Job 19: 23-27a (New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)

Luke 20: 27-38 (Common English Bible)

Do dead things come back to life? A better question to ask might be, can life rise from death? Resurrection is not resuscitation of the physical self, rather it signals the active work of a sovereign God to make a complete transformation of the human body. To believe in the Resurrection of the dead is to understand that only a powerful God can accomplish the power to liberate, to heal and raise the dead.

The two major religious groups in Judea were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Both had different views on life after death. The Pharisees did believe in the Resurrection while the Sadducees denied there was life after death. Everyone just dies and that is the end. The Sadducees only recognized the Torah, the first five books of Moses, as the only authority to go by.

There was a small third group of Judaeans called the Essenes who rejected worship in the Temple because they viewed the Temple as corrupted. So they moved to the desert to worship. Some believe the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by the Essenes and at one time John the Baptizer was part of that group. And some Essenes believed in reincarnation. So different religions were all over Judea in the 1st century AD.

In this reading from Luke’s gospel, Jesus is in Jerusalem surrounded by people and even the Sadducees. And the Sadducees were no friend of Jesus unlike some Pharisees were. So the Sadducees ask Jesus a trick question, about whose wife the widow will belong to in the Resurrection. Over the years she has been married to seven brothers at separate times, and all are dead now. Who will be the brother and husband of the widow after the Resurrection? Who will father the child when born? The Sadducees wanted to make a fool of Jesus and the idea of a Resurrection.

But Jesus had a great rebuttal, and said, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, but in the Resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They can no longer die, because they will exist forever just like the angels.” Jesus explains the afterlife is very different from life on earth. And procreation is not needed. When the Sadducees heard that, they were brainlocked and were afraid to ask anything from Jesus again.

What is this lesson for the Body of Christ? One lesson is that the Church must understand the Resurrection is the believer’s gateway to hope. There is something better beyond one’s life on earth. God’s revelation is not contained or restricted. Divine revelations have not stopped. God continues to speak to the people of God.

Another possible message is that bringing the good news of the Kingdom of God may provoke opposition. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, speech on April 3rd, 1968 was interpreted as a vision of the Kingdom of God. It was about freedom, justice and equality, especially to the sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King faced opposition and that led to his assasination.  

If eternal life is simply an extension of life in the present and nothing more, is there any reason to hope? Jesus’ views there will be a new kind of relationship in heaven. No longer will people be held captive to sin, age or health problems.  

Jesus does not tell us in any detail what is ahead of us in heaven, but there will be dwelling places. I believe they are places where our spirits will be educated and learn more about God’s universe and its inhabitants. No doubt, at one time the Christ visited them, long before the Christ came to earth.

If Yahweh is our God, and we are God’s people, death is not the end for us. As someone once said, “It is the first day of the rest of your life.” We have God’s promise of the reality of the Resurrection through Jesus’ own death and victory with his risen spiritual body to last forever.

There was a neurosurgeon, Eben Alexander, who was rendered comatose for seven days caused by a meningitis infection. He experienced during his coma affirmed for him, there is a consciousness beyond the body. What makes this story so compelling is that here is a scientifically trained expert in the field of neurosurgery framed his experience with convincing intellectuals who respect the earth. Eben Alexander said, “The Universe that I experienced in my coma is the same one Einstein and Jesus were speaking about in very different ways. Einstein used science and Jesus used faith.

The passage from the Book of Job, finds a man obsessed with vindication, he is desperate for something to be left behind to show his innocence. His good name has been destroyed, his ties to family and friends have ended, and Job’s body is reduced to bones, teeth and flesh. But this goes behind the physical. Job's entire self is being dismantled by this unjust persecution and the painful reality that God either is not hearing him or is not a trustworthy judge.  

Job’s relationship with God is in full display. And then when Job utters words, he starts to yell in desperation. Does this mark a new turning point for his relationship with God? Or is it just a burst of anger about the unjust misery he has faced.

Job still hopes for the justice he has not received yet. At this point, Job is almost talking past God, rather than appealing to God. Perhaps Job is attempting to wake God from an apparent slumber regarding his situation. Back in that ancient unknown time, people like Job viewed God as a kind of human with a lot of magical powers.

But this is the situation of having one God. There are no other gods to ask for help. Job has a powerful deity, but also a more mysterious one. Redemption does come to Job, and it does come from God. It comes in the form of social restoration and the material things that were taken from him. But the most important thing comes as vindication for Job’s spirit.

As a result of this experience, Job’s faith, his sense of who God is, has changed. Job may understand God in a new way. God has his own timetable to do the correct thing but patience comes first. AMEN.