Today's passage is Matthew22:23-33.
Some Sadducees ask Jesus whose wife a woman would be at the resurrection since she had been married to seven brothers who had died in succession. Jesus says people don't marry at the resurrection; they are like angels. He adds that God is God of the living not the dead.
Jesus' answer to the Sadducees implies that in God's mind there is no death, just a change of state. We go from body and spirit to pure spirit.
In our physicality, we are the ones who see death as real and permanent because we cling to our bodies and our physical world. We can no more let go of them than we can of our sinful pride.
We are half in love with death and romanticize it like Romeo and Juliet and the Sadducees. We see it as the one great truth of life and are tempted to worship it.
Jesus knows this and tells us that God is God of the living not the dead.
That's why Jesus kills death in the tomb.
We can only agrave;ccept his resurrection if we know he was really dead. We are experts in death, we know its finality. Two days in the tomb convinces us.
Nobody comes back from the dead.
But Jesus did come back. He proved that God is God of the living not the dead.
What death does is kill suffering for those who believe that Jesus is exactly who he says he is. At the resurrection there is no more suffering.
That is why so many of us wait reasonably patiently for our death but wish that many more would join us, especially our family members. We would like to live until they accept the Lord too.
I have been married twice, three times if you count my years of co-habitation with my youngest daughter's mother.
Living with one wife is a loving burden, but to live with three would be impossible.
Living with one and the memories of two others is more than enough for me.
Marriage is hard.
It's hard because it's so important.
I love Jin Kyeong. Our marriage is an undeserved blessing that helps sustain me for all I am called to do and all I'm called to be.
My marriage to Jin Kyeong is better than my others because we understand what it's for. We understand better what we are called by God to do in the marriage.
We have been so beaten up by our past sins and sufferings that we have learned to focus our energy on accepting and loving each other.
As much as we love each other, we love God more.
I don't want to endure the sorrow of my wife's death.
Nor do I want her to endure the sorrow of mine.
But God will take us when he wills.
For the one who dies first, it will only be the blink of God's eye before the other arrives.
Then we will be free to love God wholeheartedly and live in the comfort of his bosom, unassailed by complaints, concerns and worries. Free at last to love everyone in God's way.
Lord, let me love those I am most reluctant to love so that I may love you and my wife more. Fill me with your Holy Spirit to know more deeply that you are the God of the living and only you are worthy of worship and adoration.
