Whose wife shall the woman be?

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as 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 of them are alive.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question. (Lk 20, 27-38)

Today’s gospel selection presents us with a question the Sadducees asked Jesus: “In the resurrection whose wife will the woman be?” Now, this woman, the Sadducees said, was married to seven brothers. The Sadducees, who did not believe in the immortality of the soul, resurrection and angels, made up the story based on a Law of Moses that obliged brothers to marry the widow of a childless brother, so as to “raise up children for his brother”. This question was thought as a trap. They were not sincere, and they did not want Jesus to clarify for them the reason for this law, and this question worked against them.

Matthew and Mark, who like Luke relate this incident, started Christ’s answer to the Sadducees by telling them: “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God”. (Mt 22, 29) Why did Jesus say that they did not know the scriptures? Perhaps, because they kept to the letter of the Bible and forgot that it is the Word of God. Instead of doing their best to listen to God and try to understand what he was telling them, they used the Bible according to their needs, even twisting its words to fit their project. They do not know the Bible who do not listen, pray and try to understand it as a living word!

Why did Jesus say that they did not know the power of God? Perhaps because they did not really believe that “nothing will be impossible with God” (Lk 1, 37) as the angel Gabriel told Mary during the Annunciation echoing Jeremiah’s prayer: “To you [God] nothing is impossible” (Jer 32, 17). Indeed, what we might consider impossible for us humans is possible for God.

Now, the question the Sadducees asked Jesus, is quite interesting. However, they were not searching for truth, but only wanted to silence Jesus. Since we are searching for truth we want to learn what Jesus is telling us.

First, then, he is asking us to do our best to know the Bible, read it, study it and pray it in order to remember that it is God who is speaking to us through his written Word. Second, he is asking us to remember that he made the heavens and the earth by his great power and outstretched arm (Cfr Jer 32, 17) and we cannot put any limit to God’s power. Third, he is asking us to believe that there is life after death, for God “is God not of the dead, but of the living”.

We accept Christ’s teaching about resurrection, however, we would like him to tell us more about it.

The gospels speak of two types of resurrection, the resurrection of Lazarus who was raised back to life on earth, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ who went forward to a new life in his Father’s home.

In his answer to the Sadducees Jesus speaks of “those who belong to this age” and “those who are worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection”, those who are still alive on earth, and those who have died. “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage”, that is, they live a normal life here on earth, going about their daily duties, facing joy and suffering, getting sick and being healthy, growing old and eventually dying … a normal human living. Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, was dead for four days when Christ ordered him to come out of the tomb. But there was the stone to be removed and, having “his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth”, he needed somebody to “Unbind him, and let him go.” Lazarus was brought back to life on earth, with all its problems. Because he was a strong testimony of Christ’s power, “the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well”. (Jn 12, 10). This is not the type of resurrection we are waiting for, although we would like to have our dear ones brought back to live with us again.

In his dialogue with Martha Jesus told her: “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” This is the type of resurrection we believe in, the one in which we would like to participate: Christ’s resurrection and life!

The gospel’s story of Christ’s resurrection gives us some hints about how our resurrection will be. We will receive our body back, glorified so that it could not suffer any human earthly limits. Jesus, the gospels tell us, needed no one to take away the huge stone covering the tomb’s entrance, and he needed nobody to unbind him: He rose in glory. He did not need anybody to open doors for him to enter where the disciples were locked because they were afraid of the Jews. But he was carrying the same body he had on earth. “Look at my wounds”, he told his disciples, “touch me, to see that I am not a ghost created by your frightened mind”. He spoke to his disciples, and they recognized him, although it was not easy for them to believe in resurrection, for they, like us, could not really understand it.

What are we to do? As we said earlier, we are to read, study and pray the Bible in order to believe what it teaches us. And let us ask the Lord Jesus to help us believe what our minds are too limited to understand. Let us ask, together with the apostles: “Increase our faith!” (Lk 17, 5) We will surely receive encouraging words of comfort that tell us that even “If [we] had faith the size of a mustard seed” we could do great things. The size of our faith is not important; what we do with it, is! A seed, big or small, needs to be sown in order to bear fruit. We have to live guided by our faith in order to be real disciples of Jesus Christ and bring forth much fruit that will last (Cfr Jn 15, 8.16).