“He is not God of the dead, but of the living."
The Sadducees in today’s Gospel were the priests and leaders of Jewish religion, who did not believe in life after death. Their minds and hearts were not open to words of Christ. The Sadducees believed only what was written in the first five books of the Old Testament of the Bible, the Pentateuch — the laws given by Moses. Since the Pentateuch did not specifi cally address life after death, the Sadducees refused to believe in life after death.
Our reading from the 2nd book of Maccabees, was written hundreds of years before the time of Christ and clearly refers to life after death. “When he was near death, he said, ‘It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the God-given hope of being restored to life by Him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.’”
The Sadducees were trying to ridicule Jesus’ talk about life after death, with the laws of Moses. However, Jesus used those very same laws to show the foolishness of the Sadducees’ interpretation of Mosaic laws. Jesus shows the Sadducees that in the kingdom of heaven, that is, life after death, there is no longer a need for marriage to have children, to have heirs, because there is no more death. “The children of this age (earthly life) marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age (eternal life) 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.”
We must not think of heaven in earthly terms. Heaven will be quite different. We will be quite different. In fact, the Kingdom of God here on earth, as well as the new and eternal Jerusalem in Heaven are both very different than our ex pectations, according to Jesus. Perhaps it is time to think differently, to think, as it is often said, “outside the box.” Per haps it is time to be open to seeing things differently, and to believe that our loving God created us and everything around us so that we can see His glory and have faith in Jesus, so that we will choose to accept His salvation, and enjoy eternal life with Him.
The Sadducees chose to believe only what they wanted to believe. They were not open to faith and trust in Jesus. We must challenge ourselves to see if our faith allows us to believe and follow Jesus in all He promises, resurrection in Him and eternal life, or to believe only what we want to hear.