To read the texts click on the texts: 1 Mac 6:1-13; Lk 20:27-40
The Sadducees
were a group of Jews who did not believe in the resurrection. The question they
ask Jesus assumes the practice of levirate marriage, where according to Deut
25:5, the brother of a deceased man was to take his brother’s widow as his
wife. The Sadducees extend the situation to the point of ridicule by speaking
of seven brothers who marry the same woman. The question is whose wife she
would be in the resurrection. While in Mark, Jesus first rebukes the Sadducees,
in Luke he begins to teach them immediately. Jesus’ response is that life in
the resurrection will not simply be a continuation of the life, as we know it
now. In the second part of his response, Jesus calls the attention of the
Sadducees to the familiar story of the burning bush, in which the point is that
God is not God of the dead but of the living.
Jesus’ words
can thus be approached from a positive side. The God who created human life,
including the institution of marriage, has also provided for life after death
for those who have cultivated the capacity to respond to God’s love. The
biblical teaching is that life comes from God. There is nothing in or of the
human being that is naturally or inherently immortal. If there is life beyond
death, it is God’s gift to those who have accepted God’s love and entered into
relationship with God in this life: They “are children of God, being children
of the resurrection”
