November 6, 2016 – Luke 20:27-38
Luke 20:27-38
The Living and the Dead Alive to God
All Saints Sunday –Lectionary 32 – November 6, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The Sadducees come to Jesus with a question about resurrection and
what life will be like in the resurrection.
This is not a sincere question, right?
They are trying to trap Jesus and make Jesus look foolish by asking him a
ridiculous question – they don’t even believe in resurrection, right?
The Sadducees only accept as authoritative the first five books of the Bible.
And they do not believe in the resurrection because, they think,
there is no reference to the resurrection in those first five books.
Because they don’t believe in resurrection we learn in confirmation class that that is why
they are “sad – you see?”
In any case, they try to discredit Jesus by trying to show how ridiculous it is to believe in
the resurrection from the dead.
Well, unfortunately for the Sadducees, Jesus is smart.
And he responds to their question in two parts.
First, he says, life in the resurrection will be completely different from this life.
He implies that our relationships with those we love will persist, but that
the features that define our lives in this life – like marriage, childbirth, graduation, etc –
won’t characterize our lives in the next life.
It’ll be . . . different.
Second – Jesus points out something in one of the first five books of the Bible, Exodus.
And he refers to a very important story – the story of Moses at the burning bush.
And he says to the Saducees: remember what the living God says to Moses there? Remember?
He says “I am the God of your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” I am.
Not “I was the God of those dead ancestors – but I am their God.”
God is the God of the living, not the dead.
And so the dead are alive to God in some way: “to God,” says Jesus, “all of them are alive.”
Today we remember and pray for those who have died.
And, like the Sadducees, we also come to Jesus with our questions about resurrection.
What will resurrection life be like?
Will our loved ones be present to us?
Jesus invites us to consider that resurrection life will not just be an endless more of the same.
That it will be different.
But he also invites us to consider in light of what he says about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that
our relationships in resurrection life will persist.
There is so much mystery surrounding what happens after we die.
And the truth is that none of us really knows, for none of us has first hand experience of it.
But what Jesus says today is very comforting.
We believe in a God who loves the dead – for we know Jesus wept for and
loved the dead and raised the dead to life in his love for them.
And today he speaks of the dead being alive to God.
And that is a very comforting thought.
But still, we do grieve the dead – as we should.
My mother died 23 years ago from pancreatic cancer and
not a day goes by when I don’t miss her.
She would have turned 90 this year.
My mother did not want to die.
She was finally enjoying her retirement and enjoying her grandchildren.
I grieved my mother’s dying, my dad grieved my mother’s dying,
my siblings grieved my mother’s dying.
And my mother grieved her dying.
Somehow that grief bound us together – and, I believe, in some mysterious way, still does.
Today, I lit a candle for her – as I always do –
with the hope and the assurance that she is alive to God.
These candles burn with the promise that all our beloved dead are, right now, alive to God.
Those who have died did not want to die.
They did not want to leave us.
They did not want to be separated from us.
But Jesus is inviting us to consider this morning, on this All Saints Sunday,
that even now they are not dead to God, and so neither are they dead to us.
This is one of the most beautiful days in the church year.
Because today our grief becomes something that binds us together.
It is something we all have in common – we have all lost someone we love to death.
We have all grieved.
Yet there is so much good news this morning.
The good news that death is not the end – life in and with God is the end.
Love is the end.
The good news that even now God holds our beloved dead in love and
is keeping them safe in some mysterious way until the day of resurrection.
The good news that even now, God turns the awful-ness of grief into something that
can bind us all ever closer in the bonds of love and understanding and compassion.
The great good news that even the grief of the dead binds us to them even now.
The good news that they are alive to us – in the candles we have lit for them and
in the prayers we have prayed for them.
That they are alive to God even now, that we in our grief are alive to God even now,
that together, the living and the dead, we are all bound together and held by
a God who loves the living and the dead and who holds us all together in love.
As we commune this morning, let us remember that in the embrace of the triune God,
we are all held together in one great communion of saints, and that
we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, both living and dead.
Let us remember that none are lost to God –
for to God, all of us, the living and the dead, are alive.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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