PENTECOST XXV

• Haggai 1:15b-2:9 and Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 or Psalm 98  • 
• Job 19:23-27a and Psalm 17:1-9  • 
• 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17  • 
• Luke 20:27-38

For many people, both those who believe and those who don't, belief in God and the hope for life after death are closely connected. Indeed, for some people the belief in God seems pointless unless it is connected with surviving death. So it is instructive to hear about the Sadducees in this week's Gospel passage.  The Sadducees are less familiar than the Pharisees, but they too were a sect of devout Jews at the time of Jesus. Passionately committed to the worship of God, they nevertheless denied the existence of life after death. They subscribed to a long held Jewish view that God's blessing and our enjoyment of it, are confined to this life. 

Christ in Glory -- Limburg Brothers

In the passage from Luke they pose a riddle to Jesus. Their  purpose of which is to show that belief in life after death speedily reduces us to paradox. Jesus' response is not to resolve the puzzle, but to cast a different perspective on the belief. The life to come is not just like this one, only better and longer. It is altogether a different order of existence. People are changed, and, like angels, dwell in the presence of the eternal God. The God in whose presence they dwell -- then and now -- is the God of Abraham who spoke out of the burning bush,  so that life after death is not a restoration of normality, but rather a continuation and perfection of the eternal life that we begin now.

St Paul, addressing the Thessalonians, connects life after death with the Second Coming of Jesus and the judgement of the world. He warns them, however, against the temptation to anticipate it and make it their principal hope. He reminds them of what they have and are now -- chosen 'as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit' and called to the proclaim the good news, so that they may 'obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ'. The lesson is not to become all other-worldy, but to 'stand firm and hold fast' enjoying the grace of God 'in every good work and word'.