Bible Passage: Luke 20:27-38
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: November 9, 2025

Bulletin – November 9, 2025

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

The matter before us today is that of the resurrection of the dead.  The resurrection lies at the core of Christian teaching.  Belief in the resurrection begins with the belief that Jesus himself rose from the dead and it ends with the resurrection of all the dead when Jesus returns.  And we do not play word games with the word “resurrection.”  We don’t say “resurrection” and mean some kind of metaphorical resurrection or metaphysical resurrection.  By resurrection of the dead we mean that corpses will come to life again.

Not all will join us in confessing belief in such a resurrection.  Not even all RELIGIOUS people!  This is nothing new.  In our text today we meet the Sadducees.  The Sadducees were a powerful and influential religious group.  Many of the priests were Sadducees.  That’s why it may surprise us to hear the Sadducees described as those who say there is no resurrection. (v. 27)  The Sadducees thought the notion of dead people, corpses being resuscitated, was ridiculous.  But Jesus had a message for the Sadducees who denied the resurrection in his day, and for the modern Sadducees who do the same:  Yes, Sadducees, there is a Resurrection!

How did Jesus find himself in a conversation about the resurrection with people who don’t believe in the resurrection?  THEY brought it up!  The Sadducees were trying to “sucker punch” Jesus.  They thought they had concocted a question that would expose the silliness of the resurrection and at the same time would expose the silliness of Jesus.

Their question centers on something in the Old Testament called the “law of the levirate.”  The Hebrew word levir means “brother-in-law.”  The “law of the brother-in-law” is found in Deuteronomy 25:5:  If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.  The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother.  Simple enough.  But what if there are seven brothers, and each dies without a child, and the next in line marries the woman?  And then the woman dies.  [I]n the resurrection, whose wife will she be?  For the seven had her as a wife? (v. 33)  Can’t you just see them snickering and elbowing each other smugly as they ask their “gotcha” question?

It is never a good idea to play “gotcha” with Jesus!  Those who do usually get “got.”  And so it was for the Sadducees.  Jesus calmly asserts, The people of this age are married and given in marriage.  But those who are considered worthy to experience that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. (v. 35)  There’s their answer!  Marriage doesn’t exist at the resurrection.  Marriage is a “this-world” institution.  It has a purpose here.  Man and woman become husband and wife and have babies.  That’s the program God put into place when he spoke to the first married couple and said, Be fruitful and increase. (Genesis 1:28)  In this world our babies are also our “replacements” because each generation gets old and dies.  At the resurrection this will not be necessary because, as Jesus says, the resurrected cannot die anymore, for they are like the angels. (v. 36)  With one, calm assertion from the authoritative Son of God, Jesus sets them straight, “Yes, Sadducees, there is a resurrection!”

Then Jesus does something very clever.  The Sadducees did not accept all of the Old Testament as God’s Word.  But they did accept the Pentateuch, the first five books written by Moses.  So Jesus takes them to Moses:  Even Moses showed in the account about the burning bush that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord: ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’  He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (v. 38)  Jesus says that Moses calling the LORD the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob PROVES there is a resurrection!  The Lord IS the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Moses doesn’t say the Lord “was” or “had been” their God.  He IS.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob may have undergone the separation of soul and body we call “death.”  Yet, their souls are alive with God right now, and their bodies will live again, too.  At the resurrection!  For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living!  “Yes, Sadducees, there is a resurrection…and your own Scriptures prove it!”

How sad it must have been to be a Sadducee!  To have no hope of the resurrection!  The Sadducees may no longer exist, but their spirit is still alive and well.  I read a sermon this week written and preached by a Lutheran pastor.  Preaching from 1 Corinthians 15, the “Great Resurrection Chapter” of the Bible, this pastor said:  Let me say it right up front: Yes, I do deny the resurrection!  I deny the resurrection…[Quoting 1 Corinthians 15:35-36] “Perhaps someone will ask, “How are the dead to be raised up? What kind of body will they have?” What a stupid question!”  In my sacred imagination, I can see Paul sitting up from his letter-writing and nodding as if to say, “There! That ought to stop those endless arguments about the resuscitation of a corpse.”… I, like the Apostle Paul, do not believe in the resuscitation of a corpse.”  How sad!  From a Lutheran pastor!  To such modern Sadducees Jesus says, “Yes, there is a resurrection!”

There is!  And Jesus is it!  He declared, I am the resurrection and the life. (John 11:25)  When some women went looking for Jesus’ corpse in a tomb on Easter morning, an angel told them,  He is not here; he has risen! (Matthew 28:6)  In Christ, the resurrection of the dead has already begun!  Paul wrote, …in Christ all will be made alive.  But each in his own turn:  Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. (1 Corinthians 15:22-23)  When Jesus redeemed you with his holy, precious blood, he did not just redeem your soul so that you will live a disembodied eternity.  He redeemed your body, too!  This body that gets old and aches and wears out and finally dies because of sin will rise again at the coming of Jesus!  And it will be changed.  Paul describes the change in 1 Corinthians 15:  The body that is sown [buried in the ground] is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. (v. 42-43)  Yes, Christian, there is a resurrection!

Amen.