We have hope with God in the world

By Steve Hall

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
I Maccabees 6:1-13 
Luke 20:27-40

In approximately 326 BC a young man ascended the throne of a kingdom on the far northwest edge of the Middle East. By the time he died just twelve years later he had conquered one of the largest empires ever established in the region. Greece, Persia, Syria, Assyria, Israel, Egypt and countless lesser known kingdoms came under his rule. History knows him as Alexander the Great.

Alexander’s education had been under the guidance and supervision of Aristotle. As a result, Alexander succumbed to a missionary attitude toward spreading Greek culture; and he did so throughout the extensive Middle East region he had conquered. When Alexander died unexpectedly at the age of thirty-two no successor was named and the empire end up being divided. It was these historic circumstances which led to Israel being a border state between the kingdom established in Egypt and the Kingdom of Macedonia to the immediate north. All of this took place approximately 300 years before the time of Jesus.

The King in power of Macedonia at the time of today’s Old Testament text was man by the name of Antiochus IV. He despised the Jews and actively persecuted them. Yet, the text credits him with some recognition of his evil deeds in his later life.

“Sick with grief because his designs had failed, he took to his bed.
There he remained many days, overwhelmed with sorrow,
for he knew he was going to die.”
He even acknowledged the evils perpetrated against the Jews to his friends.

“But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem,
when I carried away all the vessels of gold and silver
that were in it, and for no cause
gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed.”

When we hear the story the Sadducees told in today’s Gospel reading we may be tempted to focus on the peculiarities of the fictional events. But apart from its entertainment value the account of the woman with multiple husbands offers little of importance. What is important is the debate surrounding the existence of an afterlife; that is the true focus of the discussion. While the details of the story are designed to highlight the absurdity of believing in life after death, the response of Jesus corrects the false afterlife assumptions being made. He then dismisses the challenge and offers a glimpse into what living in heaven would be like.

These two accounts may seem mismatched, yet there is a common thread the Christian should take note of. As we approach the final week of the church year it is useful to reflect on the focus of our faith, namely, that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has opened the way for all men to have an eternity in the presence of God. What is there if, as the Sadducees claimed, there is no resurrection, no life after this one.

Antiochus IV stands at one pole. A man who did not recognize the God in the Temple he so rudely desecrated. A man who pursued the death of God’s Chosen. A man at the end of life with no hope for a future. He is among those who were “ . . . alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12)

But we believe.

Paul said it well.

“Through him (Jesus) we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” (Romans 5:2)

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13)