For 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, having a wife, and he 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 

 

Yesterday we read that, after Jesus told the parable of the Wicked Vinedressers against them, 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.   

 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, having a wife, and he 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."   The Sadducees were members of a high priestly class, for the most part what we might call an aristocratic group of landowners around Jerusalem.  It was their responsibility to maintain the temple.  They believed only in what is called the Written Torah.  Unlike the Pharisees, they rejected the oral traditions built up around the Law.  Neither did they hold with the concept of resurrection and of angelic spirits.  As a class, they disappeared after the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  From their perspective, we can see how questions of inheritance and a very "earthly" notion of marriage,  in combination with their rejection of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection, would bring about this strange question as a test for Jesus.

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.  Jesus explains that there will be a resurrection, but not of the sort the Sadducees imagine.  Their question is framed in a very earthly idea of life, including marriage, but Jesus explains that in the resurrection, the change of life is total.  The understanding of the resurrection is contained in the Scriptures, as Moses calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, indicating all live in God although they lived at different times on earth and are physically dead -- which they fail to understand.  Therefore the Scriptures themselves contain an indication of the total transfiguration of life after death.  My study bible says that it is the clear teaching of Christ that the souls of the faithful who have departed this life are sustained before the face of God in anticipation of the final joy of the resurrection.  

How can we understand the total transfiguration of life that occurs in the resurrection?  Moreover, this concept is linked to our understanding of the communion of saints, with whom we pray even as we pray in this world?  How can we understand our liturgical worship, and that the angels worship with us even as we worship in our churches?  This "mystical" (if you will) aspect of our faith remains with us, and is undeniable, although so many today would also seek to reject it.  Perhaps, like the Sadducees in some sense, our material focus is so great in our present modern world that it is much easier to dismiss notions of life existing beyond this world, in ways we can't "scientifically" test and prod or prove, and so it is just simpler to reject it.  Nevertheless, Christ's teaching here form part and parcel of our faith.  They remain alive to us today, even as in our worship services we pray for those who have passed, we commemorate saints of the past, we hold memorials for our loved ones, and all are contained and, indeed, alive in the reality of the Church.  When one venerates an icon, it is not a form of worship but rather a form of prayer; we invoke the prayers of the saints, our loved ones, and angels even as we would ask a fellow believer to pray with us or for us.  St. Paul calls the communion of saints the "great cloud of witnesses" in Hebrews 12:1-2.  For his contemporaries, he invokes this great cloud of saints as those who help us, as believers in the world, to run our race of faith, to persist to the end and to endure despite the hardships, even as Christ endured the Cross.  This is a very real and concrete testimony of help -- an active and present help for our faith coming from this communion of saints, connected to believers always through prayer.  In our worship services, we evoke the great song heard by Isaiah in the worship of the angels and the Lord's glory filled the temple:  "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!" (see Isaiah 6:1-4).  When we hear this hymn in our own churches, we are to understand that this heavenly worship continues with us and among us, and that the vision of Isaiah was for all, at all times, and remains present with us.  The point is that, contrary to the assumptions of the Sadducees, and of people today who'd prefer that we leave out anything that can't be explained through Aristotelian level science, our faith is one that remains couched in mystery, or the mystical, however one would want to put it.  We interact with beings we don't see with our five senses, we worship together with those who have passed and who yet "live to God."  The whole of the kingdom of heaven remains a mystery, in the sense that it is unknowable in its entirety, as God also remains unknowable in God's entirety.  And yet this Kingdom lives among us and within us, and is populated by those with whom we pray, both saints and angels uncountable, in their entirety unknowable and unnameable.  It is just the way Jesus described the work of the Spirit to Nicodemus, even as He attempted to teach the mystery of Holy Baptism:  "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).  What we mustn't forget is that our faith is one that will always include mystery; we participate in the life of Christ, and even that is not explicable and knowable in its entirety.  We walk and pray and persist in our faith with the great cloud of witnesses which is beyond our grasp, and yet we "know" all of this, for it dwells even in our hearts.  We live and pray and "run our race" (as St. Paul puts it) completely in participation with all of these things, with God who is at once unknowable and yet closer than our hearts.  We live with this mystery, we "seek the Lord, in the hope that [we] might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:27-28).   Life opens to us in all dimensions; we are sadly lost if we leave out the mystical, and the reality of this Kingdom which is even still present to us, and alive.