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The God of the Living
Where We Are
Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time. The challenges to Jesus continue in Jerusalem. Yesterday, the Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap him with politics. Today, the Sadducees take their turn with a theological puzzle about the resurrection, a doctrine they reject. Using an elaborate scenario about a woman married to seven brothers, they try to make belief in the afterlife seem absurd. Jesus responds by revealing a God who is not of the dead, but of the living.
The Word
The Sadducees pose a hypothetical: a woman marries seven brothers in succession, each dying before producing an heir. "In the resurrection, to which of them will she be a wife?" They expect this to be a knockout punch. But Jesus sees through their cleverness: "You have gone astray, by knowing neither the scriptures, nor the power of God." In the resurrection, there is no marriage as we know it; the risen are "like the Angels in heaven." Then Jesus delivers the decisive argument from the Torah itself, the only Scripture the Sadducees accepted: "Have you not read in the book of Moses, how God spoke from the bush, saying: 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Mark 12:26-27).
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Reflect
The Sadducees' mistake is not just about the resurrection; it is about imagination. They can only conceive of the afterlife as an extension of this life, with all its structures intact. So they project earthly marriage into eternity and find a contradiction. Jesus corrects them: the resurrection is not more of the same; it is something radically new.
This is a mistake we all make in different ways. We imagine heaven as earth with better weather. We think of eternal life as this life stretched out forever. But Jesus says it is qualitatively different. The categories we use to organize earthly existence, including marriage, property, and social status, are not erased but transformed beyond recognition.
The argument from the burning bush is brilliant in its simplicity. God says "I am," not "I was," the God of Abraham. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were simply dead and gone, God would not speak of them in the present tense. Their continued existence is implied in God's own identity. To know God is to participate in life that does not end.
Paul writes to Timothy to "stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands." The resurrection faith is not a passive belief; it is a fire that must be tended and stirred. If we truly believe that God is the God of the living, it changes how we face death, loss, and every ending in our lives.
Living It
If you are grieving someone you have lost, take comfort in Jesus's words today: God is the God of the living. Your loved one is not gone; they are alive in God. Speak to them in prayer.
Examine one area where your imagination of God is too small. Are you projecting earthly limitations onto the Divine? Ask the Holy Spirit to expand your vision of what is possible.
Stir into flame the gift God has given you. What spiritual gift or calling has grown cold? Take one step today to rekindle it.
Prayer
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you are the God of the living, not the dead. Expand our imagination of your power. When we face death and endings, remind us that in you, nothing truly ends. Stir the flame of faith within us, so that we may live with resurrection confidence in every moment. Amen.
Today's reflection draws from Mark 12:18-27 and 2 Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12 (CPDV), per the Ordo Lectionum Missae.
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