The Question

Sometimes a question is just a set up, an attempt to trap someone into saying something he would regret.  But we may still want to know the answer.

The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.” Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching. - Matthew 22:23-33

When it comes to death and what comes next, we are all intrigued.

We want to know. What comes next? Will we be with the ones we love? Will we know one another?

Now when Jesus is asked the question, he knows they are trying to trap him, so he answers in a way that we may find puzzling.

First he says that in the resurrection we are like angels, not like humans.

But he also says that God is the god of the living, not the dead, so it makes us think.  Do we never really die?  Are we always living in God?

Or do we die and that is all there is?

No matter how we try to answer those questions, we may be left with doubt.  We want proof.  Like the Sadducees, we want an answer that makes sense.

So, maybe we shouldn't ask the question in the first place.

Maybe we are letting our brain try to solve an unsolvable problem.

I often wonder what the experience will be like when I die.  I know it sounds morbid, but one thing we all know for a fact is that each of us will one day die.

If we are dead and resurrected eons later, we will not know we were waiting for it.  It will feel like we just died and met Jesus.

But we may not like that scenario.  We may want to believe that those who have gone before us are with Jesus now and they can see us, protect us, be near to us.

That has its pluses and minuses as well.

So, we are left to our own scenarios.  We believe what makes us happy or at least less sad.

And until we know for a fact which scenario is true, we will have to live with that.  

The message for me, then, thinking of the question the Sadducees asked, is stick with one wife, and live a long time.

Then it won't matter.

More to come...