Life After Death

Luke 20: 27-38 (November 7, 2010)

1) The Text

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.”

2) The Context

It is important to remember the context of this passage: Jesus has entered Jerusalem (Luke 19:28-40) and a series of confrontations with the authorities begins. He has less than a week to live before he will be falsely charged, secretly arrested by night, tortured, and then brutally executed.

Just before this week’s passage, Jesus told a parable of wicked tenants (Luke 20:9-19), and following this Luke had commented: So (the authorities) watched (Jesus) and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor (Pontius Pilate).

This passage is intended to be one of those traps. The question asked by the Sadducees is NOT an honest, "good faith," question; it is an exaggerated "mind game" intended to trap Jesus into speaking against the Law. This story reflects a controversy between Sadducees and Pharisees regarding the hope of resurrection. The Sadducees were strict constructionists. They didn't believe in anything that was not in the written Torah—the five books of the Law. In contrast, the Pharisees accepted as valid the traditions of the oral law, the interpretations of the Torah that had developed in the oral traditions of the Pharisees. Resurrection was one of those beliefs that developed in the exilic and post-exilic periods. Most Pharisees believed in the hope of the resurrection, but Sadducees did not.

3) Interpretation

How do we know there is life after death? This was the question the foes of Jesus posed to him.

The Sadducees began with a principle of the Law on the obligation of family to a widowed in-law who had no children (found in Deuteronomy 25:5-10) [20:28]. With the passing of a husband, widows no longer had a place; they became homeless. And, there were no descendants to carry on the memory of the deceased. To alleviate this social problem and insure descendants-in-name to remember the dead, the Law obliged the brothers of the deceased to marry the widow.

Through a story, the Sadducees tried to show that God's Law on the serious obligations of marriage conflicted with belief in the afterlife. After all, which brother would be faithful to the widow? [20:29-33] Marital faithfulness was a virtue firmly grounded in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18). The Sadducees argued that God would never create a condition in where his Will would contradict his Law. So, to insure the sanctity of marriage found in the Law, the Sadducees implied, God would never create an afterlife.

Jesus answered the Sadducees in two ways. First, he argued that marriage is an earthly institution blessed by God, but there was no such institution in God's Kingdom. [20:34-36] Such a concept was radical at the time. If there was not the institution of marriage, there may not be institutions of social class or slavery in the Kingdom. Women were equal to men, slaves were equal to freemen, the poor were equal to the rich. Only one status mattered: standing before God as his child [20:36].

Second, Jesus insisted that, when he had his first encounter with the Lord, Moses acknowledged the resurrection of the dead before he received the Law [20:37-38]. How did Moses do this? Moses experienced the divine as a dynamic presence that the Jews referred to as the "Living God." This God acted with power and definite purpose. He took the initiative in creation and in the affairs of people. This was not a transcendent power that could be manipulated through prayers, incantations, or spells. No! When people experienced the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they were shaken by a powerful presence beyond their control; they lie in the hands of a God that was truly alive.

As God was alive, so too, were those who experienced him. Here, Jesus showed a subtle, but definite shift in logic. Only the living can experience that which lives; only the living can encounter the "Living God." If the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the "Living God," then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must be alive in his presence. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still live, then there must be a resurrection of the dead. In the very title of their God, Jews found the revelation of his purpose to give life after death.

How do we know there is life after death? We know through Scripture and the tradition of the Church. But more important than these, through God's dynamic presence, he communicates the love and compassion of his will. We can trust God in all things, including the greatest challenge life gives us, death. If he lives, so shall we, for his love transcends all things, even death itself.

4) Thought Exercise

What are your beliefs about the resurrection of the dead?

What importance does this belief have in your life?