Mark 12:18-27
SOME Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to [Jesus] and put this question to Him, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. So the second married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. At the resurrection [when they arise] whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her." Jesus said to them, "Are you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, [the] God of Isaac, and [the] God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled."
The WORD
Human reasoning is a wonderful gift from God. Human knowledge makes possible the development of culture and civilization, discoveries and innovative technologies. However, today’s Gospel illustrates to us what happens when men and women rely only on their knowledge and reasoning.
Excessive logic can make a person lose life’s direction. God imparts reason and knowledge so that through these, humanity may seek the light of the truth. A person who seeks the truth in all humility and sincerity finds increasing enlightenment as he or she has recourse to proper use of reasoning and syllogism. However, the Sadducees do not use reason for enlightenment, but rather to justify an idea they hold to be absolute. Persisting in this way, they pervert the use of human reason. They are then led from absurdity to absurdity! The search for truth must go with an open mind and heart.
Logic outside of its divine purpose turns "illogical" and comic. The hypothetical case presented by the Sadducees to support their claim that there is no resurrection is too much. A woman who outlives seven brothers seems more of fiction rather than a possibility! People with twisted thinking, indeed, become prisoners of their own twisted imagination!
SOURCE: "365 Days with the Lord," ST PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: publishing@stpauls.ph; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
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