter, turning it into a commodity, the way it has
Christmas. If we can't, as we say, "get a handle on it," and use it,
we soon lose interest. But resurrection is not available for our use; it is
exclusively God's operation.
And God’s operation in resurrection, in raising Jesus from the dead, was just the beginning. The same God who created this world and saw that it was good, will not leave this world to rot and perish in its own sin and destructiveness. God loves us too much for that.
The resurrection is God's way of
creating a new heaven and a new earth without doing away with the old heaven and
the old earth. It is God's way to redeem and reclaim this world, to take what we
have messed up and make it right again. The resurrection is God's unwillingness
to let us go, because God loves his creation that much, God loves us that much.
So, when Jesus was raised from the dead, it is just the first wave of God's
activity of resurrecting the whole world.
You know, I got to thinking, just like the Sadducees, we want an
explanation of the resurrection. We have lots of questions about the whole idea
of resurrection. But, usually our questions about the resurrection have to do
with us. What's going to happen to us? How long is it going to take for it to
happen? Will we be like we are now? Will our present relationships continue?
Will we know each other? Will I have to wear glasses, or will I get my 20/20
eyesight back? Can I be taller? Me,
me, me. Us, us, us.
But the resurrection is really not about us at all. Resurrection is
really about God. Resurrection is about the faithfulness of a God who will not
abandon his creation, his children. That's why Jesus answers the Sadducees like
he does. Forget marriage. Marriage is of this world. Resurrection is a whole new
world. In that world we will all be with our God - a God who has been known to
breathe life into a valley full of dry bones, a God who opens up graves and
tombs, a God who is the God of the living - not the dead.
That's why you can't explain the resurrection. It is a mystery. About all
we know for sure is that we serve a God who is going to make all things right in
the end. You can't explain the resurrection. The resurrection explains us. The
resurrection explains how, in the middle of all the suffering and pain and evil
in this world, we Christians can still have hope.
The
Ultimate Gift is a movie about an arrogant, spoiled young man named Jason
Stevens (played by Drew Fuller). Jason expects a huge inheritance when he hears
that his grandfather has died. What he gets instead is a crash course in life.
Jason is required to do twelve tasks—what his grandfather calls
"gifts"—designed to challenge him in improbable ways.
Among Jason's tasks is the challenge to make one true friend within a
month. He soon befriends Emily (Abigail Breslin), a little girl battling
leukemia. In this scene, Jason finds Emily sitting alone in the hospital chapel.
She is staring at a statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched.
"I wonder if he takes advance orders," she says.
"For what?" Jason asks.
"For my place. You know—up there," Emily answers as she
points upward.
"What do you think it's going be like?" Jason asks.
"Butterflies—lots of butterflies. Do you know God paints every
color on a butterfly with his finger?" asks Emily.
"I didn't know you thought about stuff like that," Jason
replies.
"I think about dying," Emily says, as she begins to cry.
"There's something basically unfair about a person dying. I even hate the
idea."
"You know," Jason says softly, "I don't know much about
God or Jesus, but I can promise you that those arms are meant for you."
Soon after Emily's death, Jason eventually inherits $100 million from his
grandfather. He invests every dime of it to build Emily's Home, a facility for
families whose children are facing extraordinary health challenges.
Jason understands what the Sadducees don’t.
Resurrection is not really about marriage, or even butterflies, frankly.
Resurrection is about knowing that God’s arms, as demonstrated by
Jesus, are for you.
Will you pray with me now?
St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton
,
Web Site: WWW.SAPC-CT.ORG
Office Email: OFFICE@SAPC-CT.ORG
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