THE WORD
Rev 11,4-12 / 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 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.
IN OTHER WORDS.
The Sadducees were very knowledgeable of Scriptures. Jesus spoke and proved to the Sadducees that there was resurrection of the dead in the very Scriptures they had come to embrace. The book of Exodus in 3:6 relates God declaring, “I am God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. Jesus in several occasions taught and expressed about His intimate union with His Father and vice versa; Him being the Way, the Truth and the Life; He has come to bring life and life to the fullest; He is the God of the living and not of the dead, and these teachings of Jesus’ happened most often in the presence of the Sadducees and the elders. Still they refused to believe. How do we find ourselves acting quite similarly at times? When we insist on our own narrow thoughts and ways, even when the obvious is right under our noses.
The foolishness of the Sadducees in today’s Gospel depicts their insistence on believing that heaven is simply an extension of earthly life and all its pleasures, comfort and beauty. They failed to see that heaven promises something far more beautiful, mystifying and grand.
We learn from St.Therese of the Child Jesus as she humbly declares, both on earth and heaven, “solo Dios basta” (God alone suffices)! Is He enough for you?
- Fr. Flavie Villanueva, SVD | CT Manila
The Word in other words 2016
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
