Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-december-5-2024
Luke 20:27-40
The Resurrection and Marriage
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 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.”
39 Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” 40 And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
This passage is uncomfortable for some people, and maybe especially for widowed people who are looking forward to being reunited with a departed spouse in heaven. But what Jesus says in this story has something important to say to us about the purpose of marriage and about the nature of the heavenly kingdom – as well as about other issues of faith.
But before we get to that, we should start by reminding ourselves of the context of the passage. It comes from Luke’s account of the final week of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and it tells us about a conversation between Jesus and some of the Sadducees. They were one of the main factions in the Hebrew religious leadership of Jesus’ day. The Sadducees were people from the leading families of the Hebrew world, and were generally considered allies of the leadership of the temple in Jerusalem. So the Sadducees were a cornerstone of what we might call the Hebrew religious ‘establishment.’
Theologically, one of the things that distinguished the Sadducees from other groups was the belief that there is no resurrection. In fact, in the 23rd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Paul provokes a brawl between the Sadducees and the Pharisees by bringing up the subject.
And since the Sadducees didn’t believe in a resurrection, the question they ask Jesus in today’s passage is pretty clearly intended as a trick. They seem to have tried to think up an absurd hypothetical situation as a way of making the idea of the resurrection seem ridiculous. I suppose it’s remotely possible that at least once in the history of the Hebrew culture a woman actually was married to seven brothers who all died, but personally, I doubt it.
The Sadducees were referring to a custom known as ‘levirate marriage.’ If a man died without leaving behind any children, the man’s brother was supposed to marry the deceased brother’s childless widow. (The name of this custom comes from the Hebrew word levir, which means ‘brother-in-law.’) Any children from that marriage were considered to be the deceased brother’s children. It seems strange to us, but it fit into their traditions of maintaining family property rights. Now there were no doubt some cases where a woman would outlive more than one brother. In fact, Genesis 38 gives us the example of a woman named Tamar, who was married to two of the sons of Judah.
In the passage we’re thinking about, Jesus refuses to get involved in debating this pointless theological riddle. Marriage is an institution of life in this world, he says, and in the heavenly kingdom everyone’s primary relationship will be with God, not with an earthly spouse.
As I said at the beginning of this Reflection, some people must find this passage disturbing because they are looking eagerly forward to being reunited with a departed spouse. And that kind of reunion may well happen in heaven. I once heard it said that in the heavenly kingdom, nothing that’s needed to give you joy will be missing. That makes sense to me.
But it seems to me that the institution of marriage, as God intends it, allows us a degree of emotional and spiritual intimacy that’s possible in this world with only one person at a time. In the heavenly kingdom, I have a feeling that in God’s presence, we will experience a divine intimacy that’s unlike anything we can know in this world. And in that presence, it seems to me that every kind of exclusiveness will disappear and we’ll all be joyfully united in praising him.
Of course, none of us can really know the details of heaven, so that’s obviously just speculation on my part.
But the whole point of the custom of levirate marriage was to have children to carry on the name of a person who had died, and to provide for members of the family as they aged. But in heaven, if everyone is ‘God’s child,’ that whole concept becomes moot.
So Jesus’ point in this whole conversation, it seems to me, is that the institutions of this world are designed to meet needs that will no longer exist in heaven.
Our challenge as followers of Jesus is probably to live in such a way that we honor and obey our God. The best way to do that, of course, is to live by the teachings of Jesus, and to live in imitation of him. Ultimately, we have to leave the hereafter to God, and just trust that it will be joyful beyond our imagining.
Let’s pray. Lord, each of us lives in hope that we will share in the joy of being eternally in your presence and in communion with all of your other children. By your Holy Spirit, empower us to live to bring glory to you and to your holy name, so that your heavenly kingdom comes more and more to pass in this world, as it is in heaven. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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