Scripture Scribbles: November 6, 2022

the Gospel

Luke 20:27-38

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,

came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying,

"Teacher, Moses wrote for us,

If someone's brother dies leaving a wife but no child,

his brother must take the wife

and raise up descendants for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers;

the first married a woman but died childless.

Then the second and the third married her,

and likewise all the seven died childless.

Finally the woman also died.

Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?

For all seven had been married to her."

Jesus said to them,

"The children of this age marry and remarry;

but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age

and to the resurrection of the dead

neither marry nor are given in marriage.

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.

That the dead will rise

even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,

when he called out '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."

the devotion

Fireflies appeared as the sun set. It was an evening in early summer spent with a handful of women on a friend’s porch. We became close during the years of the pandemic, each of us experiencing deep conversion and encouraging each other through the unfolding of our lives– pregnancies, miscarriages, newborn babies, job and home changes, sufferings and joys. That night we talked about trust in God.

How hard it can be.

How absolutely freeing it is.

To take off the burden of figuring it all out for myself, the burden of being responsible for every outcome, the burden of calculating every risk and creating every opportunity. What sweet sweet news it is that the God of the living has created me for resurrection, for eternal and perfect intimacy with him. This life is not all there is. Death, cruelty, and suffering are not what he wanted for us and the boundless love of God has overcome even those. He is calling each of us to a foretaste of eternal joy right here and now if we but trust him.

When I meditate on Jesus’ words from today’s Gospel, he whispers that his love for me can’t be contained in this brief life of mine on earth. His love for me is so beyond space and time. And that is what I am made for.

Today, I pray to hold fast to the eternal perspective. To let him show me how deeply he desires me to be with him forever and to love him back, too, to offer him everything I have and am out of love. This life with him is the greatest romance and adventure. And it is just the beginning.

Today’s devotion was written by Lucia Parker