Luke 20:36 They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
As adults age, most of us prepare for old age and ultimately death. We've spent an entire life accumulating things, and some of the things we've accumulated are distributed according to our last wishes. Most of all we want to make sure that our survivors are cared for.
In Luke's gospel this weekend, the author sets the scene that the Sadducees, a sect of Jews working in the Temple, have questions for Jesus. Now the Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection or immortality, so really don't care about what happens to the soul once they die. They posed a question to Jesus regarding Levitical laws of the death of a husband and care for the surviving wife. Jesus explains that marriage is for this earth, our earthly relationships do not continue as we know it in heaven. There is little doubt that the Sadducees just considered themselves hard core realists, who had to combat this nonsense about the resurrection. This is true of many people today as well; we are so comfortable in our day-to-day lives that we tend to forget that our ultimate hope is in our Lord and our goal is to live with God eternally. We get caught up in the busyness of life and don't make our relationship with Jesus a priority. This is not just with everyday people, but even with clergy and those that work for the church. We can sometimes forget what got us here. Like the Sadducees who worked in the Temple but didn't have a belief, there are some who have been called at one time in their life to serve God, but in the busyness of things, might have lost their way. The mistake the Sadducees made was that they were gambling with their souls. Do not make that same mistake. Make it a priority today to rediscover the love of Jesus you once had. Spend time in prayer and mediation and ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle that fire in your heart. After all, our days on earth are but a blink of the eye in the measure of eternity, so make sure you're right with God today!
