Marraige and intimacy

Once again, Dylan has challenged me to think. Marriage in the resurrection? Jesus said, no. As a married man, I cherish the intimacy I share with my wife. It is expressed in our sharing of ourselves. We get to know each other more each year. We share intimate physical experiences, that we couldn’t imagine sharing with friends, no mater how much we love them. I can’t fathom having the opportunity for eternal life and not cleaving to my bride.

Jesus doesn’t say that there will not be intimacy in heaven, but no marriage. Some thoughts bounce around in my head, Jesus raises questions here that he does not answer. Will there be sex in heaven? Could it be that marriage is a type of the intimacy we can share with God and with each other when we have a transformed capacity to be intimate? I mean, can you imagine being able to love and know the individuals in the rest of the world as intimately and powerfully as you love your spouse. Or can you imagine being able to love God even more perfectly than that?

It is interesting here that Jesus is upholding the Pharisees’ devotion which brought out the theology of the resurrection. Family values, nor religious purity can define the glory of God. They only point to a more powerful truth we cannot yet grasp.

Lord, blow us away this week as you did to the Sadducees on that day. Destroy our conceptions with the power of your Glory!