Sermon November 9-10, 2019

Title: You have been raised and are seated with Christ!
Text: Luke 20:27-40

37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, 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. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

In 1972, Laszlo Toth, a 33 year old distraught Hungarian, walked into St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome with a hammer hidden under a raincoat over his arm. He climbed over a railing and began to smash the Pieta a beautiful sculpture by Michelangelo of Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding the crucified Christ at the Vatican. While the damage was great, shocking and heartbreaking to those who witnessed the attack the officials made every effort to as humanly possible restore the treasure.

The fall into sin brought separation between God and His creation. You have been severely damaged, so much so that you are brought into this life dead in trespass and sin. So what did God do, throw away his perfect creation and begin again?

No!

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

The Gospel reading for today tells a story of Jesus’ meeting with a group of Jewish leaders. If you remember from the lessons over the last two months about Jesus and His dealing with the Pharisees, Chief Priests and scribes.

Now, the group, the Sadducees, denied the resurrection and they also denied the existence of angles and didn’t accept the authority of any books of the Old Testament except the first 5 books, which were also called the books of Moses. 

So they came to Jesus with a question:

28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”

Well, there are a few clear truths here:

Seven husbands will surely bring about the death of any woman!

But, the Sadducees real objective was to put Jesus on the spot with this creative story as a means to dispel the truth and teaching of the resurrection.

But Jesus, as has been seen trough out these discussions with the Pharisees, Chief Priests, Scribes and now the Sadducees … has an answer for their trickery.

34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.

Now this didn’t sit well with my wife when she first this verse. “You mean I have to put up with him in this life for all these years and he’s not bound to our marriage in heaven?” Well, Jesus then gives the Sadducees a bit of Moses from the book of Genesis in answer to their question:

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:27-28)

God gave marriage for procreation (for children), to fill the earth … to be fruitful and multiply and Jesus continues his thought when He says:

36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are (all) sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

So rightly Jesus tells them that at the resurrection all who are God’s children will be in Heaven and will not be marrying or being fruitful and multiplying because all who are to be there will be there because of God’s choosing.

Now, their argument is not about marriage but about the resurrection. So the contention from Jesus hits them right between the eyes.

37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, 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. 

38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

Those even in our midst also deny God and his power and work.

How can an infant who is baptized believe?

How can Christ ascend to the right hand of God and still present in the sacrament?

How can God take on flesh and blood and be both divine and human?

How can God who is eternal die on a cross?

How, as the Sadducees ask can the dead rise?

If you think of it this way; There’s life—the life we live right now, day by day. Then we die, and there’s life after death—when the souls of those who believe in Jesus go to be with him, while their bodies are left behind. Then there’s “life after life after death.” That’s the Last Day resurrection of the body when your body is reunited with your soul. That’s what Jesus was talking about: The resurrection of the body. There’s still more to come. Life after death communion with God will have a final day resurrection of the body.

The Sadducees said, “There’s no more.” Jesus said, “There is.”

Concordia pulpit illustration Vol. 23 pt 4 – Rev. Glenn A. Nielsen PhD. (Note: The phrase “life after life after death” comes from an interview with N. T. Wright conducted by Preaching Today at the 2008 National Pastors Conference.)

And the more that God gives … is not a fallen world filled with sickness and death and marriage - or divorce and remarriage - even seven husbands for goodness sake.

But a forever eternity with Him, as we who are the bride of Christ are set free from all that this broken and all that is corrupted in this sin filled life.

You dear friends are made new forever by the atoning blood of Christ!

Like the beautiful sculpture that had been damaged and broken in pieces in this life, breaking and corrupting its beauty … you too have been and will be fully restored to your created beauty, free from sin and death and the power of the devil by the one who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light raising you forever to be with him, Jesus Christ our Lord!

And May the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be and abide with you now and forever.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit!

Amen