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.

I love this passage. here again we have the Saduccees trying to capture Jesus in a false teaching. The Saduccees were different from the pharisees, in that they only believed that the torah (first five books of the bible), were the divine word of god, and that all other books should not be considered canonical. To that end, they believed that the torah did not discuss life after death, at all. And as such they did not believe that eternal life was possible.

Jesus, spoke often about the kingdom of heaven, and taught about the resurrection just as often. As such, the Sadducee’s believe that they could trap Jesus in this question about the woman with 7 husbands. The technique they used here is called “reductio ad absurdum,” In philosophy, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for “reduction to the absurd”) is a logical fallacy that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to an absurd contradiction. Basically, the Sadducees have no way to prove their theory by positive evidence, that there is no afterlife, thus they must come up with this utterly ridiculous example to prove their theory. They ultimately assert that god would not ever allow this most absurd set of circumstances to happen, and so they thus conclude that Heaven is not possible. This is why it is a logical fallacy, because it requires the proof of a negative. It sounds good in debate, but it will never hold up against scrutiny from a trained logician. That is where we are in this passage today, the sadducees find themselves tangling with the most cunning debater of all time.

The Sadducees, in this crazy example of the 7 times widow are attempting to catch Jesus in a trap. The sadducees believed that if Jesus says yes (that the woman will only be one mans wife), then that will be an obvious insult to the 6 other men. This would ultimately have rendered those other marriages meaningless, and would have diminished Jesus’ credibility among His disciples. On the other hand, if Jesus were to say no (that she would be all their wives), then He would be making a mockery of the law of Moses and the clear teaching of the sacrament of Marriage. So it appears there is no good answer to this question. But once again Jesus answers perfectly, not only making a point that they never anticipated, but also by using their own faulty reading of the torah against them.

Jesus starts by clarifying that marriage is only a convention between man and woman in this world, and does not exist in Heaven. Marriage is a sacrament that is meant for the procreation and for the raising of children in the faith. It is a way of baptizing sex and putting it into the context of what God ultimately intended. In the next life, we will be espoused to Christ, and all of our fellow men and women will be brothers and sisters in christ. One big family, and sex will literally be the last thing on our minds. But while we are here in this world we should not forget that we are blessed to partake, in an ordered way, this beautiful gift of lovemaking, and the sacrament of marriage.

Then finally Jesus lowers the boom on them. He says “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.” I cannot emphasize strongly enough how this must have ‘gobsmacked’ these sadducees. They were so sure of their reading of the torah, that they had never considered that Moses declaration about “the god of the living” was a direct affirmation of Heaven and the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. Jesus ultimately used the only books they recognized as legitimate, to prove that they were completely wrong about their interpretation of them. Truly magnificent. Jesus truly is the greatest of all teachers and his teaching is truly the divine word of god.

Let us honor Him, and honor our spouses, and honor finally the whole of Gods creation by being the best spouses, parents and friends that we can be every day. And to sit humbly at the feet of the great teacher, Jesus Christ.

Oh lord help me today to honor you, by faithfully honoring my wife, and the commitments I have made to my family and my community. Amen.