The Life of the World To Come

Text: Luke 20:27-40

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Can God make a rock so big that even He can’t lift it? That’s a question that’s asked with the sole intent of putting limits on God. Skeptics will ask it in order to show that either God can create something He can’t lift, so then He must not be almighty; or He can’t create something that big, so there are limits to His powers of creation. But while this question has been asked as a so-called thought experiment, it’s not a question that’s asked in sincerity. It’s nothing more than a word game, a logic trap built by people who try to disprove the idea of an all-powerful God. Insincere questions do not deserve answers.

            This is the tack that Jesus takes when He’s confronted with an insincere question from the Sadducees in our Gospel reading today. The Sadducees were a sect of Judaism that didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, or angels, or that the prophets after Moses were inspired by God. They only accepted the first five books of Scripture, the books of Moses. So from the start, we can see that they’re only asking Jesus a question to corner Him into a logic trap, an absurd situation, hoping that they can use His answer to disprove the idea of a resurrection at the end of time. They paint the scenario: A man is married, but dies without having any children. Now the Law of Moses says that if he dies without any children, that his wife is to be married to his brother so that they can have a child that carries on the family bloodline. This is all in expectation that the Messiah will be born from the clans of Israel. But the second brother dies without children as well, so she’s married to the next in line, and the situation repeats itself through all seven brothers. Now, they ask, “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”

            The Sadducees are asking an inauthentic question with this impossible scenario. But their question actually shows more about themselves than they think it does. It reveals that humanity really has trouble grasping what the life of the world to come will be like. Our default is to try to view it through the lens of existence in this fallen world. But we run into trouble when we try to equate life in this age with the life yet to come in the new heavens and new earth, after the resurrection. There are plenty of things in this life that are good, to be sure. God has given us many gifts for our well-being, to provide for our mortal needs, and also to give us a reflection of Himself as we live here and now in this world. For in this life, God must be veiled when we behold Him, because unholiness—and that includes our own because of sin and our self-focused fallen nature—unholiness cannot survive in the presence of perfect holiness. Anything unholy is consumed and destroyed by holiness, as sure as darkness is destroyed by light. So because of the Fall and its effects on us and creation, God veils Himself behind these gifts, so that we would know His goodness and get an image of all that He does for us in this life and the next. For instance, He gives the beautiful gift of marriage for the mutual companionship, help, and support that each person ought to receive from the other—a picture of our life together with our God who provides for our needs. Marriage exists so that man and woman may find delight in one another, as God delights in us and as we rejoice in our God. He provides marriage for the procreation and raising of children so that human life can continue. Marriage is also a picture of the communion between Christ and His bride, the Church—an image of what Jesus is willing to do for those He loves and shares His life with, and the Church’s response to that love. These are good things, and necessary in this world. But in the new heavens and new earth, in the resurrection, we will not need a picture of this union because we will behold God face-to-face, without need for Him to veil Himself behind these gifts. We will delight in our God perfectly, and in all that God has made and made new. We will live in Paradise and therefore no adversity, poverty, or sickness will cause us to need help and support. We will be, as Jesus says, “equal to the angels” and “sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” In short, we simply cannot equate experiences in this life with those waiting for us in the life of the world to come, no matter how good those experiences and gifts are in the here and now.

            Notice that Jesus does not play the Sadducees’ game. He doesn’t give them an answer. But what He does is show them that yes, there is a resurrection, which they’re trying to discredit with their little logic trap. (Also, by the way, by including angels in His answer, that’s a reaffirmation that they do exist, even in spite of the Sadducees’ disbelief in them.) At the base of what He says is the truth that there is a resurrection of the dead. When Jesus answers, He goes for the underlying assumption, the thing they’re trying to disprove with their outlandish scenario. “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed,” (by citing Moses, He’s showing the Sadducees that He can prove the resurrection of the dead even with just the Scriptures that they accept, without having to go to the later Prophets) “in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

            Indeed, there is a resurrection of the dead. It’s what our entire faith and religion is about. It’s the goal, the whole point of what we’re doing. We confess it every week in the Creed. We get a foretaste of it in every time we eat and drink the Lord’s Supper. We sing with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, including those who have died and are currently with the Lord, awaiting the resurrection when He returns. Our worship is heaven and earth starting to blend in eternal life, just a little ahead of schedule.

            Now this does not mean that this life is just a dress rehearsal, or that because our goal is the resurrection that we disregard the things in this life. We don’t despise the gifts we receive here, gifts like marriage, children, or anything that God has created and entrusted to us. In fact, knowing that there is a resurrection coming makes our relationships in this world mean even more. Because now we can see that this person with us is someone who Jesus died to save and rose from the dead to guarantee they will also rise. This is a person who, like you, receives eternal life through faith. This person you share your life with, no matter your relationship to them—spouse, child, sibling, parent, friend, fellow member of the church—this person is not someone to be disregarded, or used, or looked down upon, or belittled. This is someone who will be gathered around the throne of God when Jesus returns and you will be in communion with them, and the Lord, as never before, in some great, even mysterious to us now, sort of way. These people, like you, are someone who lives to God, even now, having begun eternal life through faith in what Jesus has accomplished for us all. For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him.

            Do not despair or worry that the new heavens and the new earth will be different than what you know now in this world. This restored creation will be different, but in a glorious way. As it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.” So come, receive a glimpse now, in the Communion offered here with your fellow believers and your God. Come taste eternal life, the bliss of Paradise, alongside your fellow beloved saints who are waiting with you for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. In the name of Jesus, whose resurrection promises our own. Amen.