Saturday, November 21, 2020

21 November 2020 - the things that cannot be shaken


The children of this age marry and remarry;

There are aspects of the world that we now know that will not last forever. Marriage itself is meant to be a living symbol that points toward the relationship between Christ and his Church (see Ephesians 5:32). This is one reason why even the love of our families must be subordinated to our love for Jesus (see Luke 14:26). When we love any person or thing over and against Christ our loves misses the mark. Love for creatures and created things is meant to draw us up into the love of the creator. When this does not happen we end up with confusion like that of the Sadducees.

Finally the woman also died.
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?
For all seven had been married to her.

The Sadducees couldn't imagine a resurrection because the scope of their imagination was limited by the world as they knew it. They could not imagine a world that was similar enough that their bodies would be raised, yet different enough an institutional as vital and universal as marriage would cease. The resurrected world would be the same in many respects, but better in every respect. And the way in which it was to better was something no eye had seen, no ear had heard (see First Corinthians 2:9), something more than anyone could ask or imagine (see Ephesians 3:20). It was, in fact, so good as to be unguessable. So we shouldn't hold it too much against the Sadducees that they did not guess it.

That the dead will rise
even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,
when he called  ‘Lord’
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;
and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.

In the encounter at the burning bush the Lord revealed who he was. But before he revealed the precious truth of his name he first identified himself as the God of relationship, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob". This truth contained within itself the inner necessity of the resurrection. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had already died. But God still considered his relationship with them as something by which he himself should be identified. They still mattered to him. And further, since he told Moses that his name was "I AM WHO AM" (see Exodus 3:14), every person who ever had being had it by a share in the one who alone truly has being. God's enduring relationship was not only with Patriarchs but with every woman and man who ever lived. All of these live to God. All will rise on the last day.

for to him all are alive.

Let us therefore give witness to the preeminence of the coming Kingdom over the kingdom of this world. Let us not get so caught up in life in the "great city" of "Sodom" and "Egypt" that we feel tormented by prophets of God preaching to remind us that there is nothing we can have and hold forever here below. It may seem at times that the world prevails over such witnesses, but not forever.

But after the three and a half days,
a breath of life from God entered them.
When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them.

A simple question for us is what are we onto what are we holding that we know we must learn to set aside to be made fit for heaven? Obviously there are some temporary goods worth fighting for, such as marriage. But the question we should ask ourselves even about these is whether we are holding anything back in them from God or whether instead we are allowing them to fulfill the purpose for which God gave them. All things will be shaken. Let us direct our lives toward that which cannot be shaken.

This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain (see Hebrews 12:27).







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