Listen to the audion of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-december-11-2023
Matthew 22:23-33
Marriage at the Resurrection
23 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him.25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27 Finally, the woman died.28 Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
Like the last few readings from Matthew, this passage relates a discussion between Jesus and the Jewish religious leadership – this time, a conversation between Jesus and members of the ancient Hebrew party known as the Sadducees. So it’s important to start out by reviewing who the Sadducees were and what they believed.
The Sadducees were one of the most prominent Jewish religious groups at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. (As you might remember, the other main group was the Pharisees, who were rivals of the Sadducees.) The Sadducees were close allies and supporters of the leadership of the temple in Jerusalem. They were also what we might call “blue-bloods” – they came almost exclusively from the best families among the Hebrew people.
Theologically, the Sadducees believed that there was no resurrection – that after this life we just go to ‘the place of the dead.’ That put the Sadducees in conflict with the Pharisees, who did believe in the resurrection. There’s an account in the 23rd chapter of Acts of an occasion when the apostle Paul managed to provoke a near-riot over this issue. A Jewish mob was accusing Paul of various crimes, but when he saw that there were both Sadducees and Pharisees in the mob, Paul shouted out that he believed in the resurrection. That sparked a big argument between the Sadducees and the Pharisees who were present, which the Romans had to break up.
It’s important to keep this theological controversy in mind if you’re going to see the point of the Sadducees’ question to Jesus. Since they didn’t believe in the resurrection, the Sadducees were apparently trying to present a situation that would make the whole idea of a resurrection seem ridiculous.
The question they posed to Jesus involved a Hebrew custom called “levirate marriage.” The phrase comes from the Hebrew word levir, which means ‘brother-in-law.’ In traditional Hebrew law, if a man died without having fathered any children, his brother was supposed to marry the widow and father children by her. Those children he fathered were considered to be the dead brother’s offspring. But of course, the Sadducees’ question is kind of nonsensical. It’s questionable whether any woman in history ever went through seven brothers from the same family. (Genesis 38 tells the story of a widow named Tamar, who outlived two brothers from the family of Judah, but then the family refused to marry her to any more of their sons. It’s hard to imagine any family going as far as seven.)
But in any case, this hypothetical question from the Sadducees was sort of the ancient equivalent to the modern wise-guy riddle, “Can God make a rock so big even he can’t lift it?” Both are pseudo-clever mind games, not serious theological questions.
And that’s exactly how Jesus treats the Sadducees’ question. He refuses to dignify it with an answer. Instead, he takes advantage of the occasion to make a couple of points that are much more worth thinking about.
Jesus says that marriage is an institution of this world, not an institution of the heavenly kingdom. That’s probably why this passage doesn’t get that much attention in the church – it no doubt makes some people uncomfortable, especially people who have lost a beloved spouse and look forward to being reunited with them in heaven.
Nobody can say for sure, but my suspicion is that people reunited in the heavenly kingdom really will experience the joy of that reunion, but that it will seem less consequential than they might expect. I say that because my understanding is that the main characteristic of that kingdom is that we’ll be in the loving and joyful presence of God. It seems to me that experiencing God’s presence will matter vastly more that any human relationships.
A critical characteristic of human marriage is it’s between two people and excludes all others. I think God might have created us with a critical need for that exclusiveness in order to provide for the birth and nurture of children within the earthly family. In heaven, when the need for procreation is no longer present, I suspect that the need for exclusivity in human relationships might be gone as well. The important thing will be the inclusion God extends to each one he welcomes into his own heavenly family.
The other thing that seems really important about this passage is that Jesus seems to emphasize the truth of the resurrection in verse 32. He points out that God says he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not that he was their God. If he is the God of the living and not the dead, and if he is the God of those great prophets, presumably they are alive with him now in their resurrected state.
So this passage might seem a little puzzling at first reading, but when you look close, Jesus both confirms the reality of the resurrection and also tells us that for those permitted to share in it, it will be a state of joyful communion that transcends anything we might experience in this world – even the joys of marriage.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the way you have created us to need loving relationships with one another. But we thank you also for the promise of a heavenly kingdom in which we will be consumed with the joy of eternal communion with you. Let our lives bear witness to our faith in that great promise. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 115 and 116; Amos 7:1-9, and Revelation 1:1-8 Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
Recent Comments