Luke 20:27-38 (The Message)
Some Sadducees came up. This is the Jewish party that denies any possibility of resurrection.
They asked, "Teacher, Moses wrote us that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to take the widow to wife and get her with child.
Well, there once were seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless. The second married her and died, then the third, and eventually all seven had their turn, but no child. After all that, the wife died. That wife, now—in the resurrection whose wife is she? All seven married her."
Some Sadducees came up. This is the Jewish party that denies any possibility of resurrection.
They asked, "Teacher, Moses wrote us that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to take the widow to wife and get her with child.
Well, there once were seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless. The second married her and died, then the third, and eventually all seven had their turn, but no child. After all that, the wife died. That wife, now—in the resurrection whose wife is she? All seven married her."
Jesus said, "Marriage is a major preoccupation here, but not there. Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage nor, of course, with death.
They will have better things to think about, if you can believe it. All ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God.
Even Moses exclaimed about resurrection at the burning bush, saying, 'God: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob!' God isn't the God of dead men, but of the living.
To him all are alive."
I remember, early in seminary, some very honest, older student telling me, "seminary is the only place where you'll meet people who spend three years studying that which cannot be understood."
OK, it's probably not the only place, but it is one of them.
The Sadducces, who didn't believe in resurrection, we're told, thought they could figure out a way to trap Jesus.
They'd ask him a question that would clearly prove the "silliness" of an idea like resurrection.
7 husbands, 1 wife. Who gets to be married to who on the other side?
This is the unfortunate kind of thing that happens to all of us when head dominates heart. Don't get me wrong, it's good to be intelligent and educated. But the best mind runs up against its limits pretty quickly when dealing with the things of God.
Jesus says, in essence: eternity is so much bigger than your question.
Your assessment of Moses' law misses the biggest things that Moses really showed us.
God is the God of the living. Death is not the end. Eternal life with God is a greater and deeper intimacy than we broken humans can imagine today.
Our minds might not wrap around that concept...but our hearts can embrace it.
Prayer: Father, forgive us when we spend our time pondering the loopholes and technicalities of our religion. Help us to see the point: that you are the God of the living and in you we receive the gift of eternal life.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.
Tomorrow's Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
1 comment:
Ha. I always joke with my freshman friends that they should take on Psychology as a major for the same reasons that you mentioned about seminary: You are, essentially, studying things that cannot truly be grasped. I can make some pretty awesome arguments about how the brain works and come up with some absurdly zany theories about behavior and whatnot...and as long as I make it sound convincing, no one could really tell me I am wrong! Nobody truly knows about those aspects of psychology.
We just trust everything is as we perceive it to be.
Our faiths can be quite the same. Faith is believing in what we cannot (yet) see and taking it to be truth.
One of the things that sets Christianity apart from Psychology, though, is that my faith is Christianity changes my life - not just my study habits.
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