2Maccabees 7: 1-2, 9-14; 2Thessalonians 2: 16-3:5; Luke 20: 27-38 (Sunday, November 11, 2007 – 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Today’s readings invite us to reflect on one of the fundamental aspect of our faith – the resurrection. In the first reading of today, the mother and her seven sons are martyred because of their refusal to live against the law of Yahweh. Both Leviticus 11: 7-8 and Deuteronomy 14:8 prohibit Jewish people from eating pork. These Old Testament martyrs saw the life after as being more important than their present life which will eventually end. They professed that they would rather die than violate the law of Yahweh. They believed that eternity with God was more important than the short securities of this present life. Their statements when faced with this severe persecution reflect a deep theology of martyrdom.

Ø They believed that it was better for the Just to die than to succumb to sin. The Just know that earthly death is only temporal, the life beyond is more important. They know that their death is not in vain as God will vindicate them. After many years of persecution of the church by the Roman emperors, Christians were steadfast in their faith and at the end of the day, God vindicated them. 2000 years later, we can confidently say the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the faith. When faced with the difficulties of this world, we shouldn’t give up our faith. For the Christian, it is better to die than to deny the faith; it is better to fail that exam than to cheat to be successful; it is better to lose that business deal than to lie to get the deal; etc.

Ø The just would be resurrected. Jesus proclaims himself as the resurrection and the life in John 11:25 and he goes on ahead to raise his friend Lazarus back to life. He does not just stop there, he himself after three days of his death, came back to life to show that he is truly the resurrection and the life and death has no power over him. St. Paul tell us in 1Thessalonians 4:14 that if we believe that Jesus died and rose, God will bring forth with him from the dead also those who have fallen asleep believing in him.

Ø There is no resurrection for the wicked. They shall incur the wrath of God. The martyr embraces his or her death joyfully knowing that the person who is causing him this pain does not believe in the power of the resurrection. If only they believed in the power of the resurrection, they will not treat fellow human beings that way. They act the way they do because they have given their lives to sin and as St. Paul tells us, the wages of sin is death.

Ø The martyr believes that his or her suffering is because of their sin but their death has an expiatory value. The sin here does not necessarily mean the giving of self totally to sin. It is an understanding that as a human being he or she is sinful but what the martyr has, that the wicked person does not have is that the martyr believes in the power of God’s mercy and believes that there is redemption in the precious blood of the lamb. The martyrs blood brings expiation from all their sins.

More than any other thing, today’s readings are an invitation to Christian hope. Christian hope is basically the hope in the resurrection. St. Paul tells us in 1Corinthians 15 that, “if there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is void of content and your faith is empty too.” So, for St. Paul, our resurrection is closely linked with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is for the reason that Christ has been raised from the dead that believers can hope that they too will experience the resurrection. The Sadducees in the gospel of today use Deuteronomy 25:5 to argue against the resurrection. It is important to keep in mind that the Sadducees who are an aristocratic, conservative group that hold only the Torah to be authoritative, do not believe in neither angels nor the resurrection. Jesus would not respond to them using the later development of the teaching on the resurrection as it is found in both Maccabees and Daniel. They would not accept these books as authoritative. So, Jesus uses the teaching from Exodus 3. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not the God of the dead but the God of the living.

When the Sadducees argue against Jesus using the example of marriage, they are looking at resurrection more or less as a resuscitation of the body. Christian resurrection as understood in the New Testament is not resuscitation. It is a transformation in which our bodies are no longer mortal or corruptible. The resurrection conquers all authority and the last enemy of the human person is death. The resurrection conquers death. Since death is conquered by the resurrection of Jesus, Christians too can hope in the resurrection. And since Christians are transformed and they would live forever with Jesus in heaven where he is the all in all, there would be no need for marriage. The only marriage will be the marriage of the lamb, where Christians would unite with their master and savior Jesus Christ and would see God as he truly is.