FIRST READING
2nd Letter of Saint Paul to Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12
Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God for the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dear child: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I am grateful to God, whom I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did, as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day.
For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.
He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began, but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel, for which I was appointed preacher and Apostle and teacher. On this account I am suffering these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know him in whom I have believed and am confident that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM
Psalm 123:1b-2ab, 2cdef
R. (1b) To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.
To you I lift up my eyes who are enthroned in heaven. Behold, as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.
As the eyes of a maid are on the hands of her mistress, So are our eyes on the LORD, our God, till he have pity on us.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.
ALLELUIA
John 11:25a, 26
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord; whoever believes in me will never die.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GOSPEL
Mark 12:18-27
Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.”
REFLECTIONS:
How reliable is the belief that all will be raised
from the dead? The Sadducees, who were a group of religious leaders from
the upper classes in Jesus' time, did not believe in the resurrection.
They could not conceive of heaven beyond what they could see with their
naked eyes! Arent we often like them? We dont recognize spiritual realities
because we try to make heaven into an earthly image. The Sadducees came
to Jesus with a test question to make the resurrection look ridiculous.
The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in immortality, nor
in angels or evil spirits. Their religion was literally grounded in an
earthly image of heaven.
Jesus retorts by dealing with the fact of the resurrection. The scriptures
give proof of it. In Exodus 3:6, God calls himself the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. JesusHe defeats their arguments
by showing that God is a living God of a living people. God was the friend
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when they lived. That friendship could not
cease with death. As Psalm 73:23-24 states: "I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you
will receive me to glory." The Holy Spirit reveals to us the eternal
truths of Gods unending love and the life he desires to share with us
for all eternity. Paul the Apostle, quoting from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah
64:4; 65:17) states: What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart
of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has
revealed to us through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). The promise
of paradise heavenly bliss and unending life with an all-loving God
is beyond human reckoning. We have only begun to taste the first-fruits!
Do you believe the scriptures and do you know the power of the Holy Spirit?
May the Lord Jesus put his hands on our eyes also, for then we too
shall begin to look not at what is seen but at what is not seen.
May he open the eyes that are concerned not with the present but with what
is yet to come, may he unseal the hearts vision, that we may gaze on God
in the Spirit, through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, whose glory and power
will endure throughout the unending succession of ages. (Prayer of Origen,
185-254 AD)
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