He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him

 Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers.  And the first took a wife, and died without children.  And the second took her as wife, and he died childless.  Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become?  For all seven had her as wife."

Jesus answered and said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.  But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.  But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'  For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him."  Then some of the scribes answered and said, "Teacher, you have spoken well."  But after that they dared not question Him anymore.

- Luke 20:27-40

In yesterday's reading, after Jesus had told a parable against the leadership,  we read that the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people--for they knew He had spoken this parable against them.  So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.  Then they asked Him, saying, "Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth:  Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"  But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them, "Why do you test Me?  Show Me a denarius.  Whose image and inscription does it have?"  They answered and said, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the people.  And they marveled at His answer and kept silent.

  Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers.  And the first took a wife, and died without children.  And the second took her as wife, and he died childless.  Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become?  For all seven had her as wife."   My study bible says that the Sadducees are the high priestly and landowning class which controlled the temple and the Jewish Council.  It says, "In a striking difference with the Pharisees, the Sadducees rejected the resurrection of the dead and they came to Christ to dispute it." 

Jesus answered and said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.  But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.  But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'  For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him."  Then some of the scribes answered and said, "Teacher, you have spoken well."  But after that they dared not question Him anymore.  My study bible tells us that Jesus' answer is "concise and irrefutable.  Since God is not the God of the dead but of the living, both those who are physically alive and those who are deceased, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all live to Him."

Jesus' answer is a startling one, and remains so, if only because He tells us something about the age to come, and the difference between the world we live in and the one we await.  There's a clear difference between values and ways of seeing and relating in this age and in that one.  We ourselves are transformed; even the nature of our most basic relationships are changed.  There is no marriage.  The children of the age to come, those who are worthy of that life -- and in the language this is presented as an attainment to something wonderful -- are equal to the angels and children of God.  Immortality is a key to this change:  to be equal to angels and children of God, not to be given in marriage at all, is linked to this timeless, deathless state.  But there is more to it, because God has already declared, even to us who live in this world, as was declared to Moses, that God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.  Therefore, immortality -- or life in abundance, as we may call it -- lives already.  We may think of the age to come as precisely that, in our terms, an age to come in which we may participate.  But that is because we live in time and our lives are regulated by it.  Time gives us time to repent and to change, to come to God, to become "like God" and children of God in this pattern in which we grow and learn and love through Christ, participating in the Kingdom in faith.  But the "age to come" is of a different nature altogether, in which time does not exist as we know it.  "Life in abundance" then, in its true nature connotes this immortal time, this eternal time, in which everything is always present.  "Life in abundance" is that life in which all live to Him, which "breaks through" into our world in the form of Christ, and in revelation -- for example, in the burning bush, in which this God of the living, including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, breaks through into our world, into time, and gives us a glimpse of God's reality, the one in which all life is contained, including our lives in the age to come.  To have life in abundance is to attain this place where everything is changed, where the abundance of life adds to us a nature that renders us like angels, a state of being children of God, a life ageless and timeless, life eternal, in which there is no death.  This is one of the clearest glimpses Jesus gives us of what this age to come is like, what the children of resurrection will experience.  Jesus' Transfiguration was another glimpse, as He stood on the mountain speaking with Moses and Elijah.  Let's not forget that while we may experience this, and it is told to us as the age to come, it is a living reality in the communion of saints and in the liturgy which we celebrate even with the angels in heaven.  This age to come is present and "breaks through" in vivid revelation recorded in Scripture, in the lives of the saints, in images such as the burning bush.  The Kingdom is within us and among us, even as we await its fullness.  Prayer intersects us in the communion of all the living, of all those who live to Him and worship.  Let us remember what we call upon when we put our faith in prayer -- and what the tremendous fullness of life in abundance really means.