Eternal Marriage?
AM Psalm 119:97-120 • PM Psalm 81, 82
1 Samuel 2:12-26 • Acts 2:1-21 • Luke 20:27-40
Eleven years ago, I lost a dear friend. His first name was Gary. I won’t use his last name, simply for the sake of privacy. Gary was a fellow English professor, and he and I worked many long hours together on a large-scale national project that was not based at either of our respective universities. I had been a leader of the project for four years before Gary had taken over the rotating leadership of it in 2008. In 2010, he was scheduled to occupy the position for two more years, at the end of which it would pass to another colleague.
Gary had an incredible, indefatigable joie de vivre. Our work together frequently involved travel to large cities around the U.S., and wherever we went he always wanted to try something from the local cuisine that he had never tasted before. For one week every year, our project took us to Daytona Beach, Florida, and Gary, a lifelong resident of American Fork, Utah, where one would be hard pressed to find an ocean, could hardly wait until the end of the day when he could grab his boogie board and head into the waves.
On Saturday, May 1, 2010, Gary went for a run with his son. When he came home, an embolism moved from his leg to his heart, and he died instantly, leaving a grieving wife and three children. He was 45.
Gary was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Christian denomination formerly known as the Mormons, and I thought of Gary (as I do frequently) when I read today’s passage from Luke. In it, Jesus is being pestered by the Sadducees, who wonder whom a woman would be married to at the resurrection if she had been sequentially widowed and married to seven brothers. Jesus dismisses the question—which I consider to be silly and trivial: “[T]hose 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, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”
Gary and I never talked much about LDS theology, but I imagine he believed in the concept of celestial marriage, in which spouses who are wed in the temple and commit to abiding by the temple covenants are sealed in marriage for eternity. While this belief might seem to run counter to Luke 20:27-40, I never wanted to question Gary’s passionate devotion to his spouse, his family, and his God. Gary lived and breathed love and altruism. Faith alone assures me that my dear friend lives in the kingdom of God, where his loving wife will join him in due time.
Written by David Jolliffe
...who feels blessed to have been surrounded by unexpected saints at so many times in his life.