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Gospel Reading for November 22, 2025 – Luke 20, 27-40
END GOAL
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, 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 but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything.
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Because the Sadducees did not believe that there is a resurrection, they wanted to make a mockery of it and test how Jesus would answer their question. By giving a situation that does not exist after life on earth, their question sounded stupid. No wonder they did not believe in the resurrection. Their understanding of it was too shallow.
What happens after life on earth cannot be the same as our life on earth. Here on earth, everything passes. When we die, we leave everything behind, because everything we have belongs to the earth. The only thing we cannot leave behind is our soul which will live forever if we spent our life on earth gravitating towards God, but which will suffer eternal damnation if we spent our life gravitating towards evil. No one really knows exactly what happens after life on earth, but this gospel is the very best description given by Jesus about the afterlife.
For most of us, when our loved ones die, we derive consolation by thinking that when we die, we will be able to reunite with them in heaven. Perhaps, we will indeed be able to reunite with them but not in the way we are united on earth. Perhaps, human minds cannot fathom what happens after life on earth. All we can be sure of is what Jesus always says – that there is an ETERNAL LIFE WITH GOD. As Christians, it should be our END GOAL.
Lord Jesus, we look forward to enjoying eternal life with you, the Father and the Spirit!
