November 10, Luke

LUKE 20:27-38

Let me begin with a story this morning.  A cat and a mouse died on the same day and went up to Heaven. At the top they met God and he asked them ‘How do you like it so far?’ The mouse replied ‘It’s great, but can I get a pair of roller skates?’ God said ‘Sure’, and he gave him a pair of roller skates. The next day God saw the cat and asked him ‘How do you like it up here so far?’ and the cat replied ‘Great, I didn’t know you had meals on wheels up here!’

There are many, many jokes about what heaven is like.  In fact, we might say that the subject of heaven is one of wild speculation.  After all, heaven is the great unknown.  Some speculate that the next life is somehow just a version of the one we are living now, just a little better.  Avid gardeners anticipate a magnificent garden to dig around in, while the avid golfer imagines the great country club in the sky.

Not only does today’s Gospel lesson give us a little information about what heaven will be like, but more importantly it assures us that we will be resurrected from the dead in the future.  Let’s listen again to Jesus’ words.  “But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead (that is, those who have faith and are disciples of Christ) will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die’ for they are like angels.  They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”

Notice how Jesus cleverly sidesteps the question of whose wife or husband anyone will be while giving us a glimpse of what Heaven will be like.  We might say, there will be no destination weddings in heaven, for we will neither marry nor be given in marriage.  We will all be God’s children.  Notice, however, that Jesus does not say anything about not recognizing those who have gone before us.  He only says that people will not marry in heaven.

What Jesus is trying to teach us is that we will have a new life just as He experienced after His death on the cross and resurrection. It is a life that is not just a continuation of our lives now, but a life that has grown larger and is new in all ways.

But why talk about the resurrection at all when asked the question by the Sadducees?  Notice, we are told that they deny that there is a resurrection.  In Jesus time, those who did not follow Him believed that they lived on through their children.  This is why having children, especially sons, was so important.  Their disbelief comes from who they were as a sect.  The Sadducees followed the priest Zadok, and they were members of this high-priestly family.  In general, they tended to be wealthy and usually politically connected.  They followed the Torah and rejected the oral tradition of time all together.  They also rejected the idea of resurrection, because it was not found in the Torah.

Jesus answer to them proved that the resurrection from the dead was in fact a biblical idea.  For example, the prophet Isaiah in 26:19 says, “But your dead will live, Lord; their bodies will rise—let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy—your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.”  The prophet Daniel in 12:2 tells us, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Although Jesus does not tell us what exactly lies ahead for us in heaven, He does tell us that we will not need earthly things such as marriage in heaven.  We are to continue to be Children of God, living in the family of God.  As Children of God we are to live our lives here on earth for Christ, loving one another as ourselves, serving those in need, and sharing His love when and wherever we can.  God is always with us here on earth and will be with us in heaven.

As we leave here this morning, let us remember that as God’s children, death is not the end of the story.  In fact, it is the beginning of a new life.  Many of you probably know the old saying, “today is the first day of the rest of your life.”  Not only is it true for each of us here on earth, each day is a new day starting fresh and new, but the statement is especially true on the day that we die.  This knowledge takes the sting out of death for we know that being absent from our physical bodies means that we are present with Lord.  We know that we will be resurrected for Jesus tells us so.  Jesus does not give us all the specifics about what heaven will be like, but we need to trust that heaven will be wonderful, a new life for each of us.

Let me leave you with the words of one of my favorite hymns.  Listen carefully to its words.

God sent His son, they called Him Jesus
He came to love, heal and forgive
He lived and died to buy my pardon
An empty grave is there to prove my savior lives

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth the living, just because He lives

Amen