Our God is the God of life

11-10-2019Weekly ReflectionFather Prince Raja

The liturgy of the word on this Sunday, even as we near the end of the liturgical year, invites us to contemplate on the mystery of God in relation to human death and life! Jesus assures us that there is life after death because our God is the God of life.

My reflection will have two major parts. In the first part I would like to situate the gospel text of today (Lk 20:27-38) within the larger context of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Then I would like to explore the idea of our God being the God of life. And this will take us to the question of "So what?" – reflecting on the implication of this belief for our lives today. I see our belief in the resurrection providing a foundation to the purpose even of this life.

Today's First Reading taken from the second book of Maccabees tells us that God's servants remain loyal even in the face of death as they know that they will be with God. Judas Maccabeus was the key figure in the struggle to preserve the traditions of God's chosen people. Here we have the story of the martyrdom of the mother and her seven sons. Each one of them was willing to die for the Law of Moses because they believed in after life and that at the last trumpet, the King of the universe would raise them up to an everlasting life.

The encounter of Jesus with the Sadducees in the gospel text of today, the Sadducees were probably the followers of Zadok (2Sam 15:24). They upheld the importance of the written Law, and not the oral traditions. In this, they differed from the Pharisees. And because the written Law (the Torah – 'the first five books of Moses') was not very clear about life after death, the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. As Josephus, the first century Judeo-Roman historian, points out, the Sadducees believed that the soul and body perish together at death.

Traditionally, the Jews assumed that at the death of a person their soul went to the underworld ('Sheol' in Hebrew, or 'Hades' in Greek). Here the dead person existed in a form that was not clear but surely lifeless. Psalm 115, for instance says, "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence" (v.17). Even Prophet Isaiah has his doubts: "For Sheol cannot thank thee, death cannot praise thee; those who go down to the pit can not hope for thy faithfulness" (Is 38:18).

On the other hand, some other Psalms begin to express a sense of hope about life after death, (an understanding that will become more explicit in the books of Maccabees as we heard in the first reading of today). The Psalms make a distinction between the status of those who hope in the Lord, and those who do not. For instance, in Psalm 49 we read: "Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd; straight to the grave they descend, and their form shall waste away; Sheol shall be their home. But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me" (vv. 14-15). Belief in the resurrection gave strength and hope to seven Jewish brothers about to be martyred. We too are reassured by Jesus' teaching and look forward to eternity with God, radically transformed. May we live lives worthy of God's promise.