20181124
VICTORY OVER EVIL AND
DEATH IN THE RESURRECTION
24 NOVEMBER,
2018, Saturday, 33rd Week, Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour: Red.
|
First reading
|
|
The prophets will die who have been a
plague to the world
|
I, John, heard a voice saying: ‘These, my
two witnesses, are the two olive trees and the two lamps that stand before the
Lord of the world. Fire can come from their mouths and consume their enemies if
anyone tries to harm them; and if anybody does try to harm them he will
certainly be killed in this way. They are able to lock up the sky so that it
does not rain as long as they are prophesying; they are able to turn water into
blood and strike the whole world with any plague as often as they like. When
they have completed their witnessing, the beast that comes out of the Abyss is
going to make war on them and overcome them and kill them. Their corpses will
lie in the main street of the Great City known by the symbolic names Sodom and
Egypt, in which their Lord was crucified. Men out of every people, race,
language and nation will stare at their corpses, for three-and-a-half days, not
letting them be buried, and the people of the world will be glad about it and
celebrate the event by giving presents to each other, because these two
prophets have been a plague to the people of the world.’
After
the three-and-a-half days, God breathed life into them and they stood up, and
everybody who saw it happen was terrified; then they heard a loud voice from
heaven say to them, ‘Come up here’, and while their enemies were watching, they
went up to heaven in a cloud.
|
Responsorial Psalm
|
Blessed be the Lord, my
rock.
Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
who trains my arms for battle,
who prepares my hands for war.
Blessed be the Lord, my rock.
He is my love, my fortress;
he is my stronghold, my
saviour
my shield, my place of refuge.
He brings peoples under my
rule.
Blessed be the Lord, my
rock.
To you, O God, will I sing a new song;
I will play on the
ten-stringed lute
to you who give kings their victory,
who set David your servant
free.
Blessed be the Lord, my
rock.
|
Gospel Acclamation
|
cf.Lk8:15
|
Alleluia, alleluia!
Blessed are those who,
with a noble and generous heart,
take the word of God to themselves
and yield a harvest through their
perseverance.
Alleluia!
|
Or:
|
cf.2Tim1:10
|
Alleluia, alleluia!
Our Saviour Jesus Christ abolished death
and he has proclaimed life through the
Good News.
Alleluia!
|
Gospel
|
|
In God all men are alive
|
Some Sadducees – those who say that
there is no resurrection – approached Jesus and they put this question to
him, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, that if a man’s married brother
dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his
brother. Well then, there were seven brothers. The first, having married a
wife, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the
same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally the woman herself
died. Now, at the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife since she had
been married to all seven?’
Jesus
replied, ‘The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are
judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the
dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the
angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. And Moses
himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where
he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in
fact alive.’
Some
scribes then spoke up. ‘Well put, Master’ they said – because they would
not dare to ask him any more questions.
VICTORY OVER EVIL AND DEATH IN THE
RESURRECTION
In the gospel, the
question of levirate marriage was posed by the Sadducees to contradict and
ridicule faith in the resurrection. In a levirate marriage, the brother of a
deceased man is obliged to marry his widow and raise their children in the
deceased brother’s name. This law was meant to perpetuate the family line
so that the land was also kept in the family. With the intention of
embarrassing Jesus, they came up with a story of a widow who married all seven
brothers who died one after another and eventually she herself died
childless. By showing the absurdity of the woman’s dilemma, the doctrine
of the resurrection would be seen as inconsistent.
Indeed, this disbelief
in the resurrection is something that is as prevalent in our world today as it
was during the time of the Lord.
Many do not believe in the resurrection. Some religions at least believe
in some form of after-life, whether in the immortality of the soul or in
reincarnation till they reach Nirvana. When the after-life is not taken
seriously, the implications are far-reaching. Those who do not believe in
life after death often do not take seriously the life they are living here and
now. Since for them death is total annihilation of the person, the motive
for working hard, for protecting the future of humanity, for living a good and
honest life becomes groundless. This explains why many who do not believe
in an after-life of sorts live life only for themselves. After all,
without any real hope for the future, why should one work so hard or build
anything for tomorrow, knowing that what they do today would be undone
tomorrow. So as a consequence, they just live for today, enjoy as
much as they can, grab whatever is available, since after death, there is no
second chance.
