The Resurrection of the Dead

The 24^th Sunday after Pentecost    The Church of the Good Shepherd

Texts:  Luke 20:27-40      The Rev. Ross M. Wright

      Job 19:23-27a      

      I would guess that this passage is not on most people’s list of the favorite sayings of Jesus. It seems to cast something of a shadow over marriage, or at least it can be heard that way. Jesus makes it clear that God has created marriage for this age, not for the age to come:

And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.¹ But those who are counted worthy to obtain unto that age and the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage;² for they are not even able to die any more, for they are like angels; they are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 

The Sadducees’ question is designed to show that the resurrection of the body is an absurdity. Their test case may be manipulative, but it is successful in one important respect: it shows that resurrection life cannot be merely “an extension of the good life this age.”³ 

      The underlying issue is not marriage per se or about having children and grandchildren who continue our legacy. The deeper issue is bodily existence itself. Our bodies are beautiful and complex beyond description. They are part of our identity. But like everything in this world, they are passing away. “For the form of this world is passing away.”⁴ After about age 50, the warranty on our bodies runs out. 

      It is humbling to realize that we do not possess life or the capacity to give life, that “all life is enclosed in death.”⁵ We are loathe to acknowledge that with age comes loss of vigor, strength, and flexibility. The culture is not much help in this regard. It teaches us to try to hide this reality. I was reflecting about these things recently with a friend who just turned 70 and was pointing out some of the rather humbling limitations she now faces. She added that her husband refuses to acknowledge that he is not as vigorous and energetic as he was when he was younger. The indication of this, she says, is that he refuses to take his blood pressure medication. 

      One of the most powerful witnesses to the resurrection is seeing someone who has learned how to age gracefully. This is what was so moving about the Pope John Paul – he let us see him grow old and gradually lose his capacities, despite the fact that he had been a man of extraordinary vigor. I think of those photos in the last years of his life, when Parkinson’s had run its course. He was hunched over, unable to speak. He showed us what it means for a believer to embrace the inevitable process of aging and to consecrate it to God in hope. 

Those who are counted worthy to obtain unto that age and the resurrection of the

dead. . . are like angels; they are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 

There is great mystery here. Human language and human concepts are inadequate to express the reality of life in the coming age. But whatever our future existence is like, it certainly will not be an inferior version of life in this age. 

      In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the angel Raphael has a conversation with Adam before the fall. Raphael goes on at some length, expatiating about the bliss of heavenly life. He points out, for example, that the angels enjoying eating. Adam then asks if the angels express affection physically. Raphael blushes and smiles, then responds:

      Let it suffice thee that thou know’st

      Us happy, and without Love, no happiness.

      Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy’st

      . . . we enjoy

      In eminence, and obstacle find none

      Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars;

      Easier than Air with Air, if Spirits embrace,

      Total they mix, Union of Pure with Pure

      Desiring⁶

Then he concludes: I cannot tell you any more than that! 

      Christian faith proclaims the resurrection of the body, as in the words of Job:

I know that my redeemer liveth, and that at the latter day, he shall stand upon the earth. And though this body be destroyed – this skin – then in my flesh, I shall see God, whom I shall behold, and not as a stranger.

It is not hard to find people who believe in some concept of an afterlife – the idea of the immortality of the soul. What is distinctive about the Christian faith is hope in the resurrection of the body. God will recreate our bodies – miraculously – a miracle on the order of his original creation of the universe. 

 

      The dead will be raised. This is the witness of Holy Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.   

But that the dead are raised, even Moses made known at the bush, as he said ‘the Lord God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob.’ But God is not God of the dead but of the living, for all live [to] for /in him.⁷

      What kind of argument is this? Abraham was already dead when the Lord referred to himself as “the God of Abraham.” But God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Therefore, for this relationship to be actualized, Abraham must be raised from the dead. “What is true of Abraham is true of all who trust share his covenant relation with God”⁸ And notice how Jesus shifts attention away from speculation about heaven to a relationship with God in the present. He is the living God and the God of the living, of all who live in him. 

      This confrontation between Jesus and the Sadducees occurred in the Jerusalem temple. It was here that Mary and Joseph brought him to be circumcised and dedicated the Lord when he was eight days old and where the old man Simeon recognized him as the Israel’s messiah, a light for all nations. This is the very spot where, several days earlier, he overthrew the money changers. It was here that Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days,” referring to his death and resurrection. He is the new temple. His resurrection is the sign and promise of our resurrection. He is the first fruits of all those who put their trust in him. 

      This morning, the risen Christ is present, as he was present with Mary and Martha at the grave of Lazarus, and says to us: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Do you believe this? God help us to say with Mary: Yes, Lord, we believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God. We believe that you will raise us up on the last day. 

 

¹ Original translation here and throughout. NRSV: “Those who belong to this age”.

² KJV: “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage”

³ Earle Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 234-37. 

⁴ I Cor. 7:31.

⁵ Bonheoffer, Ethics.

⁶ Book VIII, 618-20. 

⁷ NRSV: “for to him all of them are alive.” KJV: “for all live unto him.”

⁸ Ellis, 235.