Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr Michael Boakye Yeboah: Vice Rector of St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

THE SADDUCEES AND THE RESURRECTION

            The Gospel of the 32^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time opens the argument on the resurrection. The Sadducees were a Jewish group that was closely aligned with the aristocratic and priestly classes. Because they left no writings, little is known about them; our only knowledge of the Sadducees comes from references in Josephus, in the New Testament (especially Matthew and Acts), and later rabbinic writings. The name goes back to Zadok, the high priest at the time of David and Solomon. Nevertheless, the earliest reference to the Sadducees in Josephus describes their activity during the time of John Hyrcanus.

            In contrast to the Pharisees, the Sadducees rejected the authority of oral tradition, denied the belief in resurrection and angels, and emphasized free will over determinism. Their views on the authority of the prophetic writings, their openness to Hellenism, and the nature of their relationship to the priests are all debated.

            The Sadducees appear in Luke as a group aligned with the chief priests, scribes, and leaders of the people. Luke introduces the Sadducees to his readers as a group who say there is no resurrection, presumably because Gentile Christians would not have known of this group. The one piece of information that Luke supplies enables the reader to see that their question is designed to reduce belief in resurrection to the point of absurdity. The first clear reference to belief in the resurrection of the dead appears in Daniel 12:2. By the first century, the resurrection was affirmed by the Pharisees and apparently also the Essenes. In some Jewish writings the Hellenistic belief in the immortality of the soul also appear (Wisdom 3:4; 8:13; 15:3; 4 Macc. 14:5).

            The Sadducees’ question assumes the practice of levirate. Prior to belief in resurrection, the Israelites believed that one lived on in one’s descendants and in their memory. Hence, if a man died without children, his brother was obligated to take his wife and have children by her. The provision of children in this way also ensured the perpetuation of property within the immediate family and security for the brother’s widow. Should the Christian place all his hope in the resurrection?

            The famous French philosopher, Blaise Pascal had a simple pragmatic response for those who did not believe in life after death in his time. We call it “Pascal’s wager”. He said: “I believe that there is life after death. You say there is none. Now, when we both die, if there is no life after death, I lose nothing, you gain nothing, because none of us will be there to gain or lose anything. We shall both have perished and ceased to exist. But if there is life after death, I gain heaven because of my belief in life after death, you lose heaven because of your lack of belief. Therefore, to be on the safe side, I would rather believe in life after death, and you will be well advised to do the same in your own interest.”

            God has given us hope that he will raise us up again. The first reading’s narrative of the martyrdom of the seven brothers also contains the sure testimony to belief in the resurrection. The brothers are tortured cruelly: flogged to death, robbed of their hacked-off limbs. Yet to the astonishment of their torturers, they endured all of this by referring to the resurrection that will render their bodies whole again. “God has given us hope,” which no one can take away from them, and the limbs loaned to them from on high can eventually be restored. A heroic ideal is being sketched out before our eyes, a picture that is intended to present clearly to us what Paul meant with the words: “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17). This certainly applies not solely to bloody martyrdom but to every sort of burdensome earthly trial, which, despite its load, remain as light as a feather in comparison with what has been promised.

            “God is not the God of the dead”, which is why, in the Gospel, Jesus simply brushes aside the foolish casuistry of the Sadducees regarding the woman married seven times. Of course, the resurrection of the dead will be a corporeal resurrection, but since those privileged to experience it will never die again, marriage and the generation of children will have no more meaning (which, however, does not mean that all distinctions between man and woman will disappear). Those who are transfigured in God will have a completely different kind of fruitfulness, because fruitfulness is part of the image of God in men, yet it no longer has anything in common with mortality. It has to do only with the vitality that participates in the living fruitfulness of God. If God is introduced as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is, of the living, then these, who are alive in God are also fruitful together with God: on earth they are fruitful in their earthly progeny and in heaven they are fruitful together with God in a manner known only to God and his angels.

            In the second reading, we are promised “eternal trust and sure hope” – just like the martyred brothers. More than that, we are also promised an understanding of spiritual fruitfulness already on earth. This fruitfulness derives from Christ and was unknown to the Old Covenant. Men who unerringly await the return of Christ and the resurrection, whose hearts “love God” and receive “strength for every good work and word” from God, can already participate in eternal fruitfulness through their intercessory prayer here below. The Apostle counts on this prayer “so that the word of the Lord may make progress and be hailed by many others” and so that the power of “confused and evil men” might be held back. Christian prayer is like a sluice gate that has been opened up, permitting the water of heavenly grace to flow out into the world.