As Jesus teaches at the Temple precincts, the Sadducees confront him regarding resurrection. They do not believe in the resurrection, simply because it is not in the Torah.

Previously, they and other religious authorities challenged Jesus about his authority to cleanse the Temple and about paying taxes to the emperor.

Now the Sadducees present their argument against the resurrection using the Levirate marriage. Certainly, if that law applies even in the afterlife, there will be chaos in heaven.

Jesus explains with authority that in heaven, there are no more marriages. People are like angels who do not die and have no need to reproduce. Jesus defends his teaching by quoting what God said to Moses in Exodus:

“I am... the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex 3:6; v 37), with the final remark, “He is... God... of the living” (v 38). This closes the controversy.

First Reading • 1 Mc 6:1-13

…While King Antiochus was in Persia, a messenger brought him news that the armies sent into the land of Judah had been put to flight; that Lysias had gone at first with a strong army and been driven back by the children of Israel; that they had grown strong by reason of the arms, men, and abundant possessions taken from the armies they had destroyed; that they had pulled down the Abomination which he had built upon the altar in Jerusalem; and that they had surrounded with high walls both the sanctuary, as it had been before, and his city of Bethzur.

When the king heard this news, he was struck with fear and very much shaken. Sick with grief because his designs had failed, he took to his bed. There he remained many days, overwhelmed with sorrow, for he knew he was going to die.

So he called in all his friends and said to them: “Sleep has departed from my eyes, for my heart is sinking with anxiety. I said to myself: ‘Into what tribulation have I come, and in what floods of sorrow am I now! Yet I was kindly and beloved in my rule.’

But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem, when I carried away all the vessels of gold and silver that were in it, and for no cause gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed. I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me; and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land.”

Responsorial Psalm • Ps 9

“I will rejoice in your salvation, O Lord.”

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: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.