Death is not The End

A little girl walked into a pet shop. She went up to the shopkeeper and asked in a sweet little voice, “Excuse me, mister, do you have any bunny rabbits?”

The shopkeeper bent way down and put his hands on his knees so he would be on her level, and asked, “Do you want a white rabbit or a black rabbit? Or maybe that cute little brown bunny over there?”

The little girl thought for a moment, put her hands on her hips and said, “Mister, I don’t think my python really cares.”

Our subject this morning is one of life’s universals. Like those rabbits, it makes no difference whether we are black, brown, yellow or white. It makes no difference whether we are rich or poor, well-known or hardly-known.  Eventually, the grim reaper comes for us all.

Some of the Sadducees came to Jesus with a question regarding the subject of death. One of the differences between Pharisees and Sadducees is that the Sadducees did not believe in life beyond the grave. That is why they were sad, you see.  So it’s obvious they’re trying to entrap Jesus.

The Sadducees were a wealthy and powerful Jewish sect. They controlled the priesthood and the temple. The Sanhedrin was the governing body over the Jews in the Roman Empire. The Chief Priest of the Sanhedrin and most of its members were Sadducees. The Roman government supported the Sadducees and kept them in power because the Sadducees preferred Greek customs over Jewish ones.

The Sadducees based all their religious beliefs on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. According to them, there was no evidence in the Torah for an afterlife, or angels or a resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees believed that all of God’s plans and covenant promises were for this current life, and that death was the end of everyone’s story. They had no use for a hereafter.

Listen to their question. “Teacher, 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 have children 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?”

Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age 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.”

In other words, marriage is an earthly phenomenon. It is, first of all, a union of the flesh. But the same rules do not apply to a spiritual state. There is no marriage in heaven. So, if your first spouse has died and you have remarried, relax. You won’t be married to either one in the next life. This is one of the places where Islam and Christianity part ways. You won’t be someone’s seventh wife.

Having answered their question, Jesus turns the table and gives a very definite affirmation of life beyond the grave, just to make sure the Sadducees understand which side he’s on: “In the account of the [burning] bush,” Jesus says, “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.’“ Then Christ says conclusively, “[God] is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Now that’s good news, isn’t it? Everybody, whether they are on earth or are in heaven, is alive to God. There can be no equivocation at this point: Life continues beyond the grave. We need not fear about those who have departed from this life. For they now live with God.

But we live in a death denying culture. When was the last time you heard that someone “died”? Generally, they have “passed away” or “passed on” or “expired,” like an old carton of milk.

John Killinger once told of a woman who was approaching the end of her life. She expressed her feelings like this, “I am ready to go, but I am not ready to leave.” And many of us can relate to that. Life is a wonderful experience. And that is how we ought to feel about it.

Others of us are willing to let go of our own lives, but not willing to let go of those we love. Perfectly understandable. Jesus did not condemn Mary and Martha for the tears they shed at the death of their brother Lazarus. In fact, Jesus cried, too. It’s hard to let go of loved ones.

Have you heard about a product called LifeGem? LifeGems are very special synthetic diamonds. Synthetic diamonds are made by compressing carbon, the primary element of all diamonds, to pressures approaching the pressures that produce diamonds deep inside the earth. The twist here is that the carbon LifeGem uses happens to come from cremains, the ashes left from cremating a human body. In other words, rather than putting the ashes of a loved one in an urn or scattering them someplace, LifeGem will compress those ashes into a high quality diamond which you could wear around your neck or on your finger. Prices start at $3,000.

Well, that’s one way of dealing with the death of a loved one, I suppose, as long as you can afford it. I personally would rather see the money used, say, to endow a memorial in the loved one’s name, but you can see how this could be appealing to some people. We want to hold on to those we love.

A better way of dealing with death, however, is to recognize it as a time of transition. It’s a trip that all of us will make one day. We don’t need to be morbid about it. In fact, this will be the most exciting trip we’ll ever take. It’s a time of transition. Death is but a journey from this world to the next.

The Sadducees tried to negate the very reason for Jesus’ life and mission and being. The Sadducees did not know a God who could love us this much, the Sadducees did not know a God who could restore what was corrupted, the Sadducees did not know that God had a plan for the restoration of the world and for ultimate justice and peace and healing of all the wounds of our fallen state. But a child of the resurrection knows that through death God has provided a way for us to be born again into a living hope.

If death is our ultimate end, then there is no purpose to life except to maximize our own enjoyment for our very brief time on this planet. If death is our ultimate end, then we are born dying. But if we are children of God and children of the resurrection, then we know that death is not the end of us. It is the end of injustice and suffering and evil and pain, and the gateway to new life and freedom and the love of God. It’s an occasion of great and lasting joy.

Speaking of great joy, when Antonia “Toni” Larroux died, her adult children wrote an interesting obituary. It read: “(Her memorial service) will be led by The Rev. Curt Moore of Orlando, Florida, a questionable choice for any spiritual event, but one the family felt would be appropriate due to the fact that every time Toni heard Curt preach she prayed for Jesus to return at that very moment.”

The obituary continued like this: “On a last but serious note, the woman who loved life and taught her children to ‘laugh at the days to come’ is now safely in the arms of Jesus and dancing at the wedding feast of the Lamb. Anyone wearing black will not be admitted to the memorial.  She is not dead.  She is alive.”

That is the ultimate message of Jesus to the Sadducees – and to us. You are not dead. You are alive. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. God made you to be eternally alive. God’s nature is to love you and provide you with abundant and eternal life – even when that life requires God to take the penalty of death on our behalf through Jesus’ death on the cross. And God’s final plan is to restore all of creation back to God’s original plan, a world of justice, peace and wholeness. The road does not end at the cemetery. For God is the God of the living – and we are children of the resurrection.