Taking the Long View

To get the full impact of the first reading, I strongly suggest you go to your  Bible and read Second Maccabees, Chapter 7. You wonder what the mother of the Maccabees would have said to the Sadducees trying to trap Jesus over belief in the resurrection of the body. How would this woman, who watched the thugs of a sadistic king cruelly torture with whips and scourges her seven sons over their refusal to eat pork, ever have been able to encourage her sons to remain faithful to God’s law without a belief in the resurrection? This belief was her rock. It justified her taking the long view, that their death, in fidelity to God, gives way to a bodily resurrection. 

For the Sadducees, however, faith was based on the Torah (the Pentateuch).  Only what was written in the Torah had to be believed. Since there is no mention of resurrection, they rejected it. And they use a story of a woman marrying seven brothers to trap Jesus. Jesus says two things in response. First, what happens in the next life is going to be different, not the same old, same old. Second, when  God spoke the divine Name to Moses, God did not say, “I was the God of your  dead ancestors.” Rather, God said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”  Implication: God is a God of the living—in God all are alive. 

Couple that with Jesus’ own resurrection and you have good reason for this hope we carry in our hearts. 

Consider/Discuss

• What does belief in the resurrection of the body tell you about God?
• What does it tell you about your own body? Does it have any implications for how you treat your body? 

Responding to the Word

God of the living, we thank you for the promise you have given us in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. We thank you for the faith that tells us that those who die in him will rise in him. May this promise, rooted in our baptism, continue to give us hope in our difficulties.