383 The Perfect Marriage

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Perfect Marriage”, originally shared on November 19, 2025. It was the 383^rd  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   There seem to be major political shifts happening in our society and in the world as a whole, and they all have to do with the Christian understanding of marriage. Today, we’re going to find out why.

   The United States has two major political parties and a handful of much smaller ones.

   New York city has just elected a mayor who describes himself as a Democratic Socialist.

    Christians are used to hearing about the policies of political parties. But we ourselves are not so much partisan as much as we advocate for particular positions in all political parties to ensure that the work of our government is reflective of God’s will for the good of all people, not only for ourselves.

   Having religious parties is totally foreign to us.

   The new mayor of New York is also a Muslim.

   Unlike Christianity, Islam is a self-contained political and social and economic movement within itself that is also a religion. Perhaps it will now be emboldened to grow into an American political party with a national influence.

   There is a Christian Democratic Party with a broad political ideology that is found in several countries throughout the world, but they are independent political parties in each country who describe themselves as inspired by Christian social teaching but are not religious in nature.

   They are more Christists than Christians. Christianity is more about a relationship with God than a religion about God.

   The idea of having religious parties, though, like political parties, within Christianity, is totally foreign to us. We are the Body of Christ, with Christ as the head, and we are one in Christ.

   Having a variety of religious parties in first century Israel, during Jesus’ lifetime, was seen as totally normal. Maybe you’ve heard of some of them.

   The Pharisees. They were laymen (only men could be Pharisees) who had retired to devote their entire lives to studying and living the letter of the religious laws. They believed in a bodily resurrection after death. They were kind of religious show-offs and were highly admired for this.

   The Herodians supported the rule of the Herod family and promoted Greek values and culture in Israel.

   The Zealots (who the Romans would have called terrorists) were a revolutionary group that promoted the violent overthrow of the Roman’s rule. They might have called themselves freedom fighters.

   The Essenes believed in disengaging from society and lived in the desert in isolation in order to live a purer life. Many people believe that their writings are what was discovered as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

   Finally, the Sadducees, who are featured in this week’s Gospel reading, who were part of a priestly and aristocratic class who had great influence in the Temple and in what government existed under the Roman occupation. They believed in keeping the peace and in going along to get along with the Romans. They didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead (so they were sad, you see 😊)

   All of them wanted to prove Jesus wrong, and for Him to take their side.

   We see that in the reading from the Gospels that we are looking at today, Luke 20:27-38.

   It begins with a question made by some Sadducees to make Jesus’ teaching on life after death look ridiculous, in Luke 20:27-33,

²⁷ Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him ²⁸ and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; ³⁰ then the second ³¹ and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³² Finally the woman also died. ³³ In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

   First, I’ve got to say, “Can a life be any more of a disaster than for this poor woman?

   This “gotcha” question is based on a part of the Law in which the brother of a man who dies without children is instructed to marry the widow to have children in the brother’s name, so that his name might continue, in Deuteronomy 25:5-10,

   So, if a woman has more than one husband, whose husband will she be in heaven? That’s the question and, remember, it’s coming from an age of patriarchy. The question of a husband with many wives doesn’t even come up.

   It is an interesting question, though, isn’t it? And it kind of depends on whether we have a happy marriage on earth or an unhappy one. 😊

   I used to think that I’d like to live in the mountains, close enough to a city that I could see a great distance, but also so that I could see the city lights come on at night. Then I thought I’d like to live in the city, be close to all the cultural and sports activities, the energy, and the people. Then I thought I might like to live near the ocean, close enough to go swimming and hear the waves crash at night. Then I realized that it didn’t matter where I lived. I just wanted to be near Sally and James.

   But, not all marriages are like that.

   I read once about a man who had not been feeling well and so his wife took him to see a doctor.

   The man went in for his appointment, while his wife stayed in the waiting room.

   After a while, the doctor came out and asked to speak with the woman in private.

   The wife said, “What’s the matter Doctor? Is my husband going to be OK?”

   The doctor said, “Your husband is under a lot of stress but, if you follow my plan to the letter, he should be perfectly fine.”

   “What can I do?” asked the woman.

   “The doctor said, “Every morning, I want you to get up early, get the kids fed and off to school, fix your hair, put on your make-up, and put on a nice dress. Then, I want you to fix your husband a full breakfast and send him off to work with a smile.

   “Mornings you can clean the house and prepare a nice lunch for him. He may not be able to get home for lunch every day, but lunch should be ready for him in case he can.

   “After lunch time, you can do the yard work, take out the trash, and do any repair projects that need to be done around the house. Your husband is under a lot of stress, and you need to take those things off his mind.

   “Then, you should pick up the children, take them to any enrichment programs they are involved in, and you should have a wonderful hot supper prepared for your husband when he gets home, with you should serve in your done-up hair, your make-up and a nice dress.

