SADDUCEES AND THE RESURRECTION

Luke 20:27-38

During a lent recollection for a group of high school students, a boy voiced out a problem: “My eldest brother was born four years ahead of me, but he died when he was only two years old. My mother died when she was 50 years old. Suppose I die at 60 and then meet my brother and my mother in heaven, would I be older than either of them?” Another one said: “Suppose the plane blows up in the air and I am blown to pieces. At the resurrection, God will certainly find it difficult to assemble all my shattered pieces. I’d rather die as one piece so I will be among the first to raise whole from the dead.” And another voiced out: What about those who are cremated?

These are tough questions, as tough as the situation the Sadducees present to Jesus in today’s gospel. I’m sure each one of us believes in the resurrection. That everybody will rise at the end of our lives on this earth that is why we are here to praise our God for this wonderful gift. In Jesus’ time the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead and even in angels and spirits. And in today’s passage they came to Jesus and asked him a trap question. They wanted to ridicule his preaching about life after death by asking and giving Him a concrete situation about who would be the husband in heaven of a woman married to seven different men in her earthly life. For them, if there is resurrection of the dead, then God will have complicated situations like that of seven brothers who one after another married the same woman. Or that of the Kids on recollection who asked: Will I be older then my mother in heaven? How will God gather all the pieces of my body on the resurrection day?

As Jesus often does, he turns tricky questions into an occasion for genuine teaching. The Sadducees came to trap Jesus, but he took this opportunity to give a lesson on the resurrection. First, he draws a sharp distinction between “this age” (our earthly life) and “that age” (the life at the resurrection or the life after death). He makes it clear that the resurrection is not simply a continuation of earthly life. Resurrection is not a continuation of what we are now. But rather a whole new life, a whole new way of living. Those worthy of the resurrection do not have to marry to ensure the continuity of the human race. That is why Jesus says: “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 given in marriage”. Second, if we are resurrected, we have still body but a glorified body different from that of our earthly life. The resurrection is a different mode of existence where our bodies are transformed into glorified bodies. This is why Jesus said: “Those worthy of the resurrection can no longer die, for they are like angels and spirits”.

You will notice that the problem of the Sadducees has to do with how things are in the resurrection life whereas Jesus’ response has to do with what is the resurrection and why the resurrection. There is resurrection because our God is a God of the living, in him all are alive. God has created us for life and not for ultimate death. God does not blow us into life like bubbles, here today, gone tomorrow. No, God gives us life even when this earthly existence is over. So the important question for us today is: How do we take this life? How do we spend our life knowing that it is a gift from God? Are we prepared for the next age?