Thirty-second Sunday Gospel C Resurrection of the dead

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Thirty-Second Sunday Gospel Reflections C

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, 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 but died childless. Then the second and the third married her,
and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died.  Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her." 
· The Sadducees were less orthodox than the Pharisees. They held only to the first five books of the OT, the Torah. Since the belief in a future resurrection developed in the later books of the OT, they did not accept this understanding.
· But even though they are normally in opposition to the Pharisees, here they are in union with them. Jesus is their common foe. The Pharisees have not succeeded in trapping Jesus, so the Sadducees take their shot at him.
o They try to present Jesus with a dilemma. If Moses permitted a woman to remarry every time her husband dies. The dilemma is: will this not bring confusion into the next life? How will she determine who is her legitimate spouse if all of them are raised?

Jesus said to them, "The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.  That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out 'Lord, ' the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."
· What two answers does Jesus give them? He deals with them on their own terms.
· Life in heaven is entirely different from life on earth. The focus of our union is not primarily with each other but with God. Because of our union with God, our union with each other is perfected. There is no more jealously or selfishness, only love of the other.
· The resurrection was foreshadowed even in the first five books of the OT. Because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob physically died, they are alive with God in heaven as all who are truly children of God.
· Even though in the Creed we profess the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, how often have we reflected on what this truly means to us?
· What do we take from this passage and apply to our life? 

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