We are now in the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. As we near the end of the Church’s liturgical year, the readings become more eschatological. Along the lines of the eschaton (end times) is the theme of the reality of life after death and the relationship between our lives on earth and the life of eternal glory or punishment that will follow. This is what we see in our readings this weekend.

In the first reading, we see a Jewish family of sevens sons and their mother refusing Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ command to eat pork (forbidden as “unclean” by Jewish law). They endure the arrest and torture with whips and scourges because of their conviction that the dead would be raised on the last day. At the point of death, one brother, speaking on behalf of the others, firmly says, “you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.”

In the Gospel, we find the Sadducees questioning Jesus about the resurrection. Since they acknowledge only written Scriptures as bearing God’s word, specifically the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as authoritative, they reject the idea of the resurrection because it is not found in the Torah. Their question puts Jesus in a no-win political position because if Jesus defends the resurrection, he would displease the Sadducees. If he fails to do so, he would displease the Pharisees (another religious group who believed in the resurrection, angels, and spirits). Either way, he would alienate a part of the crowd.

The Sadducees’ question is based on the Mosaic law of marriage providing for the economic and social security of widows in Jewish society. According to the law, if a man died childless, his brother must marry the widow and beget children to carry on the dead man’s line. In their hypothetical question, they ask Jesus who, in Heaven, would be the husband of the woman who had been married in succession to seven brothers, and had died childless.

Jesus responds by using a text in the Torah which they themselves hold sacred. “God said to Moses from the burning bush, ‘I AM the God of your Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’” (cf. Ex. 3, 1-6) Since God claims, in speaking to Moses, that He IS God of the patriarchs, these three patriarchs must still be alive at the time of Moses (600 years after their physical deaths). God sustains the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by granting them resurrection and eternal life. Indeed, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”

Next, Jesus draws a sharp distinction between “this age” (our earthly life) and “that age” (at the resurrection or life after death). He makes it clear that the resurrection is neither a simple continuation of earthly life nor an eternal replay of this life. Things will be different. Normal human relations, including marriage, will be transformed.

The hope of our resurrection and eternal life with God gives us lasting peace and joy amidst the tensions and pains of our daily lives. But it should also inspire us to honor our bodies (and the bodies of those whom we come in contact), keeping them holy and pure, for they will also be resurrected on the last day.