   “After supper, you should make sure the children do their homework, are bathed, and are put to bed. Then you should cater to your husbands every whim and desire and stray up late to prepare for the next day to do it all over again.

   “If you do all of those things, he should be fine.”

   The woman nodded and went out to the waiting room and out the door. The husband followed and when they got into the car he asked, “Well, what did he say?”

   “You’re going to die,” she answered.

   So, the answer to the question of whether or not there is marriage in heaven can depend on the character of your marriage right now. Should it?

   Jesus answers that question in Luke 20:34-36,

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. ³⁶ Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.

   So, will we recognize each other in heaven? Pastor and author David Jeremiah has pointed out that heaven is where we will truly see each other for the very first time.

   Christian marriage is an expression of the relationship between Christ and the Church. Marriage is a deeply spiritual relationship. It is brought to perfection, as we are brought to perfection, in the life to come, in a redeemed and perfected relationship with the one true living God.

   The perfect marriage can only come as an expression of the perfect relationship with God that is to come. We aren’t there yet, but it’s coming.

   Perhaps this is why when it was reported that a study had shown that the divorce rate among “born again” Christians was slightly higher than the general population, with about 1 out of 2 marriages ending in divorce, eyebrows were raised.

   It was found, however, that the methodology for determining who was a “born again” Christian was to ask the participant, “Are you a born again Christian?”. If the person answered “Huh?” they were placed in one category. If the answer was “Praise the Lord!” they were categorized as a “born again” Christian.

   But, as was pointed out by Pastor Rick Warren, if behavioral markers were added, the answers were much different.

   If the couple went to church together weekly, if they prayed together most days, and if they read the Bible together most days, the divorce rate was 1 out of 1,100.

   The perfect marriage is the direction we are going. It’s not here yet. It’s not even found on this earth, but in the life after death that is coming with the return of Jesus.

   But the Sadducees didn’t believe that there is life after death, and they are mocking Jesus for his belief in the resurrection to eternal life, so Jesus gives a direct answer to their skepticism, in Luke 20:37-38,

 ³⁷ And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸ Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

   Jesus reminds them that Moses spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being alive to God.  Though they had died, they were alive to God. They had been justified by their faith.

   And the Sadducees had no reply, at least not for the moment, as we see in the two verses that follow today’s reading, Luke 20:39-40,

³⁹ Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” ⁴⁰ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

   Don’t you wish you could answer people’s questions about your faith like that? Do people in your life ask those kinds of questions?

   Peter said, in 1 Peter 3:15b,

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;

   How do we get ready to make our defense?

   Scripture. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. Faith comes by listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the encounter with God that comes on every page of the Bible. Do you spend time reading the Bible outside of worship services? Are you spiritually dry?

   I read a post on a Facebook meeting for ELCA pastors a couple of months or so ago where the writer said that, though he was a non-believer, he had a lot of sympathy for pastors who basically give a TED talk every week on a book that nobody reads.

   Ouch! Not only does that mean that we miss a huge source of understanding and strength for believers, but it can also lead us to be unprepared for the trials that may be coming for us in our secular, fractured, and multi-religious society, where defending our faith is going to become more and more necessary.

   Need time? Do what you love and make some. It won’t make you a fanatic, it will only help you be who you were made to be.

   Even if all you did was to come to church every Sunday for the next three years, the Bible readings that are read are set up on a repeating cycle so that you will hear a good chunk of the Old Testament, with the Psalms, most of the New Testament, and all of the history of salvation read out loud every three years!

   Want some help understanding what you read? The one book that I most recommend is the Zondervan Handbook to the Bible, in any edition you can find.

   Defending our faith is going to become more and more necessary.

   We don’t have religious parties within Christianity today, though, superficially, we are even more divided than first century Israel.

   But when we put behavioral markers like worship, Bible reading, and prayer on Church vitality, as with Christian marriage, we are as united as we have always been: one in Christ, in the water and the Word.

   The whole Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ is the head of the Church.

   Paul writes, in Ephesians 5:27-33,

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷ so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³² This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. ³³ Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

   It is the relationship between Jesus and the Church, the Bride of Christ, that is the only perfect marriage, the only marriage that will be lived in heaven. These two are one.

   We have the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and many smaller political parties in our country, and tiny, fragmented political tribes fueled by identity politics and fractured by social media with no hope for a common unity between them.

   Christians, however, have one source for eternal unity, and it is a gift of God in Jesus Christ. As Paul writes in Galatians 3:27-29,

²⁷ As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

   Our eternity began in our Baptisms, by faith, through God’s grace, and it will continue for us by God’s promise, in the perfect marriage between Christ and the Church, the Bride of Christ, forever.