Luke 20:27-38

The Sadducees were conservatives who believed the only valid Scripture was the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, while other Jews by Jesus’ time also studied the books of the prophets – Isaiah, Micah, and so on – and other writings such as the Psalms. Also by Jesus’ time, most Jews believed that at some point in the future, at the end of this age, God would raise all the dead; raise their bodies, give them new life. This is what was known as “the resurrection of the dead.” You can’t find anything about this in the Torah, so the Sadducees didn’t accept it.

So, when a group of Sadducees approaches Jesus with a question about the resurrection of the dead, they aren’t looking for an answer. They believe they know the answer. They intend to discredit Jesus, and as a bonus, embarrass their resurrection-believing rivals, the Pharisees. They concoct a hypothetical scenario about a woman whose husband dies before she could bear him a son to carry on the family name. There’s a law in the Torah that says that when that happens, the dead man’s brother must take the widow as his wife and honor the dead brother by fathering a son with her, so the dead man’s name will continue (Deuteronomy 25:5). This is called “levirate marriage,” a grim reminder of the status of first century women as property, with no security unless they were married and no value if they didn’t produce sons. But in this absurd hypothetical, the second brother also dies, and likewise the third, and so on, until this poor woman has survived seven brothers. There’s no acknowledgement that this would be a tragic situation for the woman, because that’s not the point. They conclude, “So, Teacher, in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be?”

Given their nonbelief in the resurrection, it’s ironic that the Sadducees’ question suggests that they have imagined it: they assume that resurrection life is simply an extension of life as they know it. Jesus explains that the rules we put in place to keep order and make our way in this life are not important or even relevant in the next one, because it will be fundamentally different. Marriage protected people in this life, but in the age to come, these rules and traditions won’t be necessary.

Then he demonstrates the Sadducees’ failure to understand the Scriptures (which they claim to cherish) with the story of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6). This story, explains Jesus, establishes the validity, indeed the certainty, of life after death. It declares that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not that God was their God. Therefore, Jesus concludes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must in some sense still be alive.

Other than witnessing Jesus deftly handle a “gotcha!” question from his detractors, what do we learn from this passage? Our speculations about the afterlife are a mishmash of cultural assumptions gleaned more from literature, songs, movies, and Christian and non-Christian traditions than from scripture. This passage underscores that we should not limit our imagination, let alone God’s design, for life after death. Jesus tells us resurrection life will be qualitatively different from what we know now. What will it look like? I lean into Paul’s assurance that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-38), and I leave the precise details to the future.

We also learn that our God is the God of the living. Commentator Kyle Brooks writes that Langston Hughes’ poem, “Note in Music,” captures the richness of this:

Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.

Perhaps, like Hughes’ poem, Jesus is calling us to imagine what it is like to live without fear of death so that we can approach our lives differently. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and us. God is. If through Jesus we are all children of the resurrection, if we do not need to fear death, then how does that free us to live? How do we spend our time? Our money? Our energy? How do we love? And how does this give us hope not just for a future in which we trust that God’s love for us continues, but hope for now, in this life, in which we trust that God is with us, the living?

Life is for the living. God is the God of the living. As Brooks writes, “May the God of the living continually draw our attention to this life beyond the limits of our imagination.”

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Kyle Brooks, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-luke-2027-38-5.
David Lose, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-luke-2027-38-2
Kendra A. Mohn, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-luke-2027-38-6