Luke 20:27–40

24th Sunday after Pentecost

²⁷There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,

²⁸and 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.

²⁹Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children.

³⁰And the second

³¹and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died.

³²Afterward the woman also died.

³³In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife."

³⁴And Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage,

³⁵but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage,

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

³⁷But 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.

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

³⁹Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well."

⁴⁰For they no longer dared to ask him any question.

“Ever since the Enlightenment and in the Modern Age, scholars have thought that religion would die out. Garbed in the robes of humanism and rationalistic materialism, modernist theologians, rejecting the supernatural, assumed that modern man no longer believed in such things as miracles, divine revelation and an unseen god. It was the triumph of the “secular city.” According to modernists theologians, what the Bible says was not necessarily true. In the 1900s liberal theologians designed a theology to accommodate modern thought and culture, denying prophecy, trying to explain miracles as by natural cause and effect. The turned the church away from preoccupation with salvation and afterlife to concern with society’s problems of poverty, racism and imperialism. Our own synod suffered through years of conflict and strife. Many churches turned the doctrine of “good works” into political activism. Pastors turned to politics and acts of civil disobedience. Well meaning believers turned into community activists, some even traveled to Third World countries to aid Marxist revolutionaries in their struggle against Capitalistic governments.

“But, there is nothing new under the sun,” wrote the Preacher. “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” The Sadducees of Jesus’ day were the equivalent of today’s Modernists. They were secular humanists. They did not think that everything written in Scripture was true. They didn’t believe in angels or demons. They thought that resurrection from the dead was mere superstition and myth. They rejected the idea of life after death. They too turned to political activism. The Sadducees held all the highest political and religious offices. They controlled the Jewish council and the chief priests of Jesus’ day were Sadducees. It was the Sadducees who were looking for a political Messiah to overthrow Roman rule.

Like today’s secularists and humanists, they thought life ceased to exist when a person dies. They maintained that there is no reality except the material world. Such skepticism results in the loss of meaning and purpose of human life. It means that the world goes on and on without any direction or purpose or goal. Today people believe either that one ceases to exist when one dies, or that he keeps coming back to this world in an endless cycle of reincarnations. There is no spiritual realm, no other world, no heaven where one lives eternally after death.

That means that life has no meaning and no purpose. There is no direction and no goal in life except to enjoy the here and now, because tomorrow we will die. It means that everything is relative and that experience and pleasure is the only true value. All other values are merely our own self creation. If there is no transcendent realm, no eternal world, then there are no absolutes, there is no truth, there are no guideposts in life.

If this life is all there is then no wonder we toss and turn at night. It is the turmoil of a deeply troubled soul. No wonder that we can’t understand the meaning of suffering. No wonder that we make arbitrary rules and laws because we can no longer appeal to a higher standard of right or wrong. We have lost faith in the transcendent and the true. We make rules according to what is convenient, what gets the job done, what makes us feel good. Courts today no longer look to a transcendent and objective constitution for guidance, rather activist judges rule on the basis of their own private opinions and make their own interpretations become then, in effect, become new laws.

This inner depravity of the human soul raises its ugly head in our lives. Evil roams the earth as seen in terrorism and war, and in the tyrannies of fascism, Marxism and Communism.

That day when the Sadducees came to Jesus it was that same depravity that they expressed. They came intending to trap him in a logical inconsistency. They came to discredit the Son of God and to throw doubt on God’s Word revealed in Scripture. Their entire story about a woman who had seven wives was just a feeble attempt to trap Jesus in a logical inconsistency because they thought it would prove that there is no resurrection nor life after this life.

But the message of Jesus is clear. God is the God of the living, not of the dead. Jesus himself rose from the dead. There is resurrection! Jesus says to all of us who are weary and heavy laden under the load of our sin and death to come to him, because there is resurrection.

There is life after death. That means that this world and this life is not all there is. That means that human life is on a directed path toward a predetermined goal. That means that there is an escape from a meaningless, purposeless life that goes on and on. There is a finish line. There is a purpose to life. It is to arrive at the resurrection. Human existence is not just an accidental glitch on the face of our planet. We are not mere accident wandering aimlessly in a sea of uncertainty and gloom. We are on a journey toward a destination. A destination that God himself has determined. That destination is the resurrection. That destination is eternal life in God’s kingdom.

