Afterlife Luke 20:27-38 Sunday, November 10, 2013 The Rev. Sharon Snapp-Kolas, preaching

Transcription

1 Afterlife Luke 20:27-38 Sunday, November 10, 2013 The Rev. Sharon Snapp-Kolas, preaching Scripture. Prayer. Opening. It s natural for people to wonder about the afterlife. We see our loved ones die; we hope to see them again. We know we will die one day; we hope that s not all there is. A book came out in 2012, entitled: Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon s Journey Into the Afterlife, by Eben Alexander. A number of folks in our church have read it and found it inspiring. The description of the book on Amazon.com is, in itself, inspiring. It says: Thousands of people have had near-death experiences, but scientists have argued that they are impossible. Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those scientists. A highly trained neurosurgeon, Alexander knew that NDEs feel real, but are simply fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress. Then, Dr. Alexander s own brain was attacked by a rare illness. The part of the brain that controls thought and emotion -- and in essence makes us human -- shut down completely. For seven days he lay in a coma. Then, as his doctors considered stopping treatment, Alexander s eyes popped open. He had come back. Alexander s recovery is a medical miracle. But the real miracle of his story lies elsewhere. While his body lay in coma, Alexander journeyed beyond this world and encountered an angelic being who guided him into the deepest realms of super-physical existence. There he met, and spoke with, the Divine source of the universe itself. Alexander s story is not a fantasy. Before he underwent his journey, he could not reconcile his knowledge of neuroscience with any belief in heaven, God, or the soul. Today 1

2 Alexander is a doctor who believes that true health can be achieved only when we realize that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition. This story would be remarkable no matter who it happened to. That it happened to Dr. Alexander makes it revolutionary. No scientist or person of faith will be able to ignore it. Reading it will change your life. Whew! Exciting stuff! But Some folks are scornful of a belief in the afterlife. Too sophisticated and educated to believe in fairy tales, they scoff at the rest of us, clinging to our childish wish that death is not the end of the story. The Sadducees are just this type of sophisticated scoffers. I. The Sadducees vs. Jesus. They are snobbish urban elites from Jerusalem, looking down their noses at Jesus, the country bumpkin rabbi from Nazareth. They do not believe in the resurrection. Josephus, a first century historian, describes the Sadducees as able to persuade none but the rich. They do not inspire the common folk. In verses 25 & 26, just prior to this morning s reading, Jesus stuns the Scribes and the Pharisees into silence, in response to their question about whether or not to pay taxes. Now Jesus is accosted by the Sadducees. I heard a story about one year s Tournament of Roses parade, in which: A beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was the float represented an oil company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas. They had the entire resources of heaven at their disposals. They were entrusted with the oracles of God; however, in Luke chapter 20 the parade of Chief Priest, Elders and Sadducees 2

3 came to a sudden halt when they cut themselves off from the resources of God who was now in Christ. (Brett Blair, quoting C. Neil Strait, Minister s Manual, 1994, 315). The Sadducees offer Jesus an absurd scenario having to do with a man whose brother dies. According to the rules of levirate marriage, the man should marry the brother s wife, so that she will not be left destitute and so that his brother will not be left childless. It does not seem likely that such concerns would be an issue for the wealthy, elite Sadducees of Jerusalem. Such laws may have come about to make provision for wives and children in a rural society. Rich city folk like the Sadducees would not be in need of such provisions. But they want to taunt and test that low-brow hick from the hinterlands. Who does Jesus think he is, teaching at the Temple in the great city of Jerusalem? In the end, seven brothers marry the woman and die, after which she dies, as well. In the resurrection, ask the Sadducees, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her. (v. 33). II. What does Scripture say? Jesus is expounding on scripture, as preachers & teachers do in the Temple. He gives a dazzling interpretation. Jesus knocks out the Sadducees ridiculous question about the afterlife explaining that life in heaven is different from life on earth There s a surprise In effect, says William Willimon, Jesus is saying to that group of critical Sadducees, Your questions betray your limited point of view, your narrow frame of reference. The resurrection is not just some extension of your world. It is a whole new world, the world as God intended the world to be. It is a world in which the woman of your story is a child of God, not a piece of property. It is a world in which each of us lives as children of the resurrection. (as quoted by Joel D. Kline). 3

