Many years ago, I read an article in a magazine that really caught my attention. The main point the author tried to convey in the article was that, if the remains of the body of Jesus were to be found buried in some place of the Holy Land, such a finding should not affect our faith at all! According to him, what matters is what we have in our hearts, and the “spiritual” experience we have of God and His love. Evidently, I could not disagree more with this author! If Christ were not risen, our faith would be empty and superficial, and it would only be reduced to a formless, “spiritual,” experience, insufficient to be an answer to our sufferings and problems and limited to the here and now.
Skeptics of the Resurrection
This was exactly the view that the Sadducees had. Indeed, today’s Gospel always strikes me because, to describe the Sadducees, it says that they are those “who say there is no resurrection.” Since they did not believe in the resurrection, they did not believe in life after death. Their religion was reduced to a spiritual effort to attain some kind of temporary well-being limited only to this world. That is why Christ speaks strongly to them, calling them out and affirming that they are misled in their beliefs because they “do not know the Scriptures and the power of God.”
By denying the resurrection, they exclude themselves from the God made known in the Scriptures, who always manifested His desire to share His immortal life with us. Indeed, Jesus reminds them that God is not a God of people destined to a finite and temporal reality. No! Instead, he says, “He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” All those who follow Him have access to eternal life!
We can all profit from the admonition Christ gives to the Sadducees. I am sure that all of us, in one way or another, have sometimes approached life like them, as if the resurrection were not real and as if eternal life were not true. Many times, we face difficult situations, sufferings and trials and our faith becomes weak. Instead of hoping for the Lord to help us, we fall into a sense of fear and despair, listening only to our thoughts and expecting only human solutions.
Certainty of Resurrection
The readings of this day are an invitation to wake up and to realize that the faith Christ wants to give us is the faith that is founded on the certainty of the resurrection. It is a faith that makes us brave and courageous, capable of facing any situation, convinced that we will not be destroyed.
Indeed, in the First Reading, St. Paul reminds us that God “did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love…” St. Paul encourages us to face life with the strength that comes from the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit that we have received in Baptism, and which becomes active in us through God’s Word and through the grace of the sacraments.
It is the Spirit of Christ risen, the one that can give us the capability to “bear our share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from the Lord.” It is the Spirit who convinces us that Christ “has destroyed death and brought life and immortality.” Indeed, the Spirit of Christ can completely remove from us the fear of death, which prevents us from living our Christian vocation in fullness, knowing that even if we die, we do not die.
Saint Boniface as a Witness
Today, the Church celebrates the memory of St. Boniface, Bishop, and Martyr. His life and works stand as a witness for all of us that whoever puts his life in Christ, is never afraid to follow the Lord even if that means to give one’s life. Let us ask the Lord today that He may give us all some share in His Spirit. That free from our cowardice and our fear, we may bear witness to Christ and to the life He has offered. May the Lord bless us all with His immortal life, and may His grace accompany us always.
[Readings: 2 Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12; Mark 12:18-27]
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