Zaccheus
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1. The Reality and Pain of Grief
Rev. Susan McGowan opens with a deeply personal account of loss, describing the tragic death of a close friend in adolescence. This narrative is not merely anecdotal—it is emblematic of the universal human experience of loss and the existential wrongness we sense in death itself. The lesson underscores that such grief is not a failure of faith but a poignant indicator of love: “It’s a sign that you loved well and were loved well” 18:15.
Carry Forward: The ache we feel in the face of loss points us toward deeper questions about meaning, eternity, and the very nature of existence.
2. Theological Inquiry: The Sadducees and the Resurrection
The lesson contextualizes a debate from Luke 20, where the Sadducees—skeptical about resurrection—challenge Jesus with a hypothetical scenario about marriage after death. Their question is designed more as a theological trap than a genuine inquiry.
The Sadducees represent those who seek to confine God and the afterlife to neat, rational categories, leaving no room for divine mystery or surprise 08:14.
Jesus, instead of taking the bait, reframes resurrection not as an extension of this life’s rules and relationships, but as a profoundly new reality transformed by the living God 10:04.
Carry Forward: Faith sometimes requires us to hold space for mystery and to resist the urge to explain away every tension. The life to come is not bound by the structures and anxieties of our current existence.
3. God of the Living: Present Tense Reality
A pivotal moment in the lesson is when Jesus references Moses and the burning bush: “I am the God of Abraham…the God of the living” 12:22.
This present-tense self-description of God means that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive to God—death does not sever covenant relationship.
The living God is one who transcends mortality and holds his people beyond the grave, offering hope rooted in divine, ongoing presence.
Carry Forward: Our relationship with God persists into eternity. The hope of resurrection is grounded, not in elaborate theories, but in the character and promises of the God who is.
4. Experiencing God in the Midst of Loss
Rev. Susan McGowan describes a moment of honest, unresolved grief—sitting alone, voicing questions into the night—not receiving answers, but experiencing the real, sustaining presence of God 14:38.
Carry Forward: In seasons when answers elude us, the presence of God is enough. Our questions, doubts, and pain are not ignored by God, but met with compassion and companionship.
5. What Resurrection Hope Sets Us Free To Do
The concluding application is both pastoral and practical:
You are free to love fully, even knowing loss will come. You can risk, give, show up for others’ pain.
Death does not have the final word—Christ’s resurrection ensures that hope and joy can persist beneath our grief 18:47.
The God of the living encourages us to bring Him our burdens and to trust that what is lost is not ultimately lost to Him.
Final Thought
You are encouraged to live “all in” because God is who He says He is—a present, living God. Your grief, questions, and hopes are not dismissed but held in divine love. Let this lesson embolden you to love courageously, grieve honestly, and trust in the God whose presence transcends death itself.
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Opening Prayer
Begin your time together by inviting God’s presence, asking for open hearts as you consider the message.
1. Grief and the Longing for Eternity
The speaker described the devastating loss of a close friend, saying, “There’s nothing that prepares you for that... I remember standing in that room thinking, this is wrong. Not just sad, this is just pure wrong.”
Question: Why do you think death feels so “wrong,” even for people of faith?
Reflection: How does your heart’s reaction to loss reflect what Speaker A called “the image of eternity that God placed inside every human heart”?
2. Facing Tough Questions
The Sadducees came to Jesus with a question about resurrection, but their motive was not sincere: “They didn’t come to Jesus with a sincere question. They came trying to trap him.”
Question: What are some ways people today try to “trap” God with questions, or box Him in to fit their understanding?
Discussion: How can you approach your hardest questions about faith with humility and openness, rather than skepticism or manipulation?
3. The Nature of Resurrection
Jesus challenged the Sadducees’ assumptions, showing that life after death is different: “You’re imagining resurrection as simply life extended... but resurrection is life transformed.”
Question: How do you picture life after death? How does this passage from Luke 20 challenge or reshape your understanding?
Reflection: What comfort, conviction, or hope do you draw from Jesus’ words that in the resurrection, “they can no longer die, for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection”?
4. God of the Living
Jesus highlights that God spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the present tense: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Question: Why is it significant that God says “I am” rather than “I was”?
Discussion: What does this reveal about God’s relationship with His people and the reality of eternal life?
5. Experiencing God’s Presence
Speaker A shared a moment of brokenness and questioning, but ultimately experienced God’s comforting presence: “I didn’t have the answers, but I had God.”
Question: Share a time, if you’re comfortable, when you experienced God’s presence in grief or uncertainty.
Application: How can you support others in times of loss by simply “showing up” rather than having all the answers?
6. Grieving with Hope
“The apostle Paul says, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. He doesn’t say we don’t grieve. He says we grieve with resurrection underneath us.”
Question: What does it look like to grieve with hope, rather than without it?
Discussion: How does the conviction of Christ’s resurrection transform the way we process loss, love, and risk in relationships?
7. Becoming “All In” Because He Is
The sermon concludes, “And because He is, we can be all in. Because He lives... your loved ones live... and whoever you are thinking of right now, if they followed Jesus Christ... they live too.”
Question: In what areas of your life are you hesitant to be “all in” for Christ? What holds you back?
Application: What’s one step you can take this week to live boldly in the hope of the resurrection and in your witness for Jesus?
Closing Prayer
Pray for one another—that God would meet you and your group in your griefs, questions, and hopes, with the assurance that He is the God of the living, and nothing can separate us from His love.
Optional: End by inviting group members to share the names of loved ones they are remembering, and pray together, “Lord, we entrust them to You, knowing that You are not the God of the dead, but of the living.”