The Gospel of Luke, chapter 20:38

In today’s gospel, Jesus is questioned by the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection. The Sadducees proposed a clever riddle about the possibility of a woman having seven legitimate husbands in order to discredit the idea of the resurrection. These scholars of the law argued that there could be no resurrection after death since the idea would violate God’s law of monogamous marriage.

Jesus marshalled the whole truth of the scriptures against these petty arguments of the Sadducees. He makes it clear that God is a God of the living and that, in the resurrection, there is neither “marriage” nor are people “given in marriage.” The Sadducees were caught in a sticky wicket of their making, and they knew it. They fell silent and did not dare to ask him anything further.

When St. Luke recorded this story in today’s Gospel, he was writing for Christians who believed that they were destined for eternal life in the risen Lord. The reality of eternal life, which begins now and continues after death, was so wonderful that petty squabbles about when, and how, and what form life-after-life takes, did not enter into the discussion.

The resurrection, which means new life, is the hope of all who live and die in the Lord. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and all who follow him are alive in him. There’s a wonderful Gospel story concerning Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who questioned Jesus over the death of her brother who had just died. Jesus asked her, “Do you believe in the resurrection?” She replied that she believed in the resurrection in the next life. Jesus then corrected her one-sided view for the resurrection by saying, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die.” In other words, the new life of the resurrection is also for the living, not something that only takes place after we die.

Many Christians today make the same mistake of viewing the resurrection as an after-death experience only like the Sadducees in today’s Gospel. The resurrection is also a rising to new life, here and now. Let us focus our attention on following Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life in our daily lives.

Fr. Hugh Duffy