“I’m afraid that he won’t know me in heaven.”

The woman in front of me was shaking as she talked. Their marriage had been good. Her life had been hard. She was clinging to his life even as it was being measured in hours at most.

If I had to guess, she had heard the words of Jesus in some sermon or conversation or something. Luke says them this way, “in the resurrection from the dead [they] will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels.”

Her struggle in these moments was that the person who cared about her, who she cared most about, would abandon her forever after he died. In heaven, though they would both be there, she would be alone.

In those moments, she was remembering one phrase from a conversation that Jesus had. Not knowing the whole conversation, the whole series of conversations that Jesus was having, had her shaking. She thought Jesus was telling her in this moment that her relationship with her husband was almost over.

I listened and talked a bit and offered support. We talked about the presence of God, about the expanding relationships that will happen. By talking with someone who didn’t respond with mocking, she relaxed.

I didn’t unpack the whole story. She needed to spend those minutes and hours with him, not with a Bible story and a theology lesson from me.

You and I, however, have a bit more time and a bit less existential pressure. I want to tell you more of the story. But before I start, there has already been a lesson here.

Quoting a phrase Jesus said isn’t the same as knowing the heart of Jesus. We often benefit from knowing the conversation Jesus was having.