DAILY MEDITATION: “He is not God of the dead, but of the living”

Liturgical day: Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel text (Lk 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.

“He is not God of the dead, but of the living”

Fr. Ramon CORTS i Blay
(Barcelona, Spain)

Today, God's word deals with the outstanding matter of the resurrection from the dead. It is peculiar that, as the Sadducees did, we keep on asking useless and pointless questions. We try to explain the substance of afterlife with world criteria, when in the world to come everything is different: “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” (Lk 20, 35). Setting off from wrong judgement leads you to wrong conclusions.

If we were able to love each other on a higher level, we would not be surprised to see that in Heaven, there is not the exclusive kind of love we have here, normal because of our limitations, making it difficult to see beyond our closed minds. In Heaven we shall all love each other with a pure heart, without any feelings of envy or distrust, and, not only husband and wife, our sons or those of our own blood, but everybody, without exception: no language, country, race or cultural discriminations, for “true love attains a great strength” (St. Paulinus of Nola).

These words of the Scripture coming out of Jesus' lips are very hopeful for us. They are indeed, for it could happen to us in the maelstrom of our daily chores which does not allow us time to think, and influenced by an environmental culture that denies eternal life, we could become doubtful with regards to the resurrection of the dead. Yes, it is very encouraging that the same Lord tells us there will be a future beyond the destruction of our body and of this passing world: “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” (Lk 20,37-38).

Source: evangeli.net