Ordinary Time 
Pause
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. … This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:1b–2, 5
Listen
Jesus said to them, “People who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to participate in that age, that is, in the age of the resurrection from the dead, won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage. They can no longer die, because they are like angels and are God’s children since they share in the resurrection. Even Moses demonstrated that the dead are raised—in the passage about the burning bush, when he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. To him they are all alive.”
Luke 20:34-38
Think
Jesus responds to the Sadducees’ question with a message of resurrection hope. Even though they intended to trip him up with speculation, he blesses them with an honest answer. Jesus insists that we can look ahead in faith because of who God is and how God relates to us.
Jesus redirects the Sadducees’ questions about marriage in the afterlife to an even more important relationship. He tells them that what will count in the resurrection is not our marriage or other relationships with each other (as important as these relationships are!) but our relationship with God. He calls those who share in the resurrection “God’s children,” which is even more important than whose wife or husband someone was. He points the Sadducees toward one of their favorite biblical heroes, Moses. He reminds them that Moses called the Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All of these ancestors were long gone from this earth in Moses’s day, but the Lord was still their God because they participate in the resurrection, a hope we share!
Joshua Hays
Pray
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thank you for being the Lord of the living. Thank you that I find hope for eternal life with you. Help me to share this hope with others as Jesus did. Amen.
Go
Go now,
looking back on what the Lord has done for you,
looking ahead in faith to what the Lord has promised,
looking around you for those in need of hope and love.
