What were you expecting Luke 20:27-38

A few years ago I shared the Sadducee's story from Luke 20:27-38 with a woman in her early 90's. She listened carefully as we shared coffee and a story at her kitchen table looking over a neatly kept yard in the middle of a once active farm. The building stood as reminders of a once lively farm that was now home only to Alva and a friendly on German Shepherd.

As the line of husbands unfolded in the story she responded almost like this was the juiciest piece of gossip that she'd heard. Her imagination ran with the thought of a woman marrying 7 brothers. "Oh my how can that be.." she asked. That's the point that the Sadducee's wanted to make. Their imaginations had run wild pressing against the idea of eternal life. They came up with a story that was too juicy to be credible; but was just realistic enough to illustrate their belief that there was no eternal life.

Then came their question, "Who's husband would she be after death?"

The Sadducee's were looking to trip Jesus up. They wanted him stumped. He replied with a answer that stretches beyond our imaginations.

³⁶Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. ³⁷And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Luke 20:36-38

Jesus invites us to start thinking beyond today to start realizing that eternity is only glimpsed from here. The Sadducee's questioned what it could be like and Jesus offered a glimpse. They didn't ask what it would be like; only what it could maybe possibly be like. Jesus offered a promise not of what could maybe be but what will really be in the life to come.