Job 19: 23–27a / Psalm 17: 1–9 / II Thessalonians 2: 1–5, 13–17 / Luke 20: 27–38
This is the written version of the
homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown,
Pennsylvania, on Sunday, November 9, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.
“WE ALL WANT TO KNOW: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?”
(Homily texts: Job 19: 23–27a; II Thessalonians 2: 1–5, 13–17; and Luke 20: 27–38)
Perhaps it’s because we human beings
have a need for safety and security (after all, having those needs helps to
keep us alive!), we want to know as much as we can about what will happen
tomorrow, the next week, the next month, the next year, or – for that matter –
in eternity once this life is done.
Countless numbers of writers and
prognosticators in the media rely on this deep-seated need, telling us what
trends they see, what the likely outcome is likely to be, and – in many cases –
whipping up needless concern and even hysteria in the process. The newspapers
are filled with the output of these seers of the future, as is the internet,
and television news programs.
Not to be left out, religious leaders
of various sorts also tell us about future events, managing – in the process –
to whip up hysteria over future events which (they say) will prove to be
catastrophic. Perhaps, in an attempt to calm the hysteria that leaders who are
prophets of doom and judgment have produced, another writer, quite recently,
has published a book telling us great detail what heaven is going to be like.
The concerns that are deeply implanted
in our hearts aren’t new to us. They have been among the concerns of human
beings for a very long time. People of faith harbor those sorts of concerns as
well, as our reading from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the early Christians in
Thessalonica makes clear. Paul has to remind them that the Lord Jesus’ second
coming (His return to reign in glory) hasn’t yet happened, and – no – they
haven’t missed it, and – no – they haven’t been left behind.
And yet, on this side of eternity, we
want to know what it will look like once this life is ended and we enter into
whatever lies beyond death. For, as St. Paul makes clear, death is that great
and final enemy, that great mystery. Writing to the early Christians in
Corinth, he has to remind them that death isn’t the harbinger of fear and loss
that we might imagine it to be. Not at all. In I Corinthians 15, he says that
death has lost its sting. Its seeming victory isn’t a victory at all. He puts
this truth eloquently: “Death is swallowed up in victory, O death, where is
your victory? O death, where is your sting?”[1]
How can Paul say such a thing? Is he
delusional? Is he denying reality?
No, not at all. Paul can be confident
about the transition from this life into eternity because of the reality of our
Lord Jesus Christ’s own resurrection on Easter Sunday morning. That event
transformed the original band of the Lord’s disciples from wayward, unreliable
followers into champions of the truth of God’s power to create, and – in the
case of our Lord’s resurrection – to recreate. Yes, this is a power even over
life and death itself.
In the Old Testament, this is Job’s
hope, as he confidently says that he knows that his redeemer lives, and that he
will – in his flesh – see God. (I am reminded of the wonderful aria from
Handel’s “Messiah” which makes use of this text.)
We would do well to look at today’s
Gospel text.
There, Jesus is confronted by a group of Sadducees[2], who put a wildly unlikely tale before the Lord. They put forth a situation in which a woman was married, but whose husband died without producing any children. Then, these priests tell the Lord that the woman passed from brother to brother, each one marrying the woman, but there are no children from any of these subsequent marriages (all six!), either.[3]
Jesus cuts through their argument.
Marriage in that day and time had as its primary goal the begetting of
children. (Recall that child mortality was very high in those days.) Children
were, in that society, ones “retirement plan” once life became too difficult to
allow a person to work.
But Jesus tells these Sadducees that,
once people have entered into eternity and into the resurrected life, they will
never die (so there is no need for offspring).
In the fulness of time, Jesus will
affirm the reality of life after death, in a resurrected state, in God’s
presence.[4] His
own coming to life again affirms God’s power over all things, including death.
So, if we are to live after death, this
time in God’s presence directly, what does heaven really look like?
Is it like the new book we referred to
at the beginning of this sermon, with detailed descriptions of heaven’s
appearance and so forth?
Well, maybe.
But, perhaps the more prudent course
for us to take is not to obsess over the details of what heaven will be like,
for surely, Holy Scripture’s descriptions could well be figurative, and not
literal, ones.
So, perhaps we can rest securely in two
great realities: 1. We become inheritors
of God’s eternal love when we come to faith in God the Father through God the
Son, Jesus Christ. By whatever means we come to that relationship (and, I think
it’s important to say that the New Testament describes a number of different paths
of coming to faith), it is the receiving of God’s great and good gift of God’s
love and God’s eternal embrace that guarantees our future with God once this
life is over; and 2. God’s got a plan, and that plan will be glorious, perhaps
much more wonderful than we can imagine this side of heaven.
So then, the details of the future take
a back seat to the essential truth of God’s ability to keep us in His love and
embrace, both now and into eternity.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
[1] See I Corinthians 15: 54b, 55.
[2] The Sadducees we a priestly caste. Notice that Luke reminds us that the
Sadducees denied the reality of the resurrection.
[3] This is a process that is outlined in the Law of Moses (Torah), called Levirite
Marriage, because the name (levirate) refers to “brother-in-Law”. See
Deuteronomy 25: 5–10.
[4] May I encourage you to read the entire fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians? It will lift your spirits.
