Worship at Home - By David Godfrey

Reflection:

Sadduceeswere the aristocrats of first century Judaism.  They were the leaders and organisers of the temple, privileged politicians, and arbiters of the law. They stood in their expensive finery, looking down their noses at Jesus, this upstart teacher from the north. They were experts in the law (the first five books of the bible) which had primacy over everything else.  They deduced that as there was no mention of resurrection in the law, resurrection did not exist.  And so they opposed everyone who preached it including the Pharisees and including Jesus.  Cynically they tried to trap Jesus, by telling a tawdry story about a widow who had seven husbands.  ‘In the resurrection,’ they asked, ‘whose wife will she be.’  Of course, they can afford to joke about a poor widow, insulated as they are from the pain of this tale, by their wealth, prestige and power.  Jesus addresses the Sadducees crass frivolity, by taking their question seriously and answering it with great pastoral sensitivity. He begins his answer by effectively saying, your ideas about resurrection are wrong.  Resurrection is not a continuation of this life with all its imperfections.  It will be very different.  Marriage belongs to this mortal life, but in the resurrection to come we will become immortal like angels.  We will be resurrection people close to God and children of God for ever.  

On this Remembrance Sunday questions about resurrection are particularly relevant.  This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the 2nd world war, and we remember all those who lost their lives in that destruction.  Did death really have the last word in those years of suffering, or does God have a greater plan?  Jesus does not give us all the answers.  What he does do is provide us with enough hope to live in now.  And his own death and resurrection reinforces that hope, for in it we see Jesus blazing a trail to eternal life that all may follow.  He tells us that those who have gone before are alive to God, and present to God now.  Jesus points us to a God whose faithfulness to those he has called is immeasurable and inexhaustible.  May our faith be founded, in the one who has promised us life, through all eternity.

Hymn:  StF 295, H&P 250, ‘Alleluia, Alleluia, give thanks to the risen Lord’  

Prayers:  

Intercessions:   Today we pray for all who suffer as a result of war.  For those who are injured, or disabled; for the mentally distressed; for the homeless, and the refugee; for those who have lost husband, wife, children, or parents. We pray particularly for those suffering now in places of conflict.  We especially pray for those whose faith in God and in other people has been weakened, or destroyed.  We pray for God to raise up peacemakers, and ask that the leaders of the nations will work together for peace.  For ourselves we pray for great faithfulness, great courage and great love.  We offer these prayers through him who taught us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom of peace, Jesus Christ our Lord,

Amen.

The Lords Prayer

Our Father…

Hymn: StF 495, H&P 673, ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’