Luke 20:27-38 God of the Living

27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” 34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’[a] 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

After the Itaewon disaster last Saturday night, many people are living with a heavy burden on their hearts. I pray that God, who suffers with those who are in pain and who weeps with those who weep, is with the bereaved families, those who lost loved ones, and those who are suffering by his side with grace and love. Tuesday, November 1st is called All Saints Day in the church year. Saints in English are sometimes translated as saints in Korea, so some Protestant Christians are uncomfortable with this holiday. But the Saints here are saints, not saints. So it is correct to call it All Saints' Day, not All Saints' Day. The “communion of saints” that we confess in the Apostles' Creed is also this translation of the Communion of Saints.

Although Luther initiated the Reformation in 1517 and continued the characteristics of the Protestant church differently from Catholicism for 500 years after that, Catholics and Protestants both share a common confession of faith, the Bible, and the liturgy for more than 1,500 years. Personally, while talking to Protestants and Catholics, I confirm that misunderstandings about Catholicism and Protestantism are deeply rooted at the bottom. Protestants misunderstand that Catholics worship Mary and are saved by works, and Catholics say that Protestant worship is incomplete because there is no sacrament. It was very difficult because there was a deep-rooted misunderstanding, but Catholics, like us, confessed the Trinity and acknowledged that salvation is God's sole authority. We will talk about comparative advantage by who is right. Both Protestantism and Catholicism need to be reformed, run a race to enrich God’s love through resurrection faith before God, and inherit the precious tradition that the church has kept for a long time. One of them is the All Saints Day I talked about today, that is, All Saints Day.

On this All Saints' Day, it is a time to remember the members who have unfortunately left us over the past year and to reconsider our life, death, and resurrection before God. During this time, we will take a moment to remember for a moment the members who were called by God while living a religious life with us this year. <Video playback> The late Do-wan Choi, Yeon-taek Tak, Myung-yeol Yu, Yun-ho Jo, Jeong-hee Bae, Gye-sik Kwon, Dong-sik Yoo, and Hee-ju Lee. In addition, there are people who have passed away even the parents of the alumni. Why should we remember those who have left us? This is because we believe in the fellowship of all saints, and we are walking in the Lord's way while many people are praying for our faith life together. More specifically, we gather together with us to remember the voids of those who left and fill the voids with God's promise and faith. It is also to comfort the sorrows still experienced by families who have lost loved ones, and to remind them that we are one community and a group of saints. And it is confessing that death cannot contain God's love, that it cannot stop us who are united by God's love, and that in the end all the saints will be united in God through the resurrection.

Today's text begins with the Sadducees' question about this resurrection. Sadducees appear negatively in the Bible. Indeed, their negativity is often portrayed in Jewish history. They were the upper class of Jerusalem at the time. They were priests, judges, and political leaders. The priest Ananias we know well is also a Sadducee. However, not all Sadducees rejected Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John, Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin and was a member of the highest council of the Sadducees. His burial of Jesus Christ in a tomb unites all the Sadducees and makes them impossible to see as opponents of Jesus.

After all, the Sadducees were Israel's highest-ranking figures and rejected Jesus' teachings. In particular, they did not accept the resurrection faith. He rejected the continuity of life beyond death. Because everything ended with death. The main reason is that they took the 5 books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy as their scriptures, and they believe that there is no story about the resurrection. Looking at their beliefs, I wonder what kind of religious meaning would it have if a life that ended with death while professing God as the Lord was the main thing. Perhaps he did not believe in the resurrection, but considering the passage in Genesis that he ‘returned to the bosom of his fathers’, he does not seem to have rejected the afterlife. The Sadducees, however, are the ones who believe that all things end together with death, and have rejected the teachings of the posthumous judgment.

The Sadducees come to Jesus and criticize the resurrection as a criminal offence. As explained in detail in today's text, the criminal collection system is a system in which younger brothers take their brother-in-law as their wives when an older brother dies in a family. The reason this system was implemented was to protect the weak. It was a compassionate social device that safeguarded the descendants of a deceased brother and ensured a family so that widows and children would not face financial hardship. However, considering that it was a custom practiced mainly in rural areas at the time, it seems likely that the Sadducees living in the city of Jerusalem did not use this marriage system.

Far from their marriage practices, this challenge to Jesus is more of a pun rather than a serious question. It seems like a big problem for seven people to have one wife. But was this really such a big deal? The social system at that time was not monogamous. It was polygamy. Then, even if you go to heaven, you can imagine several wives with one man. But it's not mentioned at all. They probably thought it wasn't a big deal. Sometimes there is jealousy and conflict, but it is still an old custom to be polygamous and live with multiple wives. That doesn't matter, the Sadducees only question the situation in which a woman has seven husbands. Multiple wives of one husband are not a problem; multiple husbands of one wife are a problem.

The question posed by the Sadducees in an attempt to corner Jesus shows how insensitive they are to the suffering of women. They cannot comprehend the misery of a woman who is already in difficult circumstances in life with the wealth, power and privileges they already possess. The pain and suffering of women who had to become brothers' wives because they had nowhere to turn are not taken into account. The reason is simple. Because women were considered property. A man living with several women is not a problem. It is as if we own several sets of clothes or several pairs of shoes. However, a woman cannot have several husbands. Because ownership disputes arise. The reason that the Resurrection was uncomfortable for the Sadducees is the point of view of this possession. Because they saw the world through the eyes of possessiveness, it was difficult for them to accept resurrection and death on that continuum.

