The Good News about Death

Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash

Luke 20:27-38

Death is a very real part of this world.  Everyone we know and every one of us will die someday.  The reality of death is unavoidable.  Yet for many the prospect of their own death seems frightening.  And today’s world eager to deny death as long as we can.  Consumer culture encourages us to try and look younger, feel younger, and forget the uncomfortable thought that we’ll all die someday.  We’re subliminally encouraged to put that unavoidable reality on the back burner for as long as we can.  Historians note that modern Western culture is more disconnected from death than any culture before.  They comment on how we’ve sanitized death, handed off the ugliness of it to hospitals, funeral homes, and churches, and don’t have to think about it outside of those places.  And unfortunately, after spending most of their lives trying to run from and ignore death, many people find death all the more appalling, overwhelming, and scary when it finally finds them.

For Jesus and his first disciples, death was an in-your-face reality.  Death was not something pushed to the margins, it couldn’t be.  Death was an everyday occurrence and wasn’t sealed off and hidden away like today.  People were forced to encounter it, see it, wrestle with its reality, and confront its inevitability. 

In Jesus’ first century Jewish context, there were various understandings of death.  Two prominent groups were the Sadducees who he’s talking to here; and the Pharisees who Jesus talks to a lot throughout the Gospels.  The Sadducees were the leaders of the Temple.  They were the elites who had wealth and power and influence.  Religiously the center of their tradition was the Temple and Temple sacrifice.  They only acknowledged the first five books of the Bible—the Torah—as authoritative.  And, as we see here, they did not believe in an afterlife.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, were the group scholars say were most similar to Jesus.  The Gospel authors show Jesus debating Pharisees quite often, likely to demonstrate a contrast between his teaching and theirs.  While the Sadducees’ religion was based on the Temple, the Pharisees’ religion was based on Scripture.  They recognized as authoritative the five books of Moses as well as all the other books in today’s Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament. 

And while the Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection at the end of time.  The idea was that when people died they dead until God raised them up on the last day.  To them the afterlife was on this physical earth, there was no spiritual dimension to it.  Scholars say this idea was likely picked up in Babylon from the Zoroastrian religion.  And by Jesus’ time it was a common belief among Pharisees. 

So it’s in that context that the Sadducees ask Jesus this question.  They come up with a pretty extreme hypothetical scenario about a woman whose husband died, and according to the law of Moses, if they hadn’t any children his brother would need to marry her.  But that brother dies too so the next one marries, then he dies and the next, and so on until the woman finally dies too.  The Sadducees are obviously trying to poke holes in the idea of the resurrection afterlife when they ask Jesus whose wife will she be when this resurrection happens? 

Jesus answers the question in a way that’s not really playing their game.  He doesn’t try to argue using the rules about marriage in the Law of Moses like they might be expecting.  Instead he speaks like someone who knows.  He tells them that that people won’t be married in the afterlife.  Marriage is something that’s of this world, not the next.  Instead, people will be like angels and will be children of God. 

Jesus closes his answer with a reference to the Law of Moses, pointing out how when speaking to Moses, God identified Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In the present tense like they are still alive.  So Jesus shows that even if you’re just reading those five books, you should still find reason to believe in the afterlife. 

And recalling that the Pharisees believed in an afterlife only at the end of time, notice how Jesus adds this point about Abraham, Isaaac, and Jacob being alive with God now.  Jesus seems to be drawing a distinction between what the Pharisees believe too.  Even though Jesus and the Pharisees agree that death is not the end, Jesus is suggesting that this afterlife with God is happening now for those who have died.  So in this passage, in different ways, Jesus challenges both the Sadducees’ and the Pharisees’ understanding of death and the afterlife.  

Many of you may remember the story of Dr. Eben Alexander who joined us in the spring of 2024 where he presented on his book about his own near-death-experience.  He shared his story of what happened to him when he was brain dead in a coma for six days in his book Proof of Heaven.  He was a neurosurgeon who was pretty sure there was no God or afterlife.  Until a rare illness left him in a coma and braindead for six days.  During which he experienced incredible worlds beyond this earth.  He witnessed what he called the beautiful gateway valley, as well as “The Core” where encountered the loving, creative source of all reality.  Eben described his near-death-experience as feeling ultra real, more real than everyday reality.  Compared to how awake and aware he felt then, the world we live in feels like a dream. 

Eventually Eben came out of his coma and after a long road he returned to full health, which was a medical miracle in itself.  Since then he has traveled the world to share his story and has written several books about the mysterious and loving universe we live in.  In addition to Eben there are thousands more who have died and been resuscitated after seeing a glimpse of the world beyond.  This has happened throughout human history, but more in the past decades thanks to all our advances in medical technology.

Personally I’m fascinated by these stories.  There’s a lot for us to learn, and people who’ve had glimpses of the other side offer hope and wisdom from beyond this world.  People who’ve had near-death-experiences come back with a knowledge that the world’s great religions have taught all along.  Things like there is life after death, and this earthly life is an incredible gift too.  Things like the core of reality is love, and we get to experience that here too.  Things like we don’t have to worry about what happens after death, because we are incredibly loved and cared for, both while we live and after we die.

And so, I hope you will not fear death.  Instead, I hope you will be fascinated by it.  Contemplating our mortality, instead of ignoring it or resisting it, is a profound spiritual practice.  Facing death head-on, not as a terrifying enemy, but as a hard teacher.  Making peace with our own death, long before it comes knocking on our door, will help us live this life more fully and be more prepared for the next. 

And so let us approach death with curiosity.  Let us look the mystery of death straight in the eye and gain whatever wisdom it has to offer.  We have no reason to fear death, because Jesus conquered death and opened the way to eternal life for all.  So we can trust and hope and be filled with joyful expectation about whatever’s next.  And we can spend our lives living more fully, rather than distracting ourselves from the nagging fear of mortality.  We can trust Jesus’ promise of eternal life and know that death is but the beginning of our continued experience in this vast and mysterious universe that is full of God’s love.  Love that holds us now and forever. 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.   

Pastor Brian | November 9, 2025