7 June, 2023 | Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel Mk 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."
Reflections
Jesus’ view of resurrection was of unbelievable qualitative difference, beyond the capacity of people to imagine or understand. It would be the power of God at work: pure gift. Jesus criticized their whole ethos because it lay at the base of their stance towards life as a whole, their concentration on “this world” and on wealth accumulation and power, all of which were so often the cause of the injustice suffered by those working as tenants and day-laborers. They were indeed “much mistaken”, not only on what was to them an academic exercise regarding resurrection, but on the matter of what was paramount to Jesus: their exploitation of the poor and powerless in the name of religion and of God.
Activity:
Do you believe in the resurrection or get confused with other understandings of life after death?
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