I know that my Redeemer lives
Luke 20:27-38
anonymous

Good morning.

As I read the Gospel this morning, I cannot help but think of Grandma Julie. The Sadducees asked Jesus a question about a woman who had had seven husbands. After her first husband died, she remarried. In fact she married his brother. When he dies she marries the next brother. And so on. Until there weren’t any brothers left. And the question the Sadducees ask is: whose wife is she in the resurrection.

Grandma Julie is Chris’ grandmother. She married as a young woman, right out of high school. She had two baby girls a year apart. Then when they were just toddlers, her husband died. She moved back home with her parents and worked for the phone company. She was one of those operators who put through long distance phone calls, back in the days when you couldn’t direct dial. When her girls were teenagers, Grandma Julie met Loren and fell in love. Loren’s wife and young daughter had died. He was a public school superintendent. Loren and Julie married, and they made a good life together. Once they retired they came to Hawaii to see family every year, and I got to know them well. And they had a good long life together. They lived into their 80’s. When Loren died, Julie was devastated. Sometimes she would talk with me about how she felt. One day she asked me the big question: In heaven, will Loren be with me or his first wife?

A lot of people make fun of the Sadducees. They will tell you that the problem with the Sadducees is that they didn’t follow Jesus. They didn’t follow Jesus, so they were “Sad – You see?” But Julie asked the Sadducee question. It is not a dumb question. Our lives on earth are made up of relationships. If we are lucky we love well. We want to be with those we love when we get to heaven, whether it is our spouse, our best friend, our children, parents or brothers and sisters. What good will it be if they aren’t there?

Yesterday I performed a marriage ceremony for a mainland couple, down at Puako. They had been planning this wedding for almost a year, and they wanted everything to be perfect. Still, that whole year of planning came down to this: “In the name of God, I take you to be my spouse, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.” Most of us know something they haven’t figured out yet – those are tough promises. To keep those promises, they will need to sacrifice and compromise. They will need to learn to listen to each other. And the odds are not necessarily with them. We know that with Christ they stand a better chance of making it, but the promises of marriage are difficult.

This was not the case in Jesus’ day. Okay - the promises of marriage may have been difficult. But you didn’t really have a choice. Divorce left a woman and her children homeless – literally. And divorce was dishonor for the man. So they put up with each other, compromise or no compromise. In those ancient days, people lives were governed by law. Religious law. When to bathe, how to prepare meat, what to take to the temple. The Old Testament book of Leviticus details these laws, and they goon and on and on. And the Sadducees loved the laws. They lived by the laws. But the Sadducees only accepted the first 5 books of the Old Testament. Those books are called the Torah. And these books said nothing directly about the resurrection. So their position was that there was no resurrection. They were teasing Jesus, really. Okay, friend, you say there is a resurrection. Then what if a woman follows the law, and when her husband dies she marries his brother, and so on through seven husbands. Whose wife is she in the resurrection?

Jesus told them, “Friends, it doesn’t work life that. On earth we marry. But not in heaven. In heaven we are like angels and children of God.” What Jesus was saying to the Sadducees was “Look, you’re worrying about the wrong thing. When you get to heaven, you will see that it isn’t a couples thing. It’s even better.” Maybe for the Sadducees it was if you get to heaven, not when.

Then what do we say to Grandma Julie? At 88 years of age, she wanted to know would she be with Loren? Julie died two years ago. I think the answer is yes, she is with him, but in heaven things work a little differently. Loren is there. But in heaven she doesn’t need to worry about whom she’s with. She gets to be with Jesus, which is a better deal than any she could have imagined on earth.

Maybe we are all a little like the Sadducees who wanted to limit God, to box God in, to control God. We want to say to God: we know how your heaven works!

Let’s look at the closing words of the Gospel. Jesus said that our God is "not a God of the dead but the living.” This seems to suggest that the God we worship is a God of possibilities not limitations, a God of life not death, a God of hope not despair. To say that our God is a God of the living not the dead - is to say that our God is a God of opportunities not barriers, a God of new beginnings not endings, a God of the resurrection not the grave.

To say that our God is a God of the living not the dead is to say that our God is a God of healing not disease, a God of wholeness not fragmentation, a God of infinite love and grace not hate or ridicule.

Yet, to say that our God is a God of the living not the dead is also to say that our God even dares to enter into our deaths - all those things that seek to destroy the life. And here He breathes new life into us, so that he might speak his word of resurrection once again. Finally, to say that our God is a God of the living not the dead is to say that our God is an awesome God.

In the end, if we believe that our God is a God of the living, we begin to understand that heaven is a place where we become whole. Whether we were married once or twice or seven times, we become whole. If we were divorced or widowed or single, we become whole. Whether we die as a newborn baby or live to 101 years old - in heaven, we become whole.

We find this wholeness even in the story of Job. In this Old Testament story, Job is a man who lost everything worth living for. In his loss and pain he turned to God, and kept his faith. In those ancient days before Jesus, he foresaw the resurrection, the wholeness, the living God. Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand upon the earth....then I shall see my God.”

May we all be so blessed. Amen.