November 9, 2025 Sermon

Sermon Title:  “Is There a Resurrection?”

Scripture:  Luke 20:27-38

(Other lectionary suggestions include Haggai 1:15-2:9, Psalm 145:1-5 and17-21, and II Thessalonians 2:1-5 and 13-17.)

Luke 20:27-38

The Question about the Resurrection

27Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30then the second 31and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32Finally the woman also died. 33In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” 34Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

          One of the reasons I am a minister is that I have always believed in the Resurrection. I’m not sure why, but I thank God for that belief. Even before I was a minister, as far back as high school, I believed, and I thought, “What a great deal this is! To live in America now, and to live with God when this life is over! What a great deal!” Now maybe my faith was a bit premature or immature, but I have always believed in some kind of Resurrection. By the way, when I say “Resurrection,” I mean some sort of knowledge of God and living with Him/Her forever. Of course , our bodies will decay, but our “Essence” (Soul or whatever) will live on and be with God. I don’t know how God has arranged this, and I really don’t care. What’s important is that we will be with God, however HE/SHE has arranged things.

          I love it that Jesus believed in a Resurrection, also, and he used the Scripture that the Sadducees believed in. For some reason, they accepted only the first five books of the Bible, and he used a passage from Exodus--the story of Moses and the Burning Bush--to make his point. God says, I AM the God of Abraham, not I WAS the God of Abraham! For Jesus, Abraham was with God RIGHT NOW, not sometime in the past. That was great on the part of Jesus!

          Something else Jesus takes issue with is the Sadducees’ belief in what was called Levirate marriage. The ancient Hebrews and others used the practice to protect a man’s lineage. Women of course didn’t get a voice in the matter, but the idea was to raise up children to a man EVEN THOUGH HE HAD DIED. The idea was to keep a man’s lineage going even if he weren’t around to participate! Jesus’s idea was that in Heaven, there would no longer be a need to procreate, so the Sadducees’ question was irrelevant. And what Jesus was implying without really saying it is that the Sadducees couldn’t think outside the box! They assumed that Heaven would be exactly like earth, and Jesus was telling them that in Heaven, things would be different. Again, I have to say that I admire Jesus greatly. He had the ability to think that God’s Will would be done, whether on earth or in Heaven. And Jesus realized that GOD would do whatever God wanted. God would NOT be bound to man’s understanding of things.

          I found this quote on the website of Christianity.com. “It is common for those who design to undermine any truth of God to load it with difficulties. {{We are speaking of the Sadducees, of course.}} There are more worlds than one....But we wrong ourselves when we form our notions of the world of spirits by this world of sense.” Amen.

Pastor Skip