But the truth is that
there is life after death and for Christians, it is more than just a continuity
of an immortal soul but the resurrection of the body as well. In the gospel, Jesus makes the fact
of the resurrection clear. Of course, we must not imagine the resurrected
body to be a simple continuity of this earthly body. This would not be a
resurrection but resuscitation. A resurrected body is quite different
because it is entirely transformed, like the Risen Lord who appeared to His
disciples. But He was so transformed that without faith, one would not be
able to recognize Him. This was what the Lord sought to explain in
refuting the objection of the Sadducees. He said, “The children of this
world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in
the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they
can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of
the resurrection, they are sons of God.”
Indeed, in our
resurrected bodies, we become children of God, sharing in the same Heavenly
Father. All earthly ties
become secondary and there is no question of perpetuating our family
lineage. This does not mean we cannot recognize our loved ones in
heaven. We can, just as the disciples could recognize the Risen Lord as
being identical with the Jesus of Nazareth. But there will no longer be
any exclusive or earthly attachment or possessiveness as on earth. In
heaven, we will love everyone deeply and inclusively as brothers and sisters
the way God loves us. What is important to emphasize is that at the
resurrection, we will no longer be husbands or wives or children in relation to
each other but all of us will be one in Christ, sharing in His adopted sonship
or daughtership. We will all be children of God. St Paul
wrote, “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many
of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with
Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
Jesus.” (Gal 3:26-28)
However, faith in the
resurrection of the body, or life after death, presupposes we have faith in God
or at least in the world of Spirits. The denial of the resurrection of the body
and the after-life is the consequence of a materialistic outlook of the human
person and the world. When the world is reduced to mere matter without
the spirit, this is where faith in the resurrection cannot be sustained as
well; neither the immortality of the soul. This is the attempt of the
world and of Satan to mislead humanity into thinking that spirits do not
exist. This was the case of the Sadducees when they denied the existence
of angels. (cf Acts 23:8) By rejecting the spirit world, the Sadducees
categorically also rejected the existence of God because God is pure
Spirit. Atheism and humanism err in ignorance by denying that the Spirit
World exists.
In denying the existence
of spirits, not only do they deny the existence of God but they also compromise
the understanding of the place of man in creation. If we are only made of matter like the
rest of creation, animals and plants, then why do we give a special place to
man? Denying the reality of God’s existence necessarily raises the
question of anthropology. Who is man? Why is he so special in
creation? Why do we speak of human rights? Why can’t we kill each
other as we like? Why do we all have a conscience? Why are we born
with a moral imperative in each of us? Is morality a question of
conditioning or the voice of God speaking in us? What, then, is our
purpose in life? What are we living for? What is the value of all that we do on
this earth? If everything comes to nought, then why do we do what we are
doing? Why shouldn’t we just allow this world to perish since there is so
much suffering in this world anyway? Why do we want to perpetuate suffering and
life on this earth?
When we keep asking the
fundamental questions, what is the final outcome? Nihilism! Indeed, if we only ask these questions, we
will either end up with faith in God or in total self-destruction. This
explains why many atheistic philosophers end up in annihilation. When
life has no purpose, there is no reason to carry on. If we live, we live
for more than just pleasure because we are not mere animals. We are
embodied spirits. We live for love and meaning. But we want love to
be true and lasting. Temporary love also does not have much meaning
because they do not last. It is in our deep desire that our love will be
everlasting.
For this reason, Jesus
reiterated that the God we worship is a living God. He cited the scripture regarding
Moses whom the Sadducees believed in. “Moses himself implies that the
dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the
dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.” It
is faith in a living God that is the basis for our faith in the resurrection of
the body and the life to come. It is this living God that Christ
has come to reveal to us by His life, passion, death and resurrection.
Today, we must be like
the two witnesses in the book of revelation. We are called to be like Moses and Elijah of
the Old Testament who, through God’s power, called down plagues and fire to
destroy God’s enemies. Or we are called to be like Peter and Paul the
great apostles, martyrs and pillars of the Church, who preached to the Jews and
the Gentiles and died for the faith. But we are told that if we persevere
in our battle against the Evil One, we will eventually overcome him. God
is all powerful and He has won the victory for us in Christ. But the Church
as His body continues this battle of proclaiming Him as the Way, the Truth and
the Life to all of humanity that has lost faith in God, in themselves and in
the purpose of life. Indeed, we read that even if we are hated by
the world, suffer opposition and death, which was the case for all who stood up
for Christ, He will raise us up. “After the three-and-a-half days, God
breathed life into them and they stood up, and everybody who saw it happen was
terrified; then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, ‘Come up
here’, and while their enemies were watching, they went up to heaven in a
cloud.” Indeed, with faith and joy we say with the psalmist, “Blessed be
the Lord, my rock.”
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment