Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:27-36

Some Sadducees--those who argue that there is no resurrection—approached and they put this question to him, “Master, Moses prescribed for us, if a man’s brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers; the first, having married a wide, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally, the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?” Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God."

Prayer

Death haunts our lives, Jesus. From our earliest moments we know we are timed and that time is short. It runs out before our human hopes and dreams are filled. So we strive to make a name, to leave a mark, so that our presence in this life is not insignificant or soon forgotten. And yet, millions die and leave little trace.

Even the clever and conniving souls who put you to the test with this silly story knew the tragedy of those who die with no progeny of flesh or creative labor. Even they seem to know the sadness of soul that settles upon us when we imagine that there is no one left to remember what we remember, no one remaining to carry on a name, a tradition, a bouquet of fragrant memories bearing what gifts they contain into the future’s unknown.

But you lift me beyond such sadness, Jesus, beyond the tragedy of the forgotten and overlooked who pass with little notice. You shatter the boundaries of imagination, directing my aching eyes to a space where death no longer haunts us, where all you love are children of the resurrection, sharing all the life that you are.

I am a child of the resurrection. Such is the knowledge you hunger for my soul. Thank you. For even now I breathe the fresh air of liberty, knowing life without limits, convinced that nothing is lost to you who have loved us from everlasting.

Pr. David L. Miller