FIND YOUR RESURRECTIONOF HOPE
Luke 20:27-38
Pastor Jeremy Mattek – November 13, 2016
I was a little worried about this election. My candidate, our family’s candidate, had never run for political office before. We tried to make our candidate look as good as we could. And we’re happy to announce that it paid off. Our candidate won. Luna, our dog, won the pet election of the 5th Grade class of Mount Olive Lutheran School in Las Vegas. Karen’s sister is a teacher there. And to help teach her students about our country’s political process, she held a pet election. It was the Dog Party verses the Cat Party. Luna, our husky, won the Dog Party nomination, and then, this past Tuesday, was announced as the winner of whole election. We feel excited, which is just one of many feelings someone can have after an election. In fact, we’ve seen pretty much the whole range of emotions just over these last couple of days.
Some were happy about the Presidential election results. Some were sad or disappointed. Some felt stunned or betrayed. Based on the protests across America, there are many who are just downright angry or afraid. But however you felt, or still feel, about this past week’s election, I know this. Your life didn’t dramtically change overnight because of it. When you went to bed Tuesday night, gas was around $2 a gallon. When you woke up, it was about the same thing. The election didn’t affect the weather. The kids still went to school. You still went to work. Just like you did the day before. For most of us, our lives looked pretty much the same Wednesday as they did on Tuesday. The Presidential election didn’t change anything in your daily life all that dramatically.
But there is one thing that can. There is something that can happen in your life that really can change everything very quickly and dramatically, something that can actually cause you, just one person, to rapidly cycle back and forth through all the different emotions all the different groups of people have been feeling since Tuesday. Do you know what that is?
Last Sunday, I preached at St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Muskego, while their pastor, Pastor Panitzke, preached here. After worship, as people were exiting church, one person said to me, “Pastor, I was the one crying in the pew today. My dad died over 30 years ago, and I can’t stop thinking about him.” Another person told me,“Pastor, I was the one crying in the pew today. My brother was just diagnosed with terminal cancer.” Another said, “Pastor, I was the one crying today. This week is the one year anniversary of my wife’s death.” People came out of church telling me about their struggles with death. And not because my sermon was about death.
In a 25-minute sermon, 45 seconds talked specifically about death. I mentioned how everyone there has probably felt the pain of losing someone you love. Then I talked about the healing we find at the cross and the empty tomb of our Savior Jesus. And that was enough for people to openly confess to a guy they had never before met what was obviously weighing on their hearts more than politics and presidents and elections. This isn’t a sermon about politics. It’s a sermon about something that has a far bigger impact on our lives, our mood, and our emotions. And the question posed to Jesus today is really a question of whether or not there is hope for us to deal with it. And if there is, if there really is a way to stand confident even as we face death, then by all means, we would have the right to feel confident no matter the outcome of any election.
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 have children for his brother.29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless.30 The second31 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 that age 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 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.”
The question for Jesus might sound a little strange if you’re not familiar with the law of Levirite Marriage. In the Old Testament, carrying on the family name was incredibly important. If a man died without any children, there would be no one to carry on his family name. So in Deuteronomy 25, God made a law that if a man married a woman, and that man died before they had children, the next single brother of that man would have to marry his wife. And their first child would still be their child. But that first child would be considered the heir of the man who died, carry on his name, and pass along his inheritance.
The example the Sadducees came up with was entirely unlikely. There are 7 brothers. One gets married and dies before having a child. They follow the law of Levirite Marriage, but each successive brother dies before they see any children. And then the question: Who will this woman be married to in heaven? Now, the Sadducees didn’t actually believe there is a heaven. Or hell. They believed that life on earth is it, and then once you die, you simply cease to exist. They didn’t actually want to know the answer to their question. They were trying to make Jesus look foolish because they didn’t think he would be able to answer it. We’ll talk about his answer in a bit. But for now, consider all the pain that would come along with their hypothetical situation.
In their situation, seven different brothers die. Many here this morning have lost siblings. And if you have, then you know that the pain of that loss isn’t hypothetical. It’s real. And the last brother experienced it six times. If each brother is young enough to have children, then it’s likely that their parents are still living. Those of you who have lost a child know how that pain of that loss never quite goes away – for one child, much less seven. And then there’s the wife. You may know it’s not uncommon for an elderly person whose spouse died to die not much later from what doctors identify only as a broken heart. And again, that’s one husband. If you’re this wife, after how many times of losing your husband would you stop hoping that you won’t end up with a heart that’s broken? And, for a woman who so obviously wanted just one child, how much does it hurt to never get one?
There’s a lot of pain associated with their hypothetical situation. And even though they didn’t believe in heaven, Jesus answered their question by talking about heaven; teaching things that are important for us to remember about heaven as we go through our own not-so-hypothetical pains that comes from dealing with death.
