Jesus Lifts the veil on the Beyond

"Then Jesus said [to the Sadducees] : The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage ; But those who are deemed worthy to share in this age ... can no longer die, for they are like angels and are sons of God ..." Luke 20: 34-36

Jesus answers the Sadducees who deny the resurrection and takes advantage of the opportunity to evoke "the beyond".

To ridicule the very idea of ​​resurrection, the Sadducees imagine an extravagant story, that of a woman married seven times. They ask, "Who will be her husband in the hereafter ?". They rely on a Jewish law, the levirate (Deut 25: 5-10): if a man dies, his brother will marry the widow. The evangelist reports the response of Jesus, rich in encouragement.

First of all, he affirms that death is not the complete and definitive disappearance of a person ; It is based on the Old Testament. When God manifests himself to Moses from the burning bush, he reveals to him that he is a personal God : "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (Ex. 3. 6). By calling himself the God of every Patriarch, he affirms that these men are still alive. "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living ; For to him all live "(v. 38).

Then he compares resurrected believers to angels. This means that this new life does not follow the principles of the life of the physical world in which we live. The Apostle Paul "was taken up in paradise, and heard marvelous words" (2 Corinthians 12: 4) ; He explains to us that we can not yet understand everything : "Now I know in part, but then I will know thoroughly as I have been known" (1 Cor 13:12). We shall have finished with the doubts and unanswered questions which now pursue us.

When our loved ones leave this earth, they detach themselves from the ephemeral material realities and open their eyes to the eternal realities. This must challenge us by making us lucid to distinguish the important from the secondary.

The same apostle finishes one of his letters to the churches by evoking life : "We will always be with the Lord. Console one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:17, 18). He speaks of a presence that will fill our lives forever, that of Jesus.

Source (To pleasing the Lord)