HE IS THE GOD OF THE LIVING

XXXI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Luke 20:27-38

The first reading, taken from 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14, tells the story of seven brothers who suffered torture and death for their faithfulness to the faith. Encouraged by their mother, they showed extraordinary courage, defying the orders of the king who tried to force the whole people to adopt the religion and the customs of the Greeks. The persecution of the Jews who remained faithful to their faith and their traditions provoked the revolt of the Maccabees, who, after a prolonged war, managed to become independent. The story of the seven brothers presented an extraordinary example of heroism and they became role models for many who chose faithfulness to betrayal. Their suffering and death were proclamations of faith. Truly they are martyrs because their death is a witness to the living God who is the Lord of the living and the dead. In their faith in the resurrection, they found the strength to withstand all the social and political pressure.

The clear belief in the resurrection expressed in the story of the seven brothers was something new among the Jews. Nowhere in the books of Moses - the Torah - can we find an affirmation of the resurrection. The belief in the resurrection started to take hold, only after the exile, under the influence of the Persians, and a deeper reflection on Yahweh as the God of the living. During Jesus’ time, most of the population accepted this belief, even though it was not accepted by important sectors of society. In today’s gospel, we discover that the important and powerful group of the Sadducees, composed mainly of the most important priestly families, did not believe in the resurrection, since it was not part of the beliefs taught by Moses in the Torah. They went to Jesus with a made-up story of a woman who was married to seven brothers. With that story, they wanted to have a good laugh at Jesus. However, Jesus frustrated their intent with two main ideas about the resurrection. First, Jesus clarified the concept of resurrection, which is not a revivification, like the one he did with Lazarus. It is not a coming back to the same kind of earthly life. The resurrection is the life of the children of God, a new kind of life in which the glory of God is present. In God’s presence, they will become like angels. Paul would write that our bodies will become like the glorious body of Jesus Christ (Phil 3:21). Then, referring to the teachings of Moses, as the Sadducees did before, Jesus says that even Moses had glimpsed the reality of the resurrection when he refers to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, meaning that they are alive in God. “Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.”

We must not forget that our faith in the resurrection both of Jesus Christ and ours in Jesus is the nucleus of our Christian faith. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus did not rise from the dead as well. “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” (1 Co 15:14).