I am the Resurrection and the Life
Those who believe in me will live,
Even though they die'
Those who live and believe in me
Will never die
Do you believe this?
John 11:25
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time C
Maccabees 7:1-2.9-14, Psalm 16: 1. 5-6. 8.15. Rv. 15, 2Thess 2:16-3:5,
The King of the world will raise us up, since it is for his laws we die.
I will be filled when I awake, with the sight of your glory, O Lord.
May Jesus comfort you and strengthen you in everything good that you do or say.
Those who are judged worthy of the resurrection can no longer die.
Luke 20:27-38
27 Some Sadducees -- those who argue that there is no resurrection -- approached him and they put this question to him, 28 'Master, Moses prescribed for us, if a man's married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. 29 Well then, there were seven brothers; the first, having married a wife, died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. 32 Finally the woman herself died. 33 Now, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?' 34 Jesus replied, 'The children of this world take wives and husbands, 35 but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry 36 because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God. 37 And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.'
Jesus our hope
Death determines so many things. Humans have to procreate. The nature of human physical and psychological growth determines that family life is the healthy option. The all-round health of their offspring depends on the love and security created by their parents. Whatever we may think of same-sex marriages they are not a viable option for everyone. Not just the continuance of the human race but inheritance and family line are all secured by procreation and so by marriage. This is a fact of the only life we know.
But it is dangerous to think that what we know, is all there is. There may well be something of which we have no idea. If two twins in the womb could talk, I wonder what they would say about life after birth – or for all they knew life after ‘death’ or departure? In this life we are in a similar situation.
Human beings have always believed in some kind of life after death – in Sheol or Hades in some dark lifeless kind of existence for everyone. There may be no grounds for this belief except that we can’t see how everything just finishes when we die. The Jews gradually thought differently. They believed in God, who was faithful to his promises as they saw in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and throughout their history and particularly in Moses and the Promised Land. In the persecutions some 160 years before Christ as we read in today’s first reading many Jews heroically died for their God. Is man more faithful than God? God, the faithful God of the Covenant, would not abandon those of his people who had sacrificed everything for him. And so the belief in the resurrection arose. God would give life to his faithful people. They didn’t think in terms of soul but in terms of the person. The person would live.
The questioners of Jesus tried to ridicule this idea. It would be convenient if the life ‘in the land of the spirits’ is more or less the same for all. We can make the most of this life in every way we can. But Jesus talks of those ‘who are judged worthy of a place in the resurrection’. Our God is a faithful God. Furthermore Jesus has revealed that God is a loving Father who longs for his children and their happiness. For those who love him ‘no eye has seen, no ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to imagine what God has prepared’. However we know that those who live in Jesus now will become like him. The Risen Christ is our hope and expectation. He is the first fruits of the dead.
Do you meet the Risen Christ in your prayer? Seeing him are you filled with joy and hope?
Father, may I live in Christ now sharing his sufferings so that I may then live in him and share his glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment