The Question about the Resurrection

Today's Reflections

The Question about the Resurrection

Mk 12:18-27

¹⁸Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to [Jesus] and put this question to him, ¹⁹saying, “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.’ ²⁰Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. ²¹So the second married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. ²²And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. ²³At the resurrection [when they arise] whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.” ²⁴Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? ²⁵When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. ²⁶As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, [the] God of Isaac, and [the] God of Jacob’? ²⁷He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.”

Reflection:

Not God of the dead but of the living. The Sadducees accept and adhere to the strict interpretation of the written Torah. And since the Torah makes no reference to the resurrection, they do not believe in the resurrection. They present a problem that seems to make the resurrection ridiculous.

Jesus replies by pointing out the Sadducees’ misunderstanding about marriage. Marriage was instituted for the continuation of the human race. But in eternal life people no longer die. They live like angels, so that marital union is no longer necessary. Moreover, Jesus clarifies, life after the resurrection is not a continuation of earthly life but a total change of state.

To meet the Sadducees on their turf, Jesus refers to the Book of Moses, where God identifies himself, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” God is God of three different generations, ancestors of Moses, who remain alive in God.

The resurrection for us is the summit and goal of earthly life. With the hope of resurrection, we are ready to sacrifice and suffer for others, to do good and live right, to follow Jesus and fulfill his commandments. After our earthly life, there is eternal life. And it is life with God.

Do I live my earthly life in view of eternal life?