So, I’m taking this month to read through Luke, one chapter a day for 24 days. I’ve gleaned some great insights into Christ’s life and watching His ministry and teachings unfold over the month.
Today is December 20th and so I’m reading Luke chapter 20. It contains a great passage for those who have experienced hardships in marriage and love relationships (death, divorce, abuse, singleness, etc.) that marriage is not God’s plan for the afterlife and the pain of brokenness or pain in human love relationships (and all relationships) will not exist. Marriage, the earthly example of Christ and His Church, will no longer be needed in the afterlife because the reality will be realized. There is no marriage in Heaven.
My take on this teaching is that we need to put our faith in Christ not in our marriages/love relationships. It’s painfully obvious to me when my friends talk about their husbands and it consumes their life and identity. They confidently speak of their lives in marriage and home with permanence and fulfillment.
I remember being like that. My late husband was everything to me, I was in his orbit and he in mine. We filtered our decisions, activities, and interactions with others through our couplehood. Nothing came before us. Yes, God was there with us, but we were fully consumed with our relationship. I see that now very clearly that I’m a widow. I marvel at how blind I was to how much marriage defined my life, my self worth and my identity. And, I realize now that every marriage partner in a relationship, similar to what I shared with my husband, is in for a rude awakening, at some point due to illness or death, to how much they place their faith and trust in the security of a good marriage to sustain them and give them purpose. I’m realizing that while I always said that God comes first, and Jesus is King, I had placed my life in the hands of a great marriage rather than fully in the Christ who gives me all.
Like all widows and widowers, I have a different perspective. We know what those who haven’t been down this path cannot fathom. I can’t say I can warn anyone or help prepare them, because I can’t. As we widows often say, “You don’t know until you know.”
I guess knowing that there is no marriage in Heaven gives me comfort. When I first learned this fact after my husband died, I was outraged. It was like God was taking him away from me again, only now for eternity. But, I realize we WILL share a special bond in Heaven, we just won’t need to be married. Marriage is a symbol of Christ and His Church, and is God’s plan for procreation. Neither will be needed in Heaven, and I’ve come to realize it’s a beautiful thing. I get to realize perfect love without the need of a pairing. I get to have it solely, on my own. And, praise God for that!
The Resurrection and Marriage
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’[b] 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
39 Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” 40 And no one dared to ask him any more questions.