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From the First Baptist Church in America pulpit
The Season of Easter – April 22, 2007
"Whose Wife Will She Be?"
Luke 20:27‑40
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

If there’s anybody I’d like to hear talk about Easter, it would be Jesus. But he didn’t have a lot to say about what it's like to die and come back alive. He just said "Don't be afraid." Wouldn't you like to hear from the only one whose been to hell and back, what its like to rise from the dead? Well we're in luck, because today we're going to look at what he said about the resurrection in Luke's Gospel. Or what he didn’t say about it, is more like it.

The Sadducees, they don't really care what Jesus thinks about the hypothetical "woman with seven husbands in the afterlife." Its just another weak attempt to frame him. But they do provide a backdrop for Luke to demonstrate the irrationality of resurrection. Even though their question lacked sincerity, Jesus' answer didn't. I find it stunning that this passage in Gospel of Luke contains the sum total of Jesus' teaching on resurrection. Not only is it spartan, the context is about marriage, since that's when mysteries still tend to show up. I've counseled with many a couple who wonder why we use "till death do us part" in the ceremony. Many of them prefer "as long as we shall love," not live; not knowing yet that love comes and goes. So how does “death part us” if there’s a resurrection?

I remember trying to console a widow over the loss of her husband with the worn cliche: "You'll be back together again one day." But later she said to me when we're alone: "I'm never going to get away from him am I?" Resurrection has implications for marriage.

If the world to come is merely a continuation of this one, then the prospect of eternal life is not going to be something everybody looks forward to. Whether or not you’re hopeful or dreadful of being reunited in the afterlife with someone in this life, depends on the quality of the relationship. 50% try to live together before they're fit to live with. So the last thing they want is for it to go on forever!

The Sadducees are nit-picking. They allow-as-how if there is a resurrection, it creates complications. Like the woman with seven husbands. That circumstance is based on Jewish law, which cares less about her marriages than it does her offspring. Before the idea of life after death ever occurred to anybody, the Hebrews believed they lived on through their kids. As long as there were descendants to remember them and carry on the family name, and the gene pool, then they still had life, even though they were long gone.

It was meant to be a compassionate law, but the legalists rendered it silly by multiplying it times seven and turning it into a riddle. But Jesus wouldn=t bite. Unlike the Pharisees, who did believe in the resurrection, the Sadducees noted that Moses said nothing about it. That's all they needed to hear. To them it seemed like wishful thinking, more than anything solid to bet your life on.

And there's plenty of Sadducee still around. A Gallup poll shows 69% of Americans believe in an afterlife. That means 1/3 of the population agrees with them. They have a point. Moses had nothing to say about a resurrection. Nor does any other law I know of. If the resurrection is true, then it breaks all the rules of common sense and experience; and we’re left with absurd situations. Like the gal who marries seven guys and they all die, which one will she have in the afterlife? One of them? If so which one? The first? The last? The handsomest? Ugliest? Or is it all of them at once? Does it really matter? What if it did?

Jesus didn't want to fool with this. You can tell from how he talks about it. He knew it was a set-up. That's why he said it was "none of the above." He didn’t care how many husbands she had in this life. You recall how he accepted the Samaritan woman with five of them in (John 4)! Now Paul was incredulous that some Christians didn't believe in the resurrection. "If Christ be not raised, then we are of all people most hopeless." How can ya’ll not believe in it? That was his preaching in Athens, even if it’s to “an unknown god.” It’s a reasonable perspective. But Jesus was more theological than rational about the resurrection. He wasn’t so concerned about us believing in God. But about God believing in us. Its not about what we stand to get out of it or getting to go to heaven when we die, but with our origin in God and our ongoing union with God; which means that anyone who was ever part of God's life never stops being part of it. Even if it's your lucky day, like the dying thief on Good Friday, who only asked to be remembered. Jesus agreed. Then added “Today, he will be with him in paradise!”

New Testament resurrection is a bodily thing, something that Gnostics and Puritans think is evil. You know, fleshly, earthly, sinful? But Jesus believed that bodies count with God, as well as souls. And he doesn't file them away separately like us Greek Platonists do. Bodies here. Souls there. You can tie your brain up in knots trying to figure it out. But I don't know anybody who ever has. Jesus said next to nothing about it. It can't be proved. Reason doesn't work with resurrection of the dead.

Bodily resurrection is one of those things like baseball or sex that you either go for or you don't. About 30% don't. That's a lot more Sadducees than were living in Jesus' day. But even if you're one of those who goes for it, just be aware that even Jesus, the only authority on it, didn’t have much to say about it.

