Good Morning Friends,
We pray as in heaven so on earth but the reverse of that, namely as on earth, so in heaven in regards the afterlife may be the false assumption that has confused way too many people. I like this earthly life a lot but a reality of an eternity of it would be more distasteful than I can imagine, even with streets paved with gold.
The Sadducees called into question the value of contemplating it at all and thought it a waste of brain power that could be diverted over to the improvement of life and culture. But Jesus believed in it and so too Paul and the disciples and it made for their own transformation that more than answered the value issue raised by the Sadducees. The belief was played out in their lives as it connected them to a living Christ who rules in heaven. This bond is an essential element of the Christian belief, even for those of us who really do not need an escape from the existence we have been given in our earthly bodies. Still it is worth something to better understand what it means for the potential impact could affect billions upon billions of candidates. And so we ask, Have We Experienced The Resurrection Relationship?
Scripture: Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and 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. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but 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. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And 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. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question.
Luke 20:27-40 (NRSV)
When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he called out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”
Acts 23:6 (NRSV)
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26 (NRSV)
Message: In today’s scripture Jesus uses the challenge of the Sadducees, who thought the resurrection foolishness, to teach on the nature of relationships in the life to come. He contrasted this age—the life we now have in the flesh on earth with the age to come. His description of the afterlife is particularly relevant for those who have joined God’s family forever through their faith in a Savior, his Son, Jesus, as resurrection children. Now the first reading of the scripture leads us to think there will be no marriage in heaven and that is a little hard, for marriage is in part how we experience God. But I have come to believe that we will be married to everyone in the sense of having an intimacy that moves our spirit. Jesus prayed we would be in unity and believing in the resurrection helps us to share something very special for we will no longer be able to die. We will be immortal. We will not even have the option of dying, because the whole notion of death will be wiped out in the new life ahead connected with the power of the Universe. And this resurrection relationship means we are justified before God and that Jesus defeated death and we too will be part of a body transformed. It will mean a unity with Christ in the truth of the Gospel and scripture and the Holy Spirit that even now will be poured into the hearts of believers giving us the hope that we can be raised like Jesus. Friends, trying to understand all this which we cannot see is difficult because it is a reality that is inaccessible through any of our five senses. For now, heaven is both myth and fact and what God helps us to believe makes the difference and begins to transform us even now.
And So, for believers in the hereafter here is the deal, earthly comfort will be pointless in heaven for the joy supplied there will help us to realize that there was never ever a problem God could not solve. But belief in the resurrection does affect us even now. In each of the disciples, this growing evidence of resurrection landed in a different way. As we think about the different ways in which they experienced the truth of the resurrection, it gives us a chance to think about how we have experienced the message that Jesus is alive. Think about Mary, Peter and Paul and John and James and the rest. Here I believe the main emphasis is that resurrection implies inclusion. Because Jesus rose from the dead, what He says becomes a possibility for us all. The Father, from whom Jesus came and to whom He returned is not only His Father, but also our Father. The God who sent Jesus and received Him back victorious is not only His God, but also our God. In this experience of Jesus, we are invited into a relationship with the creator of the universe, who becomes our God and also our Father. We become brothers and sisters of Jesus with full rights of access to the Father and the promise of an eternal inheritance to our home in heaven. This is an invitation to rejoice in the resurrection and because of the resurrection to enter into relationship with God now.
Pray we believe. Pray we realize that the point of God’s revealed self in the Word made flesh, the Word crucified, the Word resurrected, and the Word ascended, is the commitment, like no other, to show what a true love relationship means. Pray our clarity of the hereafter improves even though for now it keeps our imaginations at work making connecting between what we can see and what we cannot and yet realizing that both are equally real. Pray we realize that aiming for heaven makes our life here on earth better than it would have been if we just tried to get the best out of our earthly existence. Pray we realize that we were made for heaven. Pray we believe in the mystery that makes us all better.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 