The Sadducees had prepared a logical trap to put Jesus in trouble, and they wanted to expose Jesus to the trap and his teachings about the resurrection of the dead were a foolish view. But Jesus answers them with the verses of the Pentateuch on which they were based. “They are like angels, and they do not die any more. Because they are children of the resurrection, they are children of God.” He says that people in heaven have the character of eternal angelic beings. It is difficult to make hasty predictions because we do not experience the resurrection life and the life of walking with God after death. But Jesus clearly states that there is a resurrection and a life that walks with God. In today's text, Jesus emphasizes this through his story of Moses. Moses called “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” under the bush. In other words, not the God who was the God of Abraham, the God who was the God of Isaac, and the God who was the God of Jacob. They died, but are raised to life and are called the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and these people are now living with God.

The last part of verse 38 is translated as “everyone lives in relationship with God,” but according to the original text, it says, “to him all people live.” What does it mean to say, “to him all men live”? This means that everyone who lived before us but is not among us now lives “to God”. When connected with God, they are not dead. As saints in God, we live with them who are holy. Neither the first family of the chosen people, Israel, nor those who served God before we were born, nor those who became members of the Christian life with us have not disappeared. We form the perfect people of God with them before God.

Death is the end of many things. But death is not the end of everything. Specifically, our death is not God's end. A German hymn written by Paul Gehardt sings: “All things pass/ but God continues/ unwavering/ His thoughts/ His Word and His will stand upon an eternal foundation.” As Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, we are living in a specific time, the time allotted to us, but God is eternal.

If we take this clearly, we can go one step further, God does not leave us, who He created Himself. He embraces all creation with love. Creation has never been separated from God for a single moment. We humans are not eternal, but God's love for us is eternal. Our lives do not last forever, but God's mercy toward man is eternal. We are saddened by an unexpected death, but that sadness is not eternal. Because God is with you.

The Sadducees could not accept the eternal kingdom of God in which the ways of this earth continued. In that respect, they had a proper understanding of the Resurrection. The kingdom of God is different from this world. They cannot understand the kingdom of God through the way and perspective of their possessions. God's way is different from man's way or judgment. The way it works on land doesn't work in the sky. Even those of the lowest rank in society become “children of the angels and earthlings, children of the resurrection” in heaven. What the gospel basically says is that there are no sociopolitical classes in heaven, and that is the gospel today. Jesus said that the children of the resurrection are the children of God. The resurrected ones are not Roman citizens, Jewish Sadducees, or children of other royal descent. Only children of God. If we can feel the discrimination we are experiencing here and now and the pain caused by the difference we are experiencing here, there will be no people who hope for the kingdom of God. The mystery of the resurrection revealed by Jesus is that the oppressed will be set free, the downtrodden will be exalted, and above all, they will be loved by God. Both women and men will no longer be treated as property or possessions, objects that are moved from one place to another according to the will or mood of the powerful. The gaze of love, not the gaze of possession, will rule the country. There is no place for the powerful and addictive gaze of possession in the kingdom of God. So, the children of the resurrection in heaven will enjoy joy and peace that they have never experienced in the world.

In the past, slaves could not become Christians. Britain, which ruled India as a colony, did not send missionaries to India. Because if you make Indians Christians, you can't make them slaves. Even in North America, enslaved Africans were subjected to forced labor and exploitation, were forbidden to read or write, and were disabled or executed for failure to do so. Those found possessing books, especially Bibles, were severely punished. The owner cut off his hand, dug out his eye, or beat him badly with a leather whip. In an age of barbarism and violence, addicted to possessions, slaves would not have maintained their humanity if it were not for their resurrection belief that “God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living”. Even though they were told that they were two-thirds of a human being, they fervently believed in the gospel of the resurrection and understood themselves as children of God, singing praises of hope. That's a black soul. Among them is the spiritual song “I've Got a Robe”. In this spiritual song they see themselves in a different situation despite their present fears. This spiritual song repeats Jesus' response to the Sadducees with a proclamation that the abandoned, neglected, suffering, and widows are loved and cared for by God. Written by people who are forbidden to own land, and often whose children and loved ones are sold, these spiritual songs boldly portray the kingdom of heaven where they will be restored.

All of God's children have robes.

I will wear my robes when I get to heaven.

Shout out from all over the heavens of God.

Not everyone who talks about heaven goes there.

From heaven, from heaven, from all of God's heaven I'll shout... From all of God's heaven I'll cry.

There is no one who is calm in the face of death, no one who is detached, no one who can live as if nothing is wrong. In the face of the sudden death of many young people, in the face of the death of a member of our community whom we love, and in the face of the death I must bear, no one can say that I am okay with the resurrection faith. It's scary and embarrassing. But Jesus tells us clearly. God is the God of the living. He is the God of those who live on this earth, a time that encompasses not only the moment of living, but beyond eternity.

We are the living. They are not those who hesitate and stop in the face of death, but the saints who overcome and share the hope of resurrection for the kingdom of God in spite of death, raise and restore the fallen, and share God's love. God's love that does not stop even in the face of death, God's grace that raises everyone in the resurrection and makes them live.