This was used at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on November 7, 2004 and again at the Hartford (IL) East Maple Street Chapel on November 9, 2008.

The Scripture is from the 20th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 27-38…

          When my son was about five years old I took him for what would be our first of many visits to the Illinois State Museum up in Springfield, and we spent some hours looking at all of the exhibits on all three floors (counting the basement). Now, at that time, many of them were the same as when I had gone there as part of my fourth-grade field trip… such as the mastodon skeleton, the mineral collection, the big wall-of-snakes, the mushrooms, and the stuffed-animal dioramas… so it was really neat for me to see everything as well, and I’m sure he picked-up on my enthusiasm, which added to his own.

And so it was with some excitement that he related to his mother and grandmother, that next week, about some of the things we had seen. Apparently, he was really impressed with one part in particular, but his five-year-old vocabulary had some trouble describing it… he told them that, “We saw animals that weren’t alive… they used to be alive, but they’re not anymore!” I got a call from his grandmother later that week asking me just what kind of place I had taken him to!

          In these verses, we find the religious leaders determined, yet again, to eliminate Jesus, so, as the Life Application Commentary tells us, “Some Sadducees stepped forward. The Sadducees were a group of conservative Jewish religious leaders who honored only the Pentateuch (pen’-ta-tuk) — Genesis through Deuteronomy — as Scripture. They did not believe in a resurrection of the dead because they could find no mention of it in those books.

 “Come on… life after death? Give me break! The only thing that matters is the here and now… and the only thing you can count on is death and taxes!” Haven’t you ever heard that kind of talk about the Christian doctrine of resurrection? The Sadducees were first-century skeptics… Undoubtedly they considered themselves hard-nosed realists, compared to Jesus and his followers, who believed strongly in the resurrection. However, the Christian belief in an afterlife is hardly a nice, escapist notion. The thought that after death people are called to give an account of their lives before a righteous, holy God is not a comforting fantasy — it’s a call to live holy lives before such a God. People will die… and then face judgment.”

Now, “Jesus had already evaded two traps laid by the Jewish religious leaders — one involving his authority and then one on Roman taxation. They were determined to embarrass Jesus. This challenge by the Sadducees… indicates that the religious leaders were getting desperate. This time, the Sadducees used a standard theological question they had often used to discredit the idea of a resurrection, which was a belief of the Pharisees. If Jesus was not able to answer this question, his image as a great religious teacher would be tarnished.”

 “In the Law, Moses had written that if a man died without a son, his unmarried brother (or nearest male relative) should marry the widow and produce children. The first son of this marriage would be considered the heir of the dead man. The main purpose of the instruction was to produce an heir and guarantee that the family would not lose their land. The book of Ruth gives an example of this in operation. This law, called “levirate” marriage, protected the widow (in that culture, widows usually had no means to support themselves) and allowed the family line to continue.”

The Sadducees, then, described their hypothetical situation in which a woman married each of seven brothers in succession and died without heirs, and asked, “Whose wife is she?”

And Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.

I want to take just a moment here to address what I’m sure many of you might find distressing about this particular idea… and that is, ‘how can Jesus think that I will not know and love the person that I have dedicated my life to all of these years?’ That is not what He’s saying! The love that any two people have for one another in this lifetime is a very special and beautiful thing! And those that are lucky enough to share those feelings throughout their mortal lives are especially blessed! But what Jesus is telling us is that we cannot fathom the depth of love and joy and happiness that awaits us in Heaven… and that all of that love will be shared and enjoyed equally among all those that are there!

The point that I really want to get to this morning, though, is in the next words that Jesus says… “But in the account of the 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.’   He is not the God of the dead, but of the living… for to him all are alive.” 

You know, sometimes I have to question that statement! Not that I don’t believe in the resurrection, or that God doesn’t consider each person who has ever lived as being alive, for indeed, they most certainly are on a plane that we cannot conceive! But there are times that I see people… who may be breathing… whose hearts may be pumping blood… who may well be getting up every morning and going about their daily routine… yet wonder just how alive they are… because their lives are empty!

These people can barely see anything past themselves! They live in their own little world, surrounded by their own little problems, caring only for themselves because, with their limited vision, no one else exists! For all intents and purposes, they are dead! They are dead to the world… they are dead to all that goes on around them… and they are dead to God’s calling, and His purpose for their lives! God might wish them to be alive… indeed, Jesus came with the hope of giving each of us eternal life… but if they refuse to acknowledge the Living Waters… if they refuse to acknowledge any thing in life other than themselves… if they refuse to see God’s hand reaching out to them… how can they reach back and grasp the everlasting life being offered? They… are… dead!

Which brings me back to what my son said all those years ago… “We saw animals that weren’t alive… they used to be alive, but they’re not anymore!” You know… I’ve seen Christians that weren’t alive… they used to be alive… but they’re not anymore!

What about you? Are you alive in Christ? Are you taking hold of God’s outstretched hand? Or are you blind to all but that which affects you directly? Are you alive and living and working in God’s name today and everyday? Or are Moses and Isaac and all of the heavenly host looking down and saying… ‘How sad… they used to be alive… but they’re not anymore!’