2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38
Life
is like … a highway. A soon as we are born, we start creeping, crawling,
walking, running, riding and finally shuffling, tottering, and perhaps being
pushed in a wheelchair along the highway of life. The road we travel is usually
well marked with direction signs. There are reasonable limits as to how fast or
slow we should go. When the way gets too bumpy a detour is indicated. Well
spaced rest stops are provided so we can refresh ourselves. Most of the time dangerous
areas are clearly marked.
But one of the unique features of
this highway of life is that sooner or later each one of us will reach that
place on the road that is marked with a special sign. This sign has our own
name on it plus the single word…..EXIT. As much as we may like to ignore that
sign and keep going, we simply are not able to. We have to take that Exit which
marks the end of our earthly route. And what happens next? Different groups of
people have various opinions.
In today’s gospel one of those
groups, the Sadducees, approached Jesus claiming that the first sign to greet
us when we take our Exit is the sign that says, DEAD END. End without hope,
life, and any future.
Confronted by the Sadducees Jesus
responds to them very clearly stating that there is life, hope, and the future
fall all those who have died. That all of them are alive for God and that all
of them will be resurrected.
At Jesus' time personal resurrection
was not universally accepted. The doctrine of an afterlife and of personal
resurrection developed within Judaism only around 200 BC. Before then, during
the First Temple time, it was believed
that all the dead, regardless of their moral or immoral life on earth, went to Sheol, the place of darkness. There
was no reward or punishment for anything there.
As a matter of fact it seems as before
the writers of the Bible were appalled by the afterlife beliefs that many
Israelites were tempted to share with the Canaanites in the promised land.
The first affirmative references of personal
resurrection in the Bible occurs in the Book of Daniel and in the 2nd book of
Maccabees written around years 168 BC and from which we have heard today.
The Sadducees did not believe in the
resurrection and this is why in today's gospel they bring this issue to Jesus,
to have a conversation with him on this topic, attempting to show the absurdity
of any thought of the resurrection. Most
of the Israelites at the time of Jesus believed that one live on only in one's
descendents and in their memory. This is why the Sadducees give an example of a
woman who was married seven times.
Following Jesus, we Christians do not
expect to see a DEAD END sign at our individual Exits, and we do believe in a
personal resurrection. We reject the claim of the Sadducees that “there is no resurrection.”
Rather, we accept and rejoice in the yet more ancient claim of the seven brave
brothers of today’s first reading whose faith led them to proclaim “The King of
the world will raise us up to live again for ever.”
Almost each Sunday in this church as
we profess our faith we say: “I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to
come. Amen."
The question is: are we going to be raised to the resurrection
of life or the resurrection of judgment, resurrection of condemnation?
The answer to this question depends,
as the church tells us, on a way we live
our lives.
Is our life rooted in the teachings
of Christ or not? Do we personally live out the gospel of Christ or not? Do we
help each other to live out the gospel of Christ?
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