REFLECTIONS TODAY
Even by just observing nature, one can see how life emerges from seeming death. In winter, or in extreme summer heat, trees and plants may look dead, lakes and rivers may appear dried up, but as the season changes, they “come to life” again. There is no way that death has the final word.
The unbelief of the Sadducees on the resurrection expressed in their familial puzzle of the woman with seven husbands is dismissed by Jesus by His declaring, based on the burning bush event of the Old Testament, that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. God is the author of life; everything came to be by His powerful word.
In this world, of course, realities are finite. And so created beings like us must end one day. But only to be ushered to the next life which has no end. Even now, as in those instances when Jesus raised dead people to life (like His friend Lazarus), we are reminded that the future has “invaded” the present or that we already catch a glimpse of our glorious future.
But the future is totally different in terms of relationships and other realities—something we look forward to with excitement and hope.
Gospel • Luke 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.
Source: “366 Days with the Lord 2024,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.