Luke 20:38: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive”. Some of the teachers of the law responded, ‘Well said, teacher!’. And no one dared to ask him any more questions.”

Jesus spoke the above words when he was under questioning by the Sadducees, the church authorities at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus was teaching in the courtyard, and temple authorities wanted him to stop. When the Sadducees questioned him about a law that required a man to wed the widow of a brother that had died and asked him who a 7-time widow would be considered married to in heaven, the authorities were trying to trick Jesus into saying something that would make him look bad in front of those he was teaching. But Jesus did not take the bait. He said that it would not matter who she was married to when she died, because in resurrection we are not bound by mortal rules. Those who have physically died are considered by God to be alive, for all are living in the eyes of God. The Sadducees gave up questioning Jesus after several answers like this, because they recognized they could not fool Jesus.

The answer Jesus gave is central to our faith. We believe that all who believe in Jesus will have eternal life. We don’t all agree on what that life will look like; some think they will be in a new city with streets paved with gold, others believe their spirit will live on but not in a physical form. The answer of Jesus embraces all ideas of what resurrection might look like, for he states that God considers all spirits to be alive whether in physical form or not: in God, “all are alive.” The spirit within us is alive now and will continue to live – in some form – after we physically die. We can believe in this with hope and gratitude.

It would behoove us all to constantly remind ourselves that we are among many who are alive in spirit, whether we can experience their physical presence or not. Because we believe in forgiveness and resurrection, we can be certain that those whom we love and see no longer are also around us. Let us be filled with gratitude for the resurrection of life promised to us through Jesus, our Lord and Savior, who reminds us of the power of resurrection for all.

Ted Hunter