REFLECTION: ON CHRISTIAN DEATH AND RESURRECTION

HOMILY FOR THIRTY-SECOND (YEAR C ), NOVEMBER 6, 2016
BY REV. FR THOMAS OYODE.

Today's liturgy is a sharp reminder not only of the fact that the liturgical year is fast itching to an end but also of the need to keep in mind that our Lord will surely come again, this time, not to die on the cross but to establish God's justice. It, thus, reminds of our last end and the life after where our acts of restitution would have their ultimate meaning.

Today's gospel (Lk. 20:27-38) draws our attention to the theme of resurrection and, in fact, a theology of resurrection: at resurrection, the body lives not as a mere human body but as glorified body, transformed and made immortal. Therefore, life after resurrection is never the same as this present world; issues of marriage and family become inconsequential. What endures forever is the believer's life of communion and union with God.

This is a message that is as forceful even in Jesus' time as much as ours. Most persons, like the Sadducees of today subject the theme of resurrection and afterlife to ridicule. We do this either mentally/intellectually (like the Sadducees) or by our attitudes; we could throw up strong philosophical arguments for why it is unreasonable to believe in the resurrection or we simply live our lives as if everything ends here. If not, what do we make of our attitudes of wanting to amass and save wealth and goods for ourselves and our unborn family members?

Jesus teaches us that there is the aeon (time) of resurrection and restitution when our attachment to property and inheritance would no longer count because those who experience resurrection have nothing to do with this material world; like angels, they are now spirit beings and our mortal weakness brought about by the law would give way for the immortality that grace gives.

In the light of the above, Jesus gives us a theology of Christian death and resurrection: those whose lives are in Christ, those whose will and choices align with God's will and choices, even when their earthly body perishes due to physical death, do not die. They live on, only to take up a transformed body and live a higher form of life that is beyond the trappings of space and time. But why would the issue of the resurrection be so important to Jesus as presented by Luke?

It is very obvious that the matter presented before Jesus was a matter of Jewish law. For Jews, the Law is the Torah (the first five books of the bible). However, the sect of the Sadducees do not only see the Torah as the Law of Israel but also saw it as the only canon  (listing) of books in the bible. These books do not say anything about the resurrection of the dead. Thus we can sympathise with this sect who deny that there is a resurrection. For this very reason, they hold that God's mercy and justice do not go beyond this present life; there is no reward or punishment in the life after, no salvation after death. For the Pharisees, on the other hand, God keeps his covenant forever; man's communion, covenantal relationship with God endures even through death.

My dear friends, Luke has a lesson for us. When he wrote his gospel, the early Christians were experiencing serious persecution. The Temple had been destroyed and the people's subjection under the Romans had become more excruciating and devastating. There was the need to be reassured that God's justice, God's final victory is certain in spite of death, suffering and oppression. Christians need to hold on to this faith. God would always have the final say even in the grave, even when faced with suffering, sicknesses and other challenges of life. We must hold on till the end.

Precisely because God's mercy endures forever and precisely because we must hold on till the end. The first reading (2 Macc. 7:1-2.9-14) of today tells us how the Christian faith on resurrection had its gradual development in scriptures. Let it be stated at this point that the books of Maccabees are not found in non-Catholic bibles due to the existence of two canons (listings) of the bible; one Palestinian, another Alexandrian. The latter is the Catholic listing which had all the books and was used by all Christians from the very beginning until Luther's Protestant/Reformation movement in the sixteenth Century. The Protestants rejected these books so as to be able to refute the teaching on prayers for the dead and indulgences. However, this book teaches us that it is Christian, it is a mark of Christian piety to pray for the dead that God may have mercy on them because His mercy endures forever. Particularly in today's reading, we are encouraged to hold on to the faith till death as only this can we guarantee our resurrection.

There is no doubt that we are faced with a world that is pressingly materialistic and secularised; everything seems to begin and end here with man, his material life and the material world. The Christian needs to continually remind himself that there is a higher, better form of life that would never perish when this mundane and material one decays. Therefore we are to strive to remain faithful till death as we await resurrection. May God in his infinite mercy grant eternal rest to the faithful departed and let perpetual light shine on them. 

May Our Lady, Virgin most faithful, intercede for us. Amen.