Paul, bless his heart, tried. "Listen," he said, "I show you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we’ll all be changed" (I Cor. 15:51‑52). But a mystery is about as good as we can put it this side of heaven. And as far as I can tell, bodily resurrection from the dead ranks right up in there with the virgin birth or the ascension or something. It continues to be a major obstacle for thinking people to sink their teeth into. We have the Apostles Creed, which attests to the resurrection of the dead. But it’s a pre‑scientific world view. Or if you prefer a scientific approach, you can find Christian physicists and creationists who believe our souls function along the lines of DNA carrying our unique pattern inside our bodies when we die, that God will use to recreate our bodies in the future world. By the way, speaking of DNA, have you ever wondered what Jesus' DNA would look like? Then there’d be no doubt about who is Daddy was!

Which do you prefer? The language of the creed or Christian quantum physics? Take your pick. For myself, I don't think either one matters. And what if it did? Because resurrection isn't about our ability to believe the unbelievable. It has less to do with out faithfulness. And more about God's promise, who will not abandon the personhood of those who belong to him, when we pass thru the dark zone. Not Jesus. Not us. God is faithful. That's what Jesus is getting at when he responds to the Sadducees silliness, "Which one of the seven will be her husband?" Like it mattered. It didn=t. Which is why Jesus said, "Never mind about the weddings." Marriage is how we pass on life in this world. Its about us in the here and now. But in the world to come, that won't be necessary anymore. Because there will be no more “here and now … then.” No need for it. Because we'll be wed to the God who is able to raise people out of the dust, putting sinew on dry bones, out of the bits and pieces of love we're able to scrape up over a lifetime of trying, "For he is not the God of the dead, but of the living," for to him all of them are alive.

Now brace yourself. Because this is all Jesus had to say on the subject of resurrection in Luke. You can search all four gospels and find no other formal teaching from him on it. It’s as if he didn't care. But he just cared about other matters more. What you will find is that he went on ahead of us to test the waters for himself. Surrendering his own life as we know it, and when those who loved him came to perfume the body, they couldn't find it anything, but an empty tomb with the stone rolled away.

When he showed up later, he did so with a different but recognizable body. Not a disembodied spirit. Sorry about that, Gnostics! With that body, he ate fish, broke bread, cooked breakfast. With that body, he breathed the breath of God right into them! And he let Thomas touch the wounds to verify that he was who he was.

It was a body that could walk through walls and vanish while people were looking right at him. There was continuity and discontinuity. They knew him. And they didn't. One minute they celebrated. The next they were trembling. I can't say that I blame 'em! I like the way Luke puts it: "They disbelieved for joy!" How on earth do you disbelieve for joy? The Easter Jesus was the same, but different. And because he was both, our futures just might turn out to be as exciting as his. Like Paul said, "A mystery!" But one we can trust God with.

Now I'm not trying to convince anybody here of anything. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I'm just trying to be faithful to Luke. Because resurrection can't be supported by human reason anymore than it can be verified by human experience. It comes at us another way.

Every funeral I've presided over, every graveside I stood over...not one person has come back. I wouldn't say that about Jesus. Would you? I know, I know, we don=t have that much to go on. All we have are the stories told by the evangelists, which are based on the unreasonable events of people we never knew.

But because of them, we still have a church, that we can belong to or not. And we also have a choice; whether to believe the stories or not. The way I see it, if we believe them and they turn out to be wrong. Well we haven't lost anything. We'll be duped, gullible, dead. That's about it. But if, on the other hand, we do not believe them and we turn out to be wrong; well we hit the heavenly jackpot! There'll be a major celebration that finally we got it right. But anyway you look at it, there’s so much mystery. What would you rather be wrong about? Death? Or life? I'm putting my money on life!

Prayer:
As we look to the world within, Lord, we’re prompted to lay our many needs before Thee. We're mindful of the discrepancy of this Season of Easter, a time of hope and joy, coupled with the coarsening of our culture, still putting our faith in violence and death.

Our prayer today is for the ability to overcome whatever in us runs counter to the risen Lord, and the courage to be loyal to the light he came to share.

May his lowliness curb our status-seeking, his humility melt our pride, his purity condemn our lust, his love for people shame the love we waste on things, his sense of mission challenge our aimlessness.

Give us feeling for those grieving the inexplicable losses of this week, whose lot in life is harder than ours; and a particular concern for those who live and die as though Christ has not come, who can't seem to recognize that at the heart of things love reigns, and heaven cares. Even though it doesn't look like it.

Finally for our own varied needs that no one prayer can say it all. Make us grateful that our ways are known unto Thee; that faith outlasts the dark nights of the soul; that Thy judgments are redemptive; and Thy mercies sure.

Help us to be at peace in the confidence of who you are, and to live out our lives as best we can, in trust that the love we've met in Christ Jesus will someday rule the world. May that "kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven." So shall we continue to have unfailing cause to bless Thy name. Amen.