Proper 27C (Pentecost 22 2025)

Text: “38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” (Luke 20:38).

There were some people in Jesus’ day who thought they had it all figured out.

They were called the Sadducees.

They were reasonable, respectable, and well-read.

They believed in God, of course—they were part of Israel’s religious establishment.

But they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.

That idea, to them, was naïve. It did not fit their experience.

And they had what seemed to be the perfect argument to prove it.

They came to Jesus with a story about a woman who had seven husbands, one after another.

Each one died without leaving her any children.

“So tell us, Teacher,” they asked, “in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?”

You can almost hear the laughter behind the question.

They think they have exposed the problem: if the life to come is just a continuation of this life, then resurrection makes no sense.

It cannot be done.

They are not mockers or cynics. They are simply trapped within the limits of human reason.

They cannot imagine how this could possibly work.

And that is the real issue here—not hostility toward God, but lack of imagination.

They cannot picture what God has not yet shown.

Jesus’ answer cuts straight through their logic:

“You do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

The problem, He says, is not that the resurrection is impossible.

The problem is that you are thinking too small.

You are assuming that the age to come is just a better version of this one—more comfortable, less painful, but still bound by the same old patterns of mortality.

You think the resurrection means doing the same life over again.

But the resurrection is not repetition. It is transformation.

“Those who are considered worthy to attain to that age,” Jesus says, “and to the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore.”

He does not say there will be no bodies.

He says there will be no death.

Marriage exists in this age because life must continue in the face of death.

But when death is gone, there is no need for its remedy.

The risen live to God—holy, whole, and deathless.

They are “like angels,” not because they have lost their bodies, but because they can never die again.

And then He gives His proof from Scripture:

“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

He does not say, “I was their God.”

He says, “I am their God.”

Even though they have died, they are alive to Him.

Because His covenant does not expire with the body.

His promise outlives the grave.

That is what the Sadducees could not imagine—that God’s faithfulness is stronger than death.

And it is what we, too, often forget.

Most people in our culture still believe in “something” after death.

Even the most casual believer says so.

But what exactly do they mean?

They picture heaven as peace, or reunion, or rest—as a “better place.”

They talk about loved ones becoming angels or watching over them.

They imagine existence continuing somehow, but they cannot picture resurrection.

So they settle for survival.

That is what happens when imagination becomes theology.

We speak of angels and memories because that is all we can picture.

We describe heaven as an improved earth—no pain, no tears, yet still our design.

And we call that faith, when it is really wishful continuity.

Jesus’ words still apply: “You do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

We have not denied God’s existence.

We have only reduced His power to what seems plausible.

And when our logic fails, we quietly make peace with death.

That same error seeps quietly into Christian life.

It is subtle, but deadly.

It shows itself whenever faith becomes detached from the body.

“I still believe,” someone says, “but I do not need church.”

“I still believe,” another says, “but it does not matter who I live with, or what I do with my body.”

“I still believe,” we say, “but my choices are my own.”

That sounds modern, but it is as old as Gnosticism.

The Gnostics taught that the body was irrelevant to the soul.

So they indulged it as they pleased.

They sinned and called it freedom, because the body could not touch the spirit.

We have baptized the same lie.

We tell ourselves that belief is what counts, and what we do with our bodies is nobody’s business.

We say, “God knows my heart,” as if that excused everything else.

We separate faith from the body and call it freedom.

But the Lord who made your body has joined it to Himself.

He bought it with a price.

He calls it His temple.

He gives it His own body and blood.

To believe in the resurrection and then to live as if the body does not matter is to live as though Christ were still in the tomb.

The Law exposes the lie:

We have believed in continuity instead of resurrection.

We have trusted our imagination more than God’s Word.

We have confessed faith with our lips while denying its flesh.

But now the Gospel—

what no human could picture, God has done in Christ.

Long before you and I began to claim that what we do with our bodies is no one’s business,

God was preparing a body for Himself.

Long before we treated the body as something temporary or private,

the Word through whom all things were made became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

The same God who formed Adam from the dust chose to enter that dust Himself.

He made His own flesh the instrument of salvation for all people.

The Living God did not redeem you from afar.

He entered the creation He made.

He took on real flesh—nerves that feel pain, skin that bleeds, lungs that gasp for air.

He became part of the physical world He once spoke into being.

As Hebrews says, “He opened for us a new and living way through the curtain, that is, through His flesh.” (Hebrews 10:19–20)

The God of the living hung on the cross—dying.

The Author of life entered death itself.

He took your sin into His own body—every act of rebellion done in this flesh that He created good.

And when He cried, “It is finished,” He meant it: sin judged, death broken, creation redeemed.

Three days later, the same body that was laid in the tomb stood again alive.

The resurrection is not escape from the body but its vindication.

He rose still bearing the marks of the nails—not shameful scars, but seals of mercy.

He shows you what your resurrection will be: this same life, made holy and imperishable.

As St. Paul writes, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,

He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11)

The empty tomb is the end of “I still believe, but it does not matter how I live.”

It is the end of a faith that hides in feelings and stays disconnected from life.

Faith without incarnation—faith without flesh on it—dies in abstraction.

But the Lord has not left His promises floating in the air.

He has pressed them into the world of touch and taste and time.

The Living God deals in bodies.

He baptizes them, feeds them, and raises them.

He will not abandon what He has made.

You already live to Him now.

In Baptism you were joined to His death and His life.

At His Table, His body and blood are given into yours.

The Holy Spirit sanctifies both soul and body for eternity.

Every act of forgiveness, every burden faithfully borne, every cross carried in faith is already part of the life to come.

Eternal life has begun—hidden now, revealed in Christ.

Because He lives, you live to God—even in weakness, even in dying.

And one day, when you see Him face to face, you will live before Him in perfect joy, body and soul.

The Resurrection Changes Everything

You can face death without pretending it is harmless.

It is an enemy, but a defeated one.

The grave is not the end but the place where the Living God keeps His promise.

You can honor your body.

It is not disposable or shameful, but holy and redeemed.

As the apostle says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)

And because your body belongs to Christ, your life does too.

Your daily work, your care for others, your patience, your prayers—all of it is holy service.

Your worship does not end when you leave the Lord’s house; it continues as you offer your body as a living sacrifice,

serving God in love toward those He has placed around you.

Even the smallest acts done in faith for the least of these are done for Christ Himself.

You can live your vocations with hope.

Your labor, your love, your service are not temporary chores but the beginnings of a life that will last.

You live toward resurrection, not away from creation.

And you can look to the future with joy.

You do not have to imagine heaven; you have seen the risen Lord.

You do not have to fear the end; the Living God has already crossed it.

The world will not end in ruin but in renewal.

“Our citizenship is in heaven,” St. Paul writes, “and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body.” (Philippians 3:20–21)

The Sadducees’ question was clever but small.

Our own ideas about heaven are often the same—kind, sentimental, and far too small.

But the Lord gives more than imagination can hold:

life restored, bodies raised, creation made new.

The God of Abraham is still Abraham’s God—and yours.

The Creator who formed you from the dust will raise you from it.

The Redeemer who took on your flesh has made it His forever.

That is the power of God the Sadducees could not imagine—and that faith now confesses:

“He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him.” (Luke 20:38)

So live boldly to Him.

The Living God will keep His promise to you.

He has given you life already in Christ.

He will raise you at the last.

And you will live to Him—body and soul—forever.

Amen.