The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. Probably Jesus’ discourse today is not for them; he did it for us, to give us a glimpse of heaven, his kingdom
to which we are invited and are destined. He doesn’t mean to break our relationship here on earth, he is reshaping it for heaven. This is also an invitation to
create this heaven here on earth as well.
Look at the marriage relationship the Sadducees are presenting. That was the order of the day and was perfectly fitting into the family bond Jesus reaffirmed in his proclamation. For a women or a man when the spouse dies he or she is free to marry another one and in Israel the next of kith or kin was to be invited. Hence the one woman and all the seven men did right and Jesus was in perfect agreement with it. What he means to say is that in heaven the primary purpose of marriage, namely, to generate children, no more exists.
Humans enter heaven when we have done with our bloodrelated family relations and begin a life just as children of the One Father as brothers and sisters. The ecstasy and intimacy we are going to have there depends on our laying the foundations of heavenly life here on earth. That means we need to look into our earthly relationship seriously and differently from what we have in general these days. The barriers of caste, creed, race, color, ethnicity, nationality, region, etc., have to break down and we need to start thinking about each other as children of the same Father. Besides, we need to rectify or put in order our life and earthly relations as God has designed for us on earth.
God has a design and a definition for family, for sex, for gender and for marriage and other relationships, and those definitions are the right ones. When we give different definitions to any of these we are deviating from the trajectory God has designed for humans for their onward journey to heaven, to his kingdom and accordingly we may be traveling in the wrong direction and are likely to end up not in the destinations God’s infinite love has designed for us.
Hence it will be salutary for us to look into the definitions we have made for ourselves and, if they are different from God’s design, rectify when we have time, which will never wait for us. This is the right moment to act. Let us try to be in the list of the “living” in the book of God. Today’s reading from the Maccabees is a powerful witnessing to the life to come.
Fr. George