Sunday, November 10, 2013
The God of the galaxies knows every hair on the head of every human that has ever lived. Now that is God think! It is one definition of God that is consistent with any description of an all powerful, all knowing supreme being. Modern believers would rather have a buddy to smooth out the storms of life and this humanization of God has unintended consequences. The other extreme is to assume that God is a remote uncaring celestial ghost who set all things in motion and we must look out for ourselves.
In both cases we tend to lose our focus on how supreme is our God. Can we face death with a buddy God placebo? Everyone who will ever live, will die. Are we so arrogant that our own death can somehow matter in the scheme of things? Is anything left after the ashes blow in the wind? The very best of us, those of us who have lived the most impactful lives, will be a footnote in an ancient library volume, a mere blip on the radar screen of life a 1000 years hence.
The Sadducees in the time of Jesus believed that being a functioning part of their religion, would give them intrinsic worth and their existence would count for something beyond the moment. For this reason these folk did not believe in an eternal personal destiny beyond this life. In addition, they considered the competing God think of the Pharisees more than a bit embarrassing, maintaining that the personal resurrection of the righteous is foolishness. This is the Jewish religious world of the times that brought the Sadducees to Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 20 verses 27-40.
Taking sides on opposing views is the standard operating procedure whether it is politics or religion. Were the Sadducees asking for spiritual enlightenment or were they seeking an ally to stand against the supposed fantasies of the Pharisees? Were they seeking to embarrass or disparage Jesus? It is difficult to assign a positive motive to their inquiry because of the outlandish nature of their question. The question involved seven brothers and the custom of the next surviving brother taking to wife, the wife of the previously deceased. Then comes the zinger in verse 33, “Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
The Sadducees could have just asked a straightforward question, teacher, what if anything is beyond death? Instead, Jesus had to navigate the misconceptions and biases of his time. Our modern understanding of the age to come is as conflicted as those folk listening to Jesus. Similar to the Pharisee, Christianity preaches a personal resurrection of the righteous with an earthly familiarity that is as stupid as the question about marriage. We want or expect “a face book heaven” with family and friends gathered around. Jesus says no, that is not the age to come.
The second misunderstanding is that there are those who say that only our positive, religiously centered actions can live beyond our death. As our lives are remembered as religiously acceptable, our lives will live on because they are respected by men and forever by God. The reference Jesus made to Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob clearly is compatible with this understanding of a religious eternity that the Sadducees advanced. Most of our present day God think is along this line, if we are religiously connected, then we will be eternally connected to the age to come. Really?
Jesus expended much of his ministry, his teaching and preaching confronting religion and made no such connection, anywhere at anytime. Both the Sadducees and the Pharisees were definitely not friends of the age to come that Jesus was teaching about to the people. Let’s move past the misconceptions, what did Jesus say positively about the age to come? In the age to come humanity will participate in the very nature of God. Life will no longer die for those of the resurrection will be counted as the children of God. We would like Jesus to give more detail of the age to come but he is silent.
One detail remains, in verse 35, Jesus says that the age to come is designed for the worthy. Why did he do that, it muddies the water! What did he mean, worthy? How does the God of the galaxies compute worthiness? Jesus consistently ridiculed religion and racial biases which are not worthy of the age to come. Who then is worthy? Some would say it is based upon a faith in Jesus that is above or beyond religion, they build a doctrine of heaven and hell as if that is who God is. Jesus does not go there, how does he describe God? Verse 38 summarizes, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Where their is life there is a future with God, the giver of life.
You are free to choose your own kind of God think.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