But before there can be a resurrection, there must be a death. We live surrounded by death. From out of the human soul come abortions, euthanasia, eugenics, and tyranny. Mankind is lost in its sin. We are all sinners by birth and at the innermost core of our existence lay sin and death.

We cannot escape the evil that lurks in the innermost chambers of the human soul; those dark caverns of sin, doubt and despair. There evil thoughts haunt us. Immoral lusts and twisted desires that frighten even ourselves lurk in the dark shadows of our heart and torment our conscience by day and rob us of sleep by night. This deep, hidden evil even becomes the themes of much of our great literature such as Moby Dick and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

In the secret chambers of our hearts we are reduced to death. We feel like we have already gone down to the grave, indeed we are born spiritually dead. We are by birth dead to god and we deserve eternal death and punishment.

That death torments our soul. We often feel like Jonah crying out to God from the depths of the sea in the belly of a fish. We cry out, “O God, save me!” With King David we plead, “O Lord,…I become like those who go down to the pit… My soul is bowed down and I am counted among those who go down to Sheol….Answer me quickly, O Lord. My spirit fails. Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit.”

That death we experience in our hearts and souls. That death we experience in our bodies. That death we experience in our thoughts and in our deeds and in our words. That death we experience in despair, worry, pain, loneliness, isolation and fear.

That death is what Jesus died on the cross. He came into the world to die for us. He lived all the shame, the fear, the loneliness, the isolation, the pain of our lives. He carried our burdens. He bore our sin. He took all our iniquities and was counted a sinner so that we might be counted righteous.

He died to wipe away sin. He died so that he could rise. In his death our sins are forgiven. By his death all the ugliness that lurks in the innermost caverns of our soul is washed away. The filth that fills the dark chambers of our hearts is cleaned out and disposed of. The darkness of those deep caverns is filled with light.

But Jesus rose from the dead to become the firstborn from the dead, the head of the body, the church. Christ said to his Father: “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.” Jesus rose. How can you Sadducees say that there is no resurrection of the dead if Jesus rose?

And the good news is: Resurrection trumps death. Resurrection is the end of death. Resurrection overcomes and wipes away death. To all of us who feel like some sort of zombies or walking dead men, let this message be shouted loud and clear: Jesus is the resurrection and the life!

In his resurrection God pronounces the absolution. The resurrection means that God accepted his sacrifice for sin. The resurrection is God’s shouting to the world: “Your sins are forgiven.” The resurrection is God calling to each one of us, “Your sins are forgiven.”

For a resurrection to happen there must be a death. In our baptism we die with Christ. We are buried in the tomb with Christ. We die to sin and lust and greed. And in our baptism a new man resurrected, a man created in the image of Christ. A man of love, of hope, of joy and of peace.

The resurrection of Christ means that we too shall be raised. It means that we have passed from death into life. Born again in baptism we are delivered from going down into the pit. Born again in baptism he has redeemed your soul from Sheol. He has restored you to life from among those who go down to the pit.

Because Jesus of the resurrection, we can pour out all the hurts, the filth, the sin, and the corruption that is buried in the inmost part of our soul in confession to our Father in heaven. We can come to him and lay all the burdens of our sin and death at the feet of Jesus on the cross. We die with Christ by confessing our sins.

By our baptism into Christ that same power of the Holy Spirit that raised him from the dead, raises us from the dead in order that we may know him by faith and know the power of his resurrection. The power of the resurrection lives in us today, empowering us to be the children of God. Empowering us to live in obedience to God and love for one another. Empowering us to walk in the way of the Lord.

Because Jesus rose, he lives in us today. In baptism we are united with Jesus in a resurrection like his and the same power that raised Jesus is at work to produce a renewed heart and life in us. Therefore, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. We have become new creations in Christ. The old has passed away and all things have become new. Now we live for him. Now he lives in us and our life becomes his life.

So now the dirty caverns of our heart are cleansed. A new heart is created by the Holy Spirit. A heart full of love. Now, by the power of the resurrection, our lives begin to take on the image of Christ. A new love takes over in our hearts for our neighbor. A new man rises up in obedience to God and lives to the glory of God and the praise of his name.

Now we return thanksgiving and praise to him, living in vocation and thanking him through our stewardship of all that God has given us: our time, our talents and our treasures in inexpressible joy and thanksgiving. Because he lives we too shall live.

Amen.