4 Jesus also knocks out the Sadducees scriptural arguments against the resurrection. He refers to Exodus 3:6, where God speaks to Moses from a burning bush. God declares: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Jesus patiently explains to the snobbish Sadducees, Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living. (v. 38). Therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, according to the Hebrew scriptures, are alive. The resurrection is a biblical fact. III. Questions. And yet we have questions. Patrick J. Willson, a pastor and theologian, writes: A child comes shyly asking about the beloved old kitty who did not wake one morning, whom Daddy buried in the backyard. Older [folks] outlive their spouses and remarry and even remarry again maybe not seven times, but enough to make them wonder and ponder the question. The questions the Sadducees pose have to do with ownership and marital rights, but we ponder the question on our own terms. We may not pose taunting questions intended to humiliate, as the Sadducees do. But we wonder about the realities of heaven. We read books like Eben Alexander s Proof of Heaven. We go to movies about the afterlife. Robin Williams stars in a beautiful movie from a number of years ago, entitled, What Dreams May Come. It depicts a colorful dreamscape of the beauty of heaven and the self-inflicted torment of hell, painted with breath-taking artistic imagery. Books and movies about heaven are popular because we all want to know. What s on the other side of the curtain of death? We want to know, where is my loved one after he dies? What will it be like when I see her again? Will I see them again? Brett Blair adds some helpful thoughts to the discussion. He writes: 4

5 Resurrection is not some natural right that we are given. It is a remarkable gift from the grace of God. Gratis! Some Greek philosophers believed that we are, by nature, immortal spirits. The human body and life on earth are but crude prisons that we endure like caged eagles. For them immortality is our right, which is restored at death as we escape to our true element. Pessimists on the other hand said we die like any animal and that is it. Look at Ecclesiastes and you will find this emphatic despair. But Christianity said two things: To the pessimists Christianity answers: No! You are wrong. There is a gift of life after death. Death does not snuff out the candle of our soul. To the Greeks: No you are wrong. The body is not a cage; it is a good gift to be used in this life. Death is real to be sure but it is not an escape, a loophole by which we escape the sentence of living on earth. God gives us the gift of life: Earthly life and Resurrection life: Both are Gift! Both are Grace! Jesus commands us to love one another (John 13:34). Paul writes, in 1 Cor. 13:8, Love never ends. One thing we can say for sure about heaven: it is all about God s love. That love is a constant, in this life and in the next, and it has nothing to do with our marital status single, married, divorced, remarried, never married. We are deeply loved now and throughout eternity. It s a common danger that people get into, thinking -- in our desperation for love that marriage, or a romantic relationship, or a perfect friendship in which we never get hurt that some form of human relationship will fill that void the void of our longing to be loved The Sadducees joke about it seven husbands, and then the wife dies, too, and what does she get out of the deal? Jesus gives us the assurance of the promises of God, as contained in scripture from 5

6 Genesis to Revelation God s love never ends. The love we are searching for can only be found in God. If we allow the empty void in our lives to be filled with God s love, then all our human relationships will be put in right perspective. We find hope in God. Closing. There is an Italian legend about a master and servant. It seems the servant was not very smart and the master used to get very exasperated with him. Finally, one day, in a fit of temper, the master said: You really are the stupidest man I know. Here, I want you to carry this staff wherever you go. And if you ever meet a person stupider than yourself, give them this staff. So time went by, and often in the marketplace the servant would encounter some pretty stupid people, but he never found someone appropriate for the staff. Years later, he returned to his master's home. He was shown into his master's bedroom, for the man was quite sick and in bed. In the course of their conversation the master said: I'm going on a journey soon. When will you return? asked the servant. This is a journey from which I will not return, the master replied, The servant asked: Have you made all the necessary arrangements? No, I guess I have not. Well, could you have made all the arrangements? Oh yes, I guess I've had time. I've had all my life. But I've been busy with other things. The servant said: Let me be sure about this. You're going on a journey, from which you will never return, and you've had all your life to make the arrangements, but you haven't. The master said: Yes, I guess that's right. The servant replied: Master, take this staff. For at last I have truly found a man stupider 6

7 than myself. Jesus doesn t answer all our questions about death. We wish he would. What he does is interpret the scriptures and show us a God who is faithful, a God in whom we can trust, a God who loves us with infinite compassion. We can face whatever life and death bring us, knowing that God s love prevails. Amen. 7