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Gospel Reading for June 03, 2026 – Mark 12: 18-27
BELONG ENTIRELY
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 brother 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.”
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If the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, they should not have asked Jesus such an absurd question in the first place.
No one who has fully entered the afterlife has returned to tell us exactly what happens there. Those who were declared clinically dead and later revived often speak of being drawn toward a brilliant light. One cardiologist described finding himself in a vast, dark space, yet feeling an overwhelming sense of peace and well-being. There are many similar accounts, but none can tell us with certainty what eternal life is like once we have entered it completely.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus himself tells us that when we rise from the dead, we will be like the angels in heaven. In other words, we will BELONG ENTIRELY to God. Unlike the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, no one will ever be able to separate us from him again. We are reminded of Jesus’ beautiful promise:
“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10: 28–29).
What a comforting thought—that one day we shall be forever united with God, secure in his love and beyond the reach of sin, suffering, and death.
Lord Jesus, help us to live our lives on earth as a preparation for that glorious day when the Father draws us home to himself for all eternity!
