Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

Lectionary: 355

As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.” 

One of the most fundamental principles of the American Civil Religion is, “There is only one God; your choice of religion doesn’t really matter.” Although it’s not true, it’s an easy way to sidestep an unnecessary and pointless quarrel. Your religion with its peculiar rites, practices, and teachings does matter. When Jesus tells the Sadducees, “You are greatly mistaken.” he warns them about their religious beliefs. They’re not just wrong. They’re misleading; they lead to misery. 

For one thing, the god they believe in is dead. He is a god of the dead. And there is no love, compassion, care, or concern among the dead. The Sadducees should have been familiar with Old Testament passages like:

Turn back, LORD, rescue my soul;

save me because of your mercy.

For in death there is no remembrance of you.

Who praises you in Sheol? Psalm 6:5-6

To you, LORD, I cried out;

with the Lord I pleaded for mercy:

“What gain is there from my lifeblood,

from my going down to the grave?

Does dust give you thanks

or declare your faithfulness? Psalm 30:9-10

For it is not Sheol that gives you thanks,

nor death that praises you;

Neither do those who go down into the pit

await your kindness.

The living, the living give you thanks,

as I do today. Isaiah 38:1-19

Our belief in eternal life and the resurrection of the body is primarily religious, not philosophical. It begins with the confidence that Our God who has gone to such trouble first to create us in his image and likeness, and then to choose us as a people peculiarly his own, and finally to save us from evil, sickness, and death will not simply let us disappear into an empty abyss. The Lord who created the universe out of nothing does not intend to preside over Nothing for all eternity. He is not a god of the dead but of the living.

As Christians we cannot believe that the Incarnate God would be raised to life after the horror of his crucifixion if no other human being, regardless of their fidelity to him, is raised with him. What would such a victory mean in the face of final defeat? Surely our final glorious life is not senescence in a nursing home or the unendurable pain of bone cancer. The Beautiful God whom we saw raised up in the person of our Brother Jesus will not abandon us to death.

If we can neither “prove scientifically” the truth of God’s promise nor imagine an eternity of communion with God and all the saints, the failing is our science and our imagination, not the faith, hope, and love of God.

“You are greatly misled.” Jesus warned the Sadducees. Your stubborn opinion that there is no resurrection of the dead – despite the testimony of God’s Word -- must lead you to endless misery.