The question about the resurrection

It is now the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time and it is nearing the end of our liturgical year. Today’s gospel reading is a question about the resurrection, which focuses on the Sadducees who didn’t believe in this. This is in Luke 20: 27-30.

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27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too.33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

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Frankly speaking, we’ve discussed this story by our Lord Jesus Christ so many times already. Apparently, because we are headed towards the end of our liturgical year, the Catholic Church teaches all Christians about forgiveness of sinners and that eternal life is supposedly for everyone. Last Sunday, we had Zacchaeus the tax collector who repented all his sins, then a week before that we heard of the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector. All of these teachings are for us to take the proper attitude in prayer, which begins with humility and acknowledgment of our sins before asking for forgiveness.

But for today, I had to check with Google a question that bothered me about the Sadducees. Apparently I learned that in today’s Israel, you would no longer find Sadducees or Pharisees. The Sadducees disappeared when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 C.E. and therefore they don’t exist in Israel or elsewhere. During the 8th century C.E., the founders of the Karaite Jewish sect, a small sect in Israel, have probably borrowed some elements of Sadducee Judaism, but no one is claiming nowadays that they are descendants of the Sadducees.

I also learned that the current Orthodox stream of Judaism in Israel and elsewhere is in fact a continuation of the Pharisees’ interpretation of Judaism. However, the Sadducees sort of helped the Romans during the time of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, they lost their power base and support and disappeared from history. The Pharisees, on the other hand, represented the religious authorities as they adhered to Jewish law and kept away from the Romans and secular authorities. This is why the Christian gospels go out of their way to attack and revile them - they were popular and taught Judaism as it had always been taught with its implicit rejection of many Christian beliefs.

What is very clear to us in today’s gospel is that marriage between man and a woman is for procreation, which means marriage belongs to our earthly life. But when we enter eternal life, there’s no longer any need for marriage for there is no marriage needed in heaven. But the best proof that there really is a resurrection comes from the last paragraph of today’s gospel when our Lord said, “37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” This teaching isn’t difficult to understand that indeed heaven exists and our bodies would someday resurrect and once more be joined with our souls.