Proper 27 Year C 11/6/2022
Job 19:23-27a; Psalm 17:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
We are almost at the official end of our church year…
On November 27th we will turn the calendar and head into Advent.
And although we might consider Advent to be the official season of expectation, waiting, and hope…
All Saints’ Day truly marks a shift in the themes of our readings…
The last few weeks of the Church year prepare us for the season of Advent.
The church year concludes with readings and themes related to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ…
It focuses on the traditional themes of Advent…
The four last things…
Namely:
Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell
All things that seem to be clouded in mystery…
Things that many people do not talk about…
For various reasons…
This end-of-the-church-year season brings these things to the forefront of our readings.
The day that really marks the beginning of the end of the year is:
All Saints’ Day…
Which is November 1st each year…
We celebrated it last Tuesday…
It is the day we remember all of the elect…
The saints we might know and have heard and read about…
St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Irenaeus, and so forth.
Of course, there are the saints no one has heard of…
The ones that have quietly and faithfully served the Lord in their time.
Nevertheless, the saints of God are alive in Christ…
And our Gospel reading points toward this truth today.
Jesus said:
…where Moses 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…
You see even though the Bible patriarchs, the New Testament believers, the Church Fathers and the many faithful that have come after are all dead in our present age…
In the eternal age, they are alive before God…
They are present with Christ Jesus…
Around the throne of God.
For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Jesus said these words in our Gospel reading to the Sadducees.
Sadducees were religious and political leaders in Jerusalem…
They were family members who controlled commerce and festivals related to the temple in the most holy city.
The Sadducees were different from the other biblical group you have probably heard of known as the Pharisees.
The Sadducees were a much smaller group that were only located in Jerusalem around the temple…
Pharisees were all over…
They oversaw the synagogues that existed in many cities of antiquity as long as there was a large enough Jewish population to support the synagogue.
So, the Pharisees were scattered about…
The Sadducees were not.
The two ancient Jewish groups also had great differences in theology and one of those differences was related to life after death…
Resurrection.
The Sadducees were trying to trap Jesus by going on about how ludicrous the idea of resurrection is…
Telling this story about a woman who had married seven men…
All brothers as is in accord with Jewish law.
Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?
Rhetorically suggesting how logic fails the idea of resurrection.
Jesus clearly takes the side of the Pharisees here.
The Pharisees held that the Jewish Testament…
The Old Testament…
Teaches life after death…
Teaches resurrection.
Jesus turns to the older testament and proclaims that God is the God of the living not the dead…
for He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Who are alive with God.
Jesus also talks a bit about the afterlife…
When we are present with Christ…
The resurrection.
Concerning all this, Jesus said:
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.
A few things here:
Resurrection life will not be the same as our present life.
Death will have been abolished…
Sexual relations and the need for a family line will be irrelevant.
We will live in a deathless immortal state.
In this way we will be like the angels.
This is not to say that we will be angels…
That’s basic folk-religion belief…
Our loved ones do not become angels.[1]
They remain humans…
When Christ returns the Christian belief is in a bodily resurrection.
We will be with the Lord in our redeemed bodies forever.
This is the teaching of the Old Testament.
It was present in our first reading from Job…
we heard these prophetic words:
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God…
Right there is a hope in the resurrection…
destroyed flesh becomes redeemed flesh.
This is the teaching of the New Testament.
As we see in the words of our Lord here in our Gospel from St. Luke.
It is also in our theology as Anglicans…
As Episcopalians…
In our collect for today we prayed:
O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure;
that, when he comes again with power and great glory,
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom…
Our future resurrection is patterned after Jesus’ resurrection.
Our bodies and souls will be made like him.
As we live eternally with Christ Jesus in our redeemed bodies.
And it is this belief…
in what happens when we die.
The bodily resurrection.
That has shaped the people of God from the beginning.
From Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…
Through the prophets…
To the apostles…
To the church through the ages…
Sociologist, Rodney Stark who traces the growth of the Christian religion in his book The Rise of Christianity[2] tells the story of an epidemic in 165 AD…
The death toll was extreme…
Anyone with wealth or status would flee an infected city…
The poor and sick were left.
However, many Christians stayed in the cities to care for the poor and sick.
Their belief in the afterlife…
In their future resurrection with Christ forever…
Gave them the hopeful will to care for those in need.
Stark writes:
The Christians were certain that this life was but a prelude.[3]
The truth of being with Christ forever is the truth of the Gospel.
It is the promise found in the atonement…
The cross of Jesus provides the way for freedom from sin.
The cross of Jesus make the way for the resurrection to happen.
And Christ’s resurrection is the first fruit of all the future resurrections…
Christ Jesus’ redeemed body is the promise we have for our own future.
And we are called to repent of our sin…
And believing in the work of Jesus on the cross…
A sacrifice for our sins…
That believing in Jesus Christ we shall be saved…
That anyone who believes in Jesus will not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3.16)
This truth of everlasting life in Christ is transforming!
You see…
My hope is no longer in my politics.
My hope is no longer in my nationality.
My hope is no longer in my work ethic or my bank account.
My hope is in Christ Jesus my Lord.
And because of that hope…
We can go out into this world and boldly declare the good news of Jesus.
There is a way to be free from sin, guilt, and sorrow.
There is a way to be set free from the bondage of this world.
That way is found in Jesus Christ…
Who said:
I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
(John 14.6)
Christian brothers and sisters, may we not get so caught up with the hope of this age that we lose sight on the hope of the resurrection.
But may we because of this hope in Christ Jesus…
Because we become so consumed by this hope…
That we truly…
Love the people around us…
Living sacrificially for them…
Telling them about who it is that makes our life worth living…
Who it is that sets the captives free…
Who it is that heals the broken hearted…
Who it is that gives sight to the blind…
Who it is that proclaims good news to the poor…
(Luke 4.18 & Isaiah 61.1)
It is Jesus Christ…
Who is the beginning and the end…
The One who reigns forever…
And is calling us…
To follow Him.
The good news lesson today is that we believe in a resurrection…
And we will be with Christ forever.
Share that message today…
It’s not just an Easter message…
It should be our daily walk in Christ Jesus.
This life is but a shadow of the one to come.
May we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus…
As we serve him in this world.
Amen.
[1] NT Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville: WJK, 2001, 2004), 245.
[2] Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1997)
[3] Ibid., 88.