Gospel Reading: Lk 20:27-40
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless.
Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died.
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything.
REFLECTION
Those who deny that there is a resurrection
“If there is no resurrection of the dead,” Paul says, “we are the most pitiable people of all” (1 Cor 15:13,19). But the fact is, there is a resurrection, and Paul himself is one of those privileged to see the risen Jesus (cf 1 Cor 15:8; Acts 9:3-6; Gal 1:16).
God is “not God of the dead, but of the living,” Jesus declares in response to the Sadducees who want to trap him.
Death, or evil, does not have the last word; God, or life, does.
Our mortal, corruptible body will certainly turn to dust in death but only to give way to a new and glorious life that will no longer die again. This is our core belief. Jesus died and rose again, and blessed are we if we hold on to this belief and conviction. For it is the truth.
“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never dies” (Jn 11:25-26).
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SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord,” ST PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
