Jesus and Resurrection

Preached at Hallam and Martell UMCs, November 11, 2007.

My oldest brother is very smart. Every Christmas, and sometimes more often, he and I would play chess. I would study for weeks all the classic chess strategies, I'd run through practice games, I'd play against the computer. But Christmas would come, we'd open our presents, goof off while waiting for dinner, and after a nap, we would play a game of chess. I never beat him.

He also loves paradoxes—you know, puzzles that don't really have a solution, but make you think.
Let's say there is a bullet which can shoot through any barrier. Let's also say there is an absolutely bullet-proof armor which no object can penetrate. What will happen if such a bullet hits such an armor?
Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?
Your mission is not to accept the mission. Do you accept?
A girl goes into the past and kills her Grandmother. Since her Grandmother is dead, the girl was never born. If she were never born, she never killed her grandmother.
If the temperature this morning is 0 degrees and the Weather Channel says, "it will be twice as cold tomorrow", what will the temperature be?
Answer truthfully (yes or no) to the following question: Will the next word you say be 'no'?
What happens if you are in a car going the speed of light and you turn the headlights on?

But after I began to serve as a pastor, nearly every time I came home, he would ask me this silly question: Can God Almighty create a stone, which he can not pick up? (http://brainden.com/paradoxes.htm) No matter the answer, he would tease me about the limitations of God.

That's the kind of question the Sadducees were asking Jesus in Luke 20. “...if a man’s brother has a wife, and dies childless, his brother should take the wife and produce offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children. Also the second and the third took her. In the same way, all seven died and left no children. Finally, the woman died too. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be? For all seven had married her.”

According to the levitical law, if a man married and died without having fathered a child, his brother must take his wife in order to give her children. Now to you and I this may seem repulsive. But in a time without life insurance or social security, it was a way to provide not only an heir to the man who died, it ensured the well-being of the widow as well.

Now the Saducees did not believe that there would be a resurrection of all people. After all, they would reason, it is not written in the law of Moses, therefore it does not exist. Jesus answered the question meant to prove that there was no resurrection by asserting that there would be no marriage in that time. Rather, those who have professed faith in Christ will not be married, but be more like angels , made new in the resurrection.

Now the romantics among you might be thinking, “That can't be true, marriage is a wonderful institution of love, Why wouldn't God want that?” The answer to that is found in a little stoy I read recently:

An elementary school teacher was about to marry. To celebrate the occasion another teacher asked her class to write about weddings. These little essays would be presented to the soon-to-be-married teacher as a wedding present. One of the children described the wedding and then moved on to the intimate details. “After the reception the happy couple go home to eat wedding cake.”

Obviously, this little girl knew something special happened after the reception, but did not undertand it. Similarly, it is hard for us to grasp what lies ahead of us. Heaven and the resurrection to follow have joys we cannot even conceive of.

One of the wonders of God's plan is that in the resurrection we will have an increased capacity for love. Couples will be many times more in love with each other than they ever were on earth. In comparison, their earthly love will seem as tame as a ‘romance’ between five-year-olds. And yet the astounding thing is that everyone else in heaven will thrill this former couple as utterly as they thrill each other. Everyone will be so head-over-heels in love with everyone else as to render unthinkable an exclusive relationship such as marriage.

It will be the place where dreams come true – where the honeymoon never ends and where people are more exciting and loving and perfect than we dare hope. And that’s just each other. The joy we will find in Jesus is indescribable.

Jesus pointed out the absurdity of the Saducees question by showing that what we understand about heaven and the resurrection is as limited as that of a 5 year old child. There is an old hymn that kind of sums it up:

I have found His grace is all complete
He supplieth ev'ry need
while I sit and learn at Jesus' feet
I am free, yes, free indeed
it is joy unspeakable and full of glory
full of glory, full of glory
it is joy unspeakable and full of glory
oh the half has never yet been told
I have found the pleasure I once craved
It is joy and peace within
What a wondrous blessing! I am saved
From the awful gulf of sin

I have found that hope so bright and clear
Living in the realm of grace
Oh the Savior's presence is so near
I can see His smiling face

I have found the joy no tongue can tell
How its waves of glory roll
It is like a great o'er flowing well
Springing up within my soul.

You can experience this Joy Unspeakable—give your life to Christ and confess him as Lord of your life.