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Hear the devotional here: https://anchor.fm/eradio-valverde/episodes/What-is-Heaven-Like-e1q07gl
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” 34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” (Luke 20:27-38 NIV Bible)
Those who do not believe in resurrection find it easy to ask questions that mock those who do. Years ago, when I was doing an internship for my university, one of my supervisors was a woman of the Jewish faith. She held that when life ended, that it was it. There was no heaven nor hell, and the only afterlife is how you impacted others while alive, and if they remember you, that is the only way, you live on. The Sadducees were such a group (The old song says, "That's why they were sad, you see?"), who did not believe in life beyond death. You die, and that's it. So, for them to ask Jesus a question about Heaven, a place that for them did not exist, they want to trap Jesus. We can give them credit for knowing their law and history and so this question is along those lines. "Teacher, Moses taught us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother." The preservation of the people was the motivation for such a law. It was important for the memory of the deceased for him to have children even after his death, and so Moses' teaching was for the brother of the deceased to take the widow as his wife and to have children with her. This was, it could be argued, not a matter of love; it was a matter of life. And so, the Sadducees, make it interesting; this first man was the oldest of seven, and so they said, the second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh brother all died, childless. Now, to be fair, we don't know the cause of death. It is, after all, a trick question to Jesus! They were more interested in trapping Jesus into saying something they could point at and begin yelling whatever it was that would suit them, like lies! But, their question was, "When the resurrection comes, whose wife will she be, since she had seven husbands?"
You can try, but you will never trick nor trap Jesus. Jesus answered wisely, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage." In other words, what we know is what we do or see done. People get married every day, and so we know marriage in that way. But there are those, Jesus is saying, whose lives are different, "who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection of the dead will never marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection." Jesus is referring to what is of God versus what is of us. Marriage and having children are "of us," but what is "of God" is usually beyond our complete comprehension. It is "of us" to think questions like the Sadducees; what does happen to the widow who remarries after her first husband dies? It's bad enough for some to wonder and worry, "Where will we bury this lady? Next to Hubby One or next to Hubby Two? Hubby Three through Seven?!
Our family did not have that quandary. Nellie's grandmother lived to be 96 years young. She was widowed at a very young age. Her husband was shot and killed, by a killer who mistook him to be another man. She never remarried and had a solid belief that when she died she would be with her husband again, and forever. In fact, there was a night that she died, was prepared for burial as holding to the customs of the day, with no embalming, and she was dressed in a funeral dress. She remembers seeing her husband with his back to her and she calling to him, but he would glance back towards her and then shake his head no. She so wanted to be with him, but it was not yet time. She awoke during the wake and lived, like I said, until she was 96. Early in our marriage as I'm meeting her she offered to show me the burial dress to which I said that was okay, that I was fine with me. My mother-in-law was also widowed at a relatively young age and she also never remarried, for her desire was to be reunited with her husband.
What Jesus wanted the Sadducees and us to know, is that our God is the God of the living, for in Him all are alive. Jesus wisely goes back to Moses, since the Sadducees brought him up, and says, "Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' For Moses would not have referred to them in that way if they were dead. For Jesus the more important issue to address is the truth about life after death. His answer sought to address the whole driving force behind the Sadducees, and that was the notion that life ends with death. We are, as Jesus stated, "children of the resurrection."
PRAYER: Living God, let us live as children of the resurrection, filled with love and with hope. Help us share our faith with all people, so all might come to have faith in the one, true, living God; in Christ Jesus we pray, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! YOUR CALL TO ACTION: Live as a child of the resurrection.
Receive my love and blessing of peace,
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
