Jesu Juva

“A Nugget of the Eternal”

Text: Luke 20:27-40; Exodus 3:1-15; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–8, 13–17

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

I often get asked what heaven is going to be like. And my standard answer to that question is: Well, what does the Bible say? For that’s where the answer would be. But the truth is that the Bible doesn’t tell us very much. The book of Revelation gives us some snapshots, and a picture might be worth a thousand words, but it doesn’t tell us much about what life is going to be like there. And maybe that’s frustrating. I get it.

But maybe we aren’t told because it’s not possible for us to understand. It will be so different than life here that we can’t wrap our minds around it. In school chapel this week, I shared what someone once told me, a way to maybe think about this, how different everything will be. He said it’s like trying to explain to an unborn baby what life in this world is going to be like after she’s born. All that baby knows is what life is like inside Mom. But soon, she will be pushed out into a world very different! With cold and bright lights and loud noises. She’s going to have to eat for herself and wear things called clothes and be changed. She’s going to see all sorts of things she never saw before - including Mom and Dad! It’s just too much to describe. She’ll just have to experience it.

Seems to me, that’s a pretty good way to think about it.

But still, we’d like to know . . . something, anything! And today we get a little something in Jesus’ teaching to the Sadducees. For they ask a question about eternal life. They ask Jesus about this poor woman who is married but has no children. In Old Testament Israel, that was a matter of concern. It was important to make sure that the parcel of land given to your family in the Promised Land - land that was a gift from God! - would stay in the family, would be passed on to an heir. So it was important to have an heir. So if a husband died without having a child, an heir, it fell upon his brother to fulfill this duty for the sake of the family and their inheritance. Well, in the scenario the Sadducees dreamed up, there were seven brothers and none of them produced a child, an heir. So Jesus, they said, we’re confused . . . who’s wife will she be in the resurrection, in heaven, for eternity?

It was a question they probably asked with a smirk on their faces, because as you heard in the reading today, the Sadducees denied that there is a resurrection! And here’s a situation to prove how foolish it is to believe that, and they used that to try to make a fool of Jesus! But what they didn’t count on is that Jesus knew the answer! He knows what heaven and life there is like - that’s where He came from. So He tells them a nugget: there is no marriage in heaven. Marriage is for this life, not the next. Marriage is for the procreation of children here is this world. But in the next life, it will not be husband and wife and many families, but brothers and sisters in Christ in one enormous family!

Now, I’ll admit, that makes me a little sad. And maybe if you’re married, it does you, too. Our spouses are dear to us and I can’t imagine life without my wife being my wife! But that’s part of our being born into a new life - a new life very different than this one, that’s hard for us to imagine and understand here and now.

Maybe . . . a bit like Moses, who also could not comprehend what he was seeing there on Mt. Horeb - how a bush could be on fire and yet not be consumed! That’s not how it works in our world! Two very different worlds were coming together there, and Moses was getting a glimpse. He was in the presence of the other-worldly, the very presence of God. He was standing on holy ground - ground made holy by the presence of the holy one, God Himself. The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The God whose name is I AM who I AM. That is, the God who is only and always present tense. For whom there is not the passing of time, for time was created by Him. For Him there is no past (I WAS), no future (I WILL BE), just present (I AM). For to be eternal is not to change with time. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). And that - being unchangeable and outside of time - is another part of eternal life I can’t wrap my head around!

But that eternal, unchangeable God who appeared to Moses in the burning bush was now standing before the Sadducees in human flesh and answering their question about the eternal! And He let them know, not only about marriage in heaven, but this, too: that there is indeed a heaven, and a resurrection, and eternal life! What the Sadducees denied was, in fact, real. For so had He told Moses so long ago. That Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all died, but God is still their God. For their bodies will be raised, resurrected, to a new and eternal life. For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Life is God and God’s plan.

And so we, too, stand on holy ground, for we, too, are in the presence of the all holy one. Here is not a bush that is burning but not consumed, but a Body and Blood, now eternal, that can be consumed! And here is a holy font, a holy pulpit, a holy altar, a holy church, made holy by the eternal and holy God who comes to us here with His life and hope. Who comes to us here not to send us on an exodus like Moses, but to scoop us up and bring us along with Jesus in His exodus - His exodus from cross to grave to life again! That though we die, we live in Him. And live with the promise of a resurrection to a life that is eternal and all new.

For that reason, Jesus is called the firstfruits from the dead. That is, He is the first to rise from the dead, but not the last. There are many more to come. Many more who will rise to life in Him.

Now go back to that image I spoke of earlier, that our resurrection to a new and eternal life will be like a baby being born into this world. That resurrection and new life began with Jesus, and the earth is now waiting to give birth to many, many more. So think of Easter as the day when the earth’s water broke, so soon she will give birth - to a great multitude in the resurrection of the dead to life again! A new life that we will get to see and experience in eternity as one enormous family with our one Father and our brother, our Lord Jesus Christ.

That Day is coming, but not yet here. Paul had to reassure the Thessalonians of that, for some were worried they had missed it; that it had already come. I think in our day and age, we have the opposite problem - some are worried it will never come! For not just a bush, but our whole world is on fire and is being consumed! By all sorts of sin and evil. A fire and a burning getting hotter and more widespread every day.

But no, Paul says. To them and to us. The Day is coming when the earth will give birth to her dead, but not yet. Because there are still more who need to hear and believe in Jesus. Jesus is the firstfruits from the dead, but we are the firstfruits in life! The firstfruits to be saved, Paul said. Which means more are coming. More are being saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To be born again now in this life, and then born again to a new life in eternity. A new and wonderful and unimaginable life.

Until that Day, Paul says, stand firm. Stand firm in the truth of God’s Word and in Christ, and stand firm in every good work and word. The good works and good words God has given you to do and speak now in this life. In this world of sin and evil. This world where many, like the Sadducees, think this is all there is. That there is no resurrection, no eternal, no life after this one. Stand firm, because you know there is. You know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You know the God of Moses. You know the God who died on the cross for us, for the forgiveness of our sins and to be the firstfruits from the dead. You know that death is not the end, but that the Last Day of this life is the first day of eternal life. You know.

So now all your words and deeds flow from that knowledge and confidence, just as the words of deeds of those who don’t know flow from that doubt or fear. So you speak different and do different for you are different. Wealth here isn’t as important as wealth there. A mansion here is a hovel there. Gold bricks here are guarded and sealed up in vaults; there they are pavement. Knowing that, you live different. And it’s the presence of God that does that for you! By His presence Moses was changed, Paul was changed, are you are changed.

So while I don’t know what heaven will be like, I do know this: that we will be there. So we’ll find out. Jesus baptized you for that life, and forgives you for that life, and feeds you for that life, and will take you to that life when He comes again in glory and our exodus from sin and death is complete. And that poor woman the Sadducees asked about won’t be any brothers’ wife - she will be your sister in Christ. And she will be forever. When the Bridegroom soon calls us to the wedding feast which has no end.

So these last couple weeks of the Church Year we turn our attention to that Day. That Day of new life. That Day of eternity. That Day I cannot really wrap my mind around now, but I’m looking forward to seeing and experiencing. Until that Day and that feast, come to this feast here, where heaven and earth, time and eternity meet. Where the all Holy one comes for you to holy you. To prepare you for that Day. Your birthday into eternal life.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.