Sadducees Set A Trap

Oh how smug those Sadducees were. Oh how clever they imagined themselves to be. Can’t you see them nodding their heads at each other with knowing smirks on their faces? “We have got him now,” they said to one another.

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, as we learned in the gospel. For them there was nothing like a everlasting life for humans nor did they believe in the existence of angels. Life on earth was a reflection of heaven which ended with individual death. The only thing that survived was the tribe, the community of believers who passed knowledge, as they perceived it, from one generation to the next. On the contrary, the Pharisees had a clunky and ill-defined concept of the afterlife. Only those who listened closely to Jesus were blessed with a better understanding of what was come after death.

They, the Sadducees, did not think Jesus would be able to outwit their neatly constructed trap without contradicting the Law of Moses. They were wrong. He turned their argument right back against them. Explaining resurrection in simple terms, Jesus said we would be like angels. Earthly things like marriage would remain behind on earth where they properly belong to living and we are living are expected to live according to the law as instructed by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

In the resurrection everything changes. There is no contradiction of the law because the law has been fulfilled. The law applies to human, not to angels.

Scripture does not describe how the Sadducees reacted to being caught in their own trap so we can use our imagination to color in the blank spots on the canvass. The smirks were wiped away and they no doubt were left sputtering and grumbling.

What lesson today can we draw this from the passage? What happens when we act like the Sadducees?  Inevitably we fall into the trap we ourselves set by not humbly asking for God guide us. The message for us two-fold. First, God is the God of the living. Revelation has been all about how we should live, constantly mindful we were created in his image and hopeful for justice and mercy as our days speed toward human death. Second, informed by our belief, we have an image of our life after death through the gift of the resurrection. God is the God of the living and, if we believe, we will never die but will live forever with him. There is no contradiction for us, only understanding.

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God of Moses, let our hope to be like angels after death encourage us to live today as you have taught us.