Luke 20:27-40 - A Question about the Resurrection CATCHING UP ON THE STORY: LUKE 20:27-40 In the passages between last week's story (Luke 27Some Sadducees, those who say there is no 19:1-10), and this week's reading, Jesus and his resurrection, came to him28 and asked him a entourage have finally made it to Jerusalem. question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a They have entered the city in a triumphal man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no manner to shouts of "hosanna." There is an air of children, the man shall marry the widow and expectancy hanging about, something big is raise up children for his brother.29 Now there about to happen. were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless;30 then the second 31and the third The feelings of expectancy are different for the married her, and so in the same way all seven different groups of people surrounding Jesus. died childless. 32Finally the woman also died.33 In For the Pharisees, and now the Sadducees, they the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the expect an ultimate end to the annoying Jesus. woman be? For the seven had married her.” 34Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to As Jesus enters the city, the conflict between the this age marry and are given in marriage;35 but religious leaders of the day, and Jesus escalates. those who are considered worthy of a place in Issues of authority mark one of the main themes that age and in the resurrection from the dead leading up to this week's passage. The people neither marry nor are given in marriage.36 Indeed and religious leaders of Jerusalem either deny they cannot die anymore, because they are like that Jesus has any authority or they view his angels and are children of God, being children of power as being a threat to the current order of the resurrection.37 And the fact that the dead are things, despite how Jesus has taught and acted. raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God As the tension builds, the religious leaders work of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of hard to try and find a legitimate way to rid Jacob.38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the themselves of Jesus. Their attempts come in the living; for to him all of them are alive.”39 Then form of questions that are meant to make Jesus some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have say something things which would later be used spoken well.”40 For they no longer dared to ask against him. To be sure, the tension is thick as him another question. we make our way toward the crucifixion of Jesus. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Lk 20:27–40. SPECIFIC DISCUSSION come can bring renewal and new life QUESTIONS: to our brokenness here and now. Where are you seeing renewal and Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to new life in our church? What are yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were some ways in which you need the very unfamiliar with the story. power of God’s resurrection today? 7. HowmightwebeagentsofGod’s 1. Who are the main characters in the story? resurrection power in our What are they doing? community and world today? 2. What doesn’t make sense to you in this story? 3. Respond to this statement from Tom SO WHAT? Wright, “In most biblical thought, human bodies matter and are not The point is that the age to come does not merely disposable prisons for the operate with the same rules as this age. And soul.” Does this differ from what with Jesus, the age to come has already come you’ve come to believe about the here and now. afterlife? How does the Christian idea that the body is important have an The things that have mattered to us for so long, impact on the way we minister to posterity, the protection of women in marriage, human beings? honor, and shame, they no longer matter. The 4. Read 1 Corinthians 15:12-28.According to more we live by the rules of the age to come, in the apostle Paul, why is it crucial to selfless love toward God and others, the more believe that there is a resurrection of we live into our nature as children of God. the dead? Why is Christ’s resurrection the basis of salvation? And it matters not that if we begin to live 5. Why is it important for Jesus to argue that according to the way of the new order, the God is the God of the living, not the kingdom of God, that we might end up dead God of the dead? (v. 38) like Jesus because we too will ultimately end up 6. Resurrection isn’t just for bodies after we like Jesus, resurrected never to die again. God is die. In a very real way resurrection the God of the living, not the dead. can be had here and now. We are all broken and dead in various kinds of ways. The God who raised the body of Jesus from the dead and the God who will raise our bodies in the age to .