November 6, 2022
Luke 20: 34 – 38
In today’s gospel, we see some Sadducees questioning Jesus about the resurrection. In the first reading from 2 Maccabees, we witness seven brothers accepting torment and death, firm in their belief that God will raise them up to eternal life. Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, assures us of God’s fidelity and strengthening power.
Why did the Sadducees question Jesus? Were they looking for a deeper insight, or were they trying to trip Him up? We cannot know for sure. I wonder about my own questioning. Am I seeking truth or showing off my cleverness? Do my questions spring from a desire to know God better or from a desire to prove myself right? How deeply do I listen to the Spirit’s answer? After the conversation, am I closer to God, and is my life any different?
The brothers in Maccabees who suffered torment, had their priorities right: follow God’s command, no matter the cost. Trust in God even in the face of death. Jesus responded to the Sadducees’ question, not by entering into debate but by revealing God as God of the living. He simply pointed to the truth that we are all alive in God. May we appreciate the gift of God’s living in us and we in God.
Luke 20: 34 – 38
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 out ‘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.”
The Gospel of the Lord
Meet Sister Marilyn Pechillo, SNDdeN
