Resurrected, we will all turn towards Christ
Later, the same day that the Pharisees had tried to trip Jesus with their question about paying taxes to the Romans, the Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with their attempt to trip him up.
Today’s Gospel is about an event that occurs just five days before his Resurrection from the dead, when Jesus is questioned by members of the Sadducees, men who may have been religious but who did not believe in the resurrection of the body.
The Sadducees came with the question about who would be the husband in heaven of the woman who was married to seven different men. The kind of question that made belief in the resurrection of the body ridiculous. Jesus answers with a permanently valid truth. We must not think of heaven in terms of this earth. Life there will be quite different, because we will be quite different. We can be saved from a lot of misdirection in our lives, and a lot of heartbreak, if we just stop speculating on what heaven is like and leave things to the love of God.
You may find today’s reading to be an arid passage. It deals with questions of the time by means of arguments which a Rabbi would find completely convincing but which are not convincing to us today. But out of this very aridity (Spiritual Dryness) comes a great truth. Jesus used arguments that the people he was arguing with could understand. He talked to them in their own language; he met them on their own ground; and that is exactly why the common people heard him gladly. We can take a lesson from this when we speak to others about Christianity.
A few days earlier Jesus had just resurrected Lazarus a, saying on that occasion: “I am the resurrection and the life!” (Jn. 11:25) So, the Resurrection was probably very much on Jesus’ mind: he was already living it! The Sadducees had chosen a very bad time to try to deny the resurrection… Or rather, the Evil One, Satan, had chosen a very good occasion to try once more to discourage the Savior by whom he – the enemy of human nature, the angel of darkness and of eternal death – was about to be defeated…
Jesus said to them, +The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.; “
If, during this life on earth, a woman were to marry, in succession, several men who died one after the other, or, reciprocally, if a man were to successively marry several women, it is clear that, if they “are accounted worthy of the resurrection from the dead”, then they will have particular emotional ties to each other, just as in the case of couples made up of a single man and a single woman. But, in any case, there is something else that Jesus wants to try to make clear to the Sadducees and to us today as well.
As much as the Resurrection of bodies is important and essential to the eternal happiness of the men and women, this Resurrection of bodies does not have for its primary goal the glorification of the person, body and soul, but rather the Glory of Christ himself and His Church, his Mystical Body. The Resurrection of bodies is destined to the glorification of what Saint Augustine calls the “Total Christ”, that is, the union of Christ and the Church.
Thus, all who are resurrected for eternal life will be entirely turned towards Christ: all of our being, body and soul, will be for the Glory of Christ, and thus for the Glory of God! This is why Jesus adds: “They cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” We will never be able to turn away from God nor anyone who will be in Heaven: neither our own selves, nor our own bodies, nor any other being will be able to turn them away from God! Only one thing is important for the men and women resurrected body and soul: that is the Body of Christ!
“But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for to him all are alive;” Jesus quotes these words, not only in order to try to convince the Sadducees, but above all to express his desire for his own Resurrection, which will take place in five days… Jesus is three days away from his Passion and death: thinking of his coming Resurrection is, for him, the greatest of consolations! But saying and proclaiming it also gives support to his confidence in his Om nip otent Father, who is in Heaven!
We, too, await our own Resurrection! Let’s not hesitate to proclaim our faith in eternal Life! Let us live in the desire to see, one day, face to face, the Lord Jesus, he who is the Head of so great a Body, his Church! Let us prepare our own Resurrection, let us proclaim our faith in the risen Jesus, the source of all Life and all Resurrection! Today, let us prepare ourselves to receive the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, let us ask the Most Holy Virgin Mary to prepare our heart to receive Jesus for the Glory of God, in the perfect unity of the Body of the risen Christ!