Meditation Minute

My Dearest Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

 

“When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.”

 

Gospel Reading: Mark 12:18-27

 

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us, 'If someone's brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.' Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her." Jesus said to them, "Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.  As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,  and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled."

 

In the time of Jesus, there were many factions of Jews, kind of like our various Christian Denominations of today. There were the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Esseens, to name a few. The various groups had a fundamental Jewish background, but some of the core beliefs differed between the groups. For example, the Sadducees did not believe in life after death or the resurrection. They did not have the hope of eternal life in heaven with our Lord as we Christians so deeply cherish. They did not believe in the untouchable or the unseeable. How sad it must have been to be a Sadducee believing that this life was all there was and no hope for eternity with God in Heaven.

 

In today’s Gospel reading, the Sadducees are challenging Jesus. They question him about the story of a women who marries a man and he dies before they can consummate the marriage. According to Jewish law, his brother was to take on his responsibility to make sure that she bore children. So the next brother married the woman and he died. This happened seven times. After each marriage, the brother died and she had yet to consummate the marriage. After the final marriage, she also died. So they asked Jesus, “At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus replied, “Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?  … He is not God of the dead but of the living.”  This is our hope and our salvation that our God is with us while we are on earth and when we are resurrected into heaven. This is the glory that was given us through the resurrection of Jesus at Easter and his eventual ascension into Heaven. Even though we have not seen nor touched Heaven, God reveals Heaven to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the formation of our belief which leads us to our faith. Without faith all we have is emptiness. Heaven is one of those mystical things that is virtually impossible to comprehend. On earth, we only see fragments of the Heaven we will celebrate after our earthly journey is finished.

 

A Simple Prayer

 

Lord Father of heaven and Earth Open my eyes to see your majesty,

Open my ears to hear your grace fall on me; and

Open my heart to feel the glory of God in his creation

For I long for the heavenly bliss and unending life with You.

 

Yours in Christ

Michael Marcon