In a civilized society, there are laws that cover almost every facet of human life. And sometimes those laws can be overreaching or burdensome. It’s the price we pay for living as part of a community instead of as a bunch of unorganized loners. But at least most of our laws make sense. Maybe we’d complain less about the laws of our state or town if we lived in a town where there are laws that don’t make any sense. For example, how about a law against dying?
That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, to create a law against dying? But did you know that throughout history, there actually have been governments that have tried to outlaw dying.
For example, over 2500 years ago, the Greek island of Delos tried to ban being born or dying on that island. You see, Delos was considered to be the birthplace of the mythical Greek gods Apollo and Artemis. Local authorities considered the island to be sacred. Consequently, they didn’t want anyone to claim inheritance rights to the land on Delos through being born there or having an ancestor buried there. And thus, the authorities decreed that all graves on the island were to be dug up and the bodies were buried elsewhere, and ordinances were passed forbidding any more births or deaths were to occur on that island. And by decree, it became illegal to die on Delos.
Ridiculous, right? But not isolated. Something similar happened on a Japanese island which was considered sacred to the Japanese Shinto religion. And at least five small towns in Europe have outlawed dying within their town limits as a way to force their town council to approve permits for more cemetery space.
For example, a mayor of a small village in Southern Italy who is also a pediatrician, became concerned that his elderly constituents weren’t visiting their doctors enough and weren’t maintaining their health. So he passed ordinances trying to make it more difficult for citizens to get ill or to die in his town. His concern was that the residents needed to protect their health, or they would all die off. He said, “Those who don’t take good care of themselves, or who take on habits that are against their health, will be punished with more taxes.” The mayor’s ploy worked. Within weeks of passing the ordinances, 100 residents of the village signed up for regular health checks.
And the mayor of a small town in France, passed a similar ordinance when the local cemetery became too full. He applied to the local town government to build a cemetery on an unused plot of land. His proposal was turned down. So he passed an ordinance forbidding any of the town’s residents from dying. This was an obvious publicity stunt, but it worked. The story of the town that banned dying got picked up by media outlets all over Europe. Within three months of passing the ordinance, the mayor received approval from the local town government to build a cemetery. (1)
On the surface, our Bible passage for today is about death and the afterlife. But in reality, it is about the limits we place on God. Our lesson begins like this, “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection . . .” Let’s pause here for a moment. Make a mental note of that bit of information: the Sadducees, say there is no resurrection. Now let’s continue: “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection came to Jesus with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
There are some things you need to know about the Sadducees. These men were a Jewish religious sect representing the high priests. They dominated the Temple and the priesthood, at least until the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. The Sadducees believed that all God’s laws and divine revelation were contained in the Books of Moses—the Torah—which includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These five books were the basis of their religious practices. This also meant that the Sadducees rejected the idea of the immortality of the soul, the afterlife, the resurrection of the dead, and the existence of angels. (2)
So the Sadducees asked this question of Jesus when they didn’t really care about the answer. Why worry about who will be married to whom at the resurrection if you don’t believe in the resurrection in the first place. They were simply trying to start an argument to make Jesus look foolish. They thought they could trip him up or trivialize his teachings. They hoped to dilute his power and popularity with the people. But what they saw as a challenge, Jesus saw as an opportunity. Jesus was just days away from his arrest and crucifixion. He was days away from an agonizing death. He couldn’t care less about winning arguments; in this moment, he cared deeply about showing us the truth of God’s character and purposes.
A major part of Jesus’ ministry involved challenging our limited view of God. That’s one of the reasons Jesus so often answered a question with another question, or with a story. Rather than giving us a set of rules to live by, Jesus gives us an enlarged view of God. So often, our arguments and questions and doubts about religion stem from asking the wrong question. And one of the toughest questions, the one that breaks our hearts and pushes us far away from faith in God, is often, “Why do people have to die?” But the questions we ask limit the answers we get.
It's like a preschool teacher who asked her class to name an animal that begins with an “E”. One boy said, “Elephant.”
Then the teacher asked for an animal whose name begins with a “T”. The same boy said, “Two elephants.”
The teacher wanted to give the boy one more chance, so she asked for an animal whose name begins with “M”.
The boy had reached the limits of his animal knowledge, but he was willing to give it one more try. He hesitated, then answered, “Maybe elephants?”
The questions we ask limit the answers we get. And Jesus was all about asking the right questions. What if we were to start every religious inquiry with the question, “What is God like?” Once we understand what God is like, then we could use that as the foundation of understanding every other question, doubt or argument we might have. So let’s see how Jesus answered the religious leaders.
Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” Did you catch that? “They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection . . . But in the account of the burning bush,” he continued, “even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
In this moment, Jesus is challenging our limited view of God’s love for us. Think about it. God made us for a relationship of completeness in Him. Why does it matter that in the resurrection, we will neither marry nor be given in marriage? God created marriage to fulfill our needs (Gen. 1: 27) and for creating children (Gen. 1: 27-28; Gen. 2: 24) and to give the world an image of Jesus’ love for the Church (Eph. 5). And in practical terms, marriage was meant to protect widows from poverty and exploitation. God gave us marriage to offer us a sense of comfort in a lonely and challenging world. But we will never find our completeness in human relationships.
Instead, God’s ultimate purpose for us is revealed in verse 36 of this passage: “They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” Through Jesus, we have been adopted into God’s family. We have been adopted into all the fullness of God’s love and care.
Lori Wood was working as an ICU nurse at Piedmont Newnan Hospital in Newnan, Georgia in 2018 when she met a patient named Jonathan Pinkard. Jonathan was 26 years old, autistic, and in heart failure. His grandmother had been his guardian until her death. Now Jonathan was a ward of the state. Because donor organs are so rare and precious, they are only granted to people who have the ability or the support system to follow a strict health regimen to ensure the organ recipient lives as long as possible. With no family to help him and a disability that made it difficult for Jonathan to care for himself, he was taken off the transplant list. Doctors at Piedmont Newnan did not expect him to live much longer. Without a parent to care for him, Jonathan couldn’t receive a new heart. Without a new heart, he would die. Lori Wood was haunted by the question, “What if he were one of my children?”
Let me stop right there and ask you, what would you do to save your child’s life? If your child were in that situation, what lengths would you go to, what sacrifices would you make, what if it were your child? Now read those words again from verse 36: “They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” From the beginning, God created us to be God’s children. With these words, Jesus is challenging our limited view of God’s love for us. God loves us. That the reason why we are assured of resurrection. Here’s the rest of Jonathan’s story.
Lori applied to be Jonathan’s temporary legal guardian. He moved in with Lori and her youngest son, Austin, who willingly gave up his own bedroom so Jonathan would have a room of his own. On August 1, 2019, they got the call that a heart had been found for Jonathan. Jonathan survived the surgery; with Lori and Austin’s help, he learned to follow the strict health regimen necessary to keep his new heart healthy. After a few months, he was even able to live on his own. As Lori wrote in Guideposts magazine, “God orchestrated everything to heal Jonathan, beyond anything I could have asked for.” (3)
Jonathan is alive today because of the love Lori and her family and we can be assured of eternal life for one reason alone: We are loved by our heavenly father. Jesus is proof that there is no limit to God’s love for us.
Genesis 1 and 2 tell us two essential pieces of information about God and God’s purposes: We were made in God’s image and God breathed God’s own life into us. All other living creatures were either spoken into existence or formed by God. But only for humans did God breathe His own life-force into us. And if God is eternal, and we were made alive by the very breath or spirit of God, then God made us to be eternal too. How many Bible verses are there about God’s steadfast love, or God’s enduring love, or God’s everlasting love? Why would God make us for a loving relationship, then let us die? Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are proof that God planned us for eternal life with Him.
Some of you are familiar with the origin of a classic Gospel song that is dear to many hearts. In 1932, a young singer and songwriter named Thomas Dorsey lost his wife in childbirth. His newborn son died the next day. Dorsey commented later, “I became so lonely I did not feel that I could go on alone.” But his church community held him up in prayer. They brought him food. They wrote him letters. They didn’t leave him alone in his grief. And Thomas Dorsey leaned on his faith in God. He leaned on God’s love for him. He leaned on God’s purpose for him. One day, he scrawled the lyrics to a new song on the back of a letter from a church member. That song eventually became “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” one of the most famous songs in all of gospel music.
The song begins, “Precious, Lord, take my hand.
Lead me on. Help me stand.
I am weak, I am tired, I am worn.
Through the dark, through the night.
Lead me on, to the light.
Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.” (4)
Thomas Dorsey understood that God’s purpose for us was not to leave us in death but to lead us back home. We don’t need a law against dying. Christ has already taken care of that matter in our behalf.
1. “Where in the world is it illegal to die?” by Leo Benedictus, The Guardian, September 30, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/30/where-in-the-world-is-it-illegal-to-die.
2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sadducee by the Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica.
3. “This Nurse Went Above and Beyond for a Patient in Need,” by Lori Wood, Apr 27, 2020 Guideposts.com. Lori Wood and Jonathan Pickard in Central Park in December. Their Today Show interview with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager aired in December 2020. Published in “Angels on Earth” magazine. https://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/angels/this-nurse-went-above-and-beyond-for-a-patient-in-need.
4. “How One of Gospel's Essential Songs Gave 'Selma' Its Soul” by Anna Powers NPR Morning Edition January 15, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/01/15/377427650/how-one-of-gospels-essential-songs-gave-selma-its-soul.