Firstly, Jesus refers to earth as “this age” and heaven as “that age.” There are two different ages. In other words, earth is not heaven, and heaven is not earth. Our lives in heaven will be different than our lives on earth. And one of those differences will be that, in heaven, we will be like the angels. [By the way, notice that he doesn’t say we will be angels. We won’t be angels. Your loved ones who die don’t suddenly get wings or start flying around anywhere once they get to heaven. They aren’t angels. They are themselves. Just like you knew them. Just like you saw them. And no different.]
Jesus said we will be like the angels. And one of those ways will affect what we know as marriage. Jesus said that the people of “this age” get married, but the people of “that age” will not. Now, this sometimes makes happily-married people very sad. They take it to mean that they will no longer know or be married to someone who meant so much to them during their life on earth. And that’s not what Jesus is saying. Based on other places in the bible, not only will we know each other in heaven, you will also understand and appreciate the very best parts of the relationships you had on earth. Jesus is simply pointing out that one of the reasons God created marriage for earth will no longer apply in heaven.
We won’t have babies in heaven. And that’s one way we’re like the angels. God has had the same number of angels ever since he made them. The number of people in heaven on Judgment Day will be the same number of people in heaven 4 billion years later; and not only because there won’t be any new additions. There also won’t be any subtractions. Like the angels, “we can no longer die.” And if we can no longer die, then just think of all the things that will never be part of their life ever again.
If there is no more death, then there is no more loss. No more sad tears. No more regret about things you didn’t get to say before they passed on. No more suffering as our bodies become old and weak. No more loneliness. I read verses from Revelation 21 at pretty much every grave side funeral service, because of how important it is, as we look at death, to remember what is coming next – a place where there is “no more death or mourning or crying or pain … and where God wipes every tear away.” I’ve had more than one person comment on how impossible it would be to stand at the graves of those we love if we didn’t have this to look forward to.
But I want you to think about those who don’t. Because there are many. Jesus told the Sadducees that not everyone will see heaven. Only “those considered worthy of taking part in that age” will find it. And the Sadducees weren’t. I mentioned earlier that the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection or heaven or hell. They believed that life on earth was as good as life could ever get. And that attitude affects how your life. Just think of the different ways that attitude can show up in a person’s life today.
If you don’t expect that anything better is ever coming, you might work really hard to accumulate as much stuff on earth as you possibly can, feeling very good if you’re holding what you want, and really angry if you’re not. You might live for pleasure – try to feel as high or happy as you possibly can before you can never feel good again. You probably do let the things that happen on earth affect your mood, attitude, confidence, and emotions more than anything God tells us in his Word. But if you only feel happy when your earthly life is good; when people never die, when yourfriendships, marriage, children, job, and elections never inflict any pain or cause any tears that need to be wiped away, then Jesus promises here that you will always end up disappointed, because earth can never be heaven. They’re different. Even the greatest victories on earth are never very far from death’s pain.
Wayne Williamslives in North Carolina, and he’s a Cubs fan. You may know that the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years. That was a pretty significant victory. More than 5 million people gathered in Chicago last week to celebrate. That was likely the largest gathering ever in the Western Hemisphere. When the Cubs forced Game 7, Wayne got into his car and drove 600 miles; not to Chicago, but to Indiana. Wayne’s dad was also a Cubs fan. Many years ago, Wayne promised his dad that when the Cubs get into the World Series, they would listen to the games together. Well, his dad, a Navy veteran, died 36 years ago at the age of 53. Wayne drove to Indiana because that’s where his dad is buried. He drove to the cemetery, opened the gate, pulled his lawn chair and his radio out of the car, sat by his father’s grave, turned on the game, and listened to the Cubs win the World Series – along with his dad, just like he promised. It was kind of a bittersweet moment for him.
Even the best victories on earth are never very far from death’s pain. Even Jesus knows that. 5 days after this conversation with the Sadducees, Jesus would show the world the greatest victory of all – his resurrection on Easter morning, but not without feeling the pain of the whip, and thorns, and nails that were pounded into him; when he traveled far more than 600 miles, not to listen to the Cubs win, but to keep a promise that you would one day, by forgiving all the times we have wrongly believed that this broken age can meet our needs better than him. He traveled all the way from heaven, because he considered you “worthy” of his greatest love. And because he did, you are now worthy to look at the very best moments and relationships we have on earth and know and expect that something even better is coming. You are also worthy to look at the moments in this age that create the most pain and know that one day it will all be wiped away in the flood of heaven’s perfection – the place where your loved ones who have died in faith, right now, are living.
“He is not a God of the dead,” Jesus said, “but of the living.” When God spoke to Moses at the burning bush, it had been many years since Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob walked the earth. Yet God spoke about them as if they were still alive, right next to him. Because they were. Just like your loved ones are. In fact, you could even say that those in heaven are more alive than we who still walk through the valley of the shadow of death because they aren’t weighed down by all the pains that trouble our hearts so much.
And one day, you won’t be either. And that, my friends, is a reason to be full of hope and confidence, no matter what we see around us, no matter what pains we feel, no matter who we lose, no matter who wins any particular election. In Jesus, we know that this world of death will not get the best of us. But when we feel like it will, there always is one thing we can do. Look at Jesus, and find the resurrectionof hope he promises you.
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