Luke 20:27-40
Be still: Lord, help me to slow down and become aware of your presence. As I read your Word today, give me a heart that is open and ready to listen. Amen
Read: Luke 20:27-40
They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. (v36)
Encounter: When I was preparing to move to the UK, people would ask what I was most looking forward to seeing. The truth was — I had no idea! I’d never been, so I had no mental map for what to expect. Now, seven years on, I’d have a much better answer.
It’s hard to imagine a reality we haven’t yet experienced. We can only reach for what we already know. Sometimes we lack the language to describe what we’re trying to picture.
That happens in today’s passage. The Sadducees don’t believe in the resurrection, so they come to Jesus with an absurd scenario: a woman has been married to seven brothers in turn, so whose wife will she be in the resurrection?
Superficially it’s a clever challenge, but Jesus shows it rests on limited imagination. They are defining the future age by the parameters of their present, as though resurrection life is this life extended forever with the same structures, assumptions and limitations.
Jesus says resurrection life is far more radical. Those who share it are ‘God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.’ (v36). The new creation is not an upgraded version of our current life. It is life beyond death, beyond decay, beyond the limits we currently know. Not less real than this life, but more real. More alive!
The Sadducees are so focused on scoring points that they miss the wonder of Jesus' revelation. The new creation holds so much more hope than a slightly improved life. It is the fully restored, fully alive new heavens and new earth.
Apply: Where has your imagination for God’s future become too small? Ask the Holy Spirit to expand your hope. Let the promise of resurrection reshape how you face disappointment, death, uncertainty, and change.
Devote: God of the living, expand my capacity for hope in you. Thank you that in Jesus, death does not have the final word. Teach me to live as your child, alive in your resurrection.