Mark 12:24-27

Jesus said to them, “Isn’t this the reason you are wrong, because you don’t know either the scriptures or God’s power? When people rise from the dead, they won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like God’s angels. As for the resurrection from the dead, haven’t you read in the scroll from Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God said to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?^[c] He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. You are seriously mistaken.”

^[c] Exodus 3:6, 15-16

Mark 12:24-27, Common English Bible (c) 2011

The Sadducees deny that there is a resurrection, but they’ve just asked Jesus a question about marriage in the resurrection.  It’s a “gotcha” question which Jesus ignores by going straight to the heart of the matter:  resurrection is not what you think (or, in their case, what they don’t think).

God is the God of the living, including but not limited to Abraham (and Sarah), Isaac (and Rebekah), and Jacob (and Leah and Rachel). These ancestors in faith may no longer be alive as we understand earthly life.  Yet they live.  And our God is (not was) their God.

“In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.  We are not alone. Thanks be to God.”  (From “A New Creed” by the United Church of Canada, 1980, included as #887 in The New Century Hymnal)

-Teressa Clark, 2019

Lenten Reflections 2019:  Following Jesus from the Mount of Olives to the Tomb ~ Day XX