Advent Season… Cemeteries & Prison Cells

Advent Season… Cemeteries & Prison Cells

Today’s Passage:  Luke 20:27-40

Then Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead. They posed this question: “Teacher, Moses gave us a law that if a man dies, leaving a wife but no children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother’s name. Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children. So the second brother married the widow, but he also died. Then the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them, who died without children. Finally, the woman also died. So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her!” (Verses 27-33)

Words of Devotion from Scripture

Christ has come! Christ is coming again! 

This is the hope of Advent, the hope of the Church, and the hope of those her members.

While a passage from Luke on the topic of resurrection may seem out of place for us during Advent, that’s likely only because we assume the things of Christmas upon Advent. You know: baby Jesus, a manger, some angels, and other Nativity-related personalities. Indeed, Christmas is coming, but Advent is a season of remembering Israel’s time of waiting for the coming Messiah. And thus, it’s a season where we look forward with the same anticipation of His coming again: to bring about the Great Resurrection.

I have taken walks through many cemeteries. One town that we lived in had a number of beautifully-maintained cemeteries that I liked to visit. The mix of centuries-old trees and just-as-old grave markers serves as a reminder to us that the cycles of life and death are nothing new and nothing swift. If you live in the northeastern United States, you know the seasons are quite different one from another. The life cycle of the trees that ranges from life-full green leaves, to brown crunchy ones, to bare skeleton-like branches, to yellow birthing buds and back to life again is not unlike human life itself. There are seasons for life...and seasons for death. And while we might try and figure it out - and even control it - we are yet not God and ultimately cannot control these things. And so...we wait.

Advent seeks to be a reminder of this. Perhaps you’ve asked questions similar to my own: “Where on earth is Christ? What is taking Him so long?!”

The faith of the matter is that God is God and we are not. Bonheoffer likens the situation to a prison cell in which one can only rely on someone with more power to set us free from the outside. We can bang on the door and shake the bars as hard as we'd like - we might like to think we have the know-how to figure our way out - but nothing will let us go other than the One who holds the key.

The Sadducees wanted to pick apart and figure out the “hows” of resurrection. This is our desire: to figure, to know, to control, to grasp. Yet while God has granted us the opportunity of choice, God has not granted us sovereignty of knowledge. We know in part, and thus during this season, we prophesy in part: 

Christ has come! Christ is coming again!

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.” - Dietrich Bonheoffer

PRAYER: Almighty Father, I submit to you today my desire to know it all, be it all, and do it all. As I wait for your coming again, help me to trust in your ways, in your movements, and in the revealing of your Kingdom and will as you see fit. In Christ… amen