CHILDREN OF THE RESURRECTION

32ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – C

Luke 20:27-38

       What makes Christianity unique from all other religions is our belief in the Trinity and the paschal mystery (the death and resurrection).   This uniqueness comes from the fact that Jesus Christ was the only religious founder who introduced God as Trinity; he is the only one who rose from the dead and offers the same fate to all his followers.   But this belief on the resurrection was put into question by the Sadducees.   To prove their point, they put forward to Jesus an unusual story of a woman who was married to seven brothers leaving her with no children.  This is called levirate (from Latin levir = husband's brother) marriage which is a unique Jewish law that obliges a man to marry the childless widow of his brother to produce a child who will carry the deceased brother’s name, so that the deceased brother’s name will not be forgotten.  The question was: whose wife would she be on the day of the resurrection when she was married to all the seven?  

       Jesus’ response gave us a fuller understanding on humanity’s status quo after death:  In the day of the resurrection, we all become like angels and cannot die anymore.  “To become like angels” means that we will acquire a new state of being which is spiritual.  In this new  spiritual existence, we become immortal, that is, we will not experience death anymore.   After death, there is no more marriage because our relationship will be centered in God when we all become His children.  Because the Sadducees made a reference to Moses in their question, now it was the turn of Jesus to also make a reference to Moses.  Jesus mentioned  the experience of the Burning Bush wherein God revealed Himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  If God was the God of the living then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are all alive.  If they are alive therefore there is a resurrection of the dead.  This is simple logic that cannot be refuted.

      
       There is so much debate and discussions on what happens to us after we die.  Different religions offer many perspectives of the afterlife.  Some believe in the transformation of the state of being like reincarnating into an animal depending on how one’s life is lived.  Others believe in the integration of one’s being together with the cosmos or the total annihilation of one’s existence into nothingness.  We Christians link our belief in the resurrection in the very words of Jesus: “I am the Resurrection and the life! He who believes in me will never die...” (Jn. 11:25).  The Christian hope of the resurrection is also anchored to the followers of Christ who were witnesses of the resurrection.  In his teaching on the resurrection, St. Paul reminds us: “Christ will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, into a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44).  Our dignity lies in the fact that we are part of the Mystical Body of Christ through baptism. As we participate in the death of Christ so we shall also share in His Resurrection (Rom. 6:3).

    While most of us are afraid about the uncertainties of death, our belief in the resurrection gives us hope that Jesus has conquered death and opened the possibility of salvation to all men.  Because of this, we are called "Children of the Resurrection", an "Alleluia People"!