05.06.2024 – St. Patrick Catholic Church, Largo, FL

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Is there an afterlife?

2Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12, Psalm 123, Mark 12:18-27

The statement in today´s gospel that in the afterlife, in heaven men and women “neither marry nor are given in marriage” are not aimed to prohibit marriage but to promise that a future with God is open to us. When we die we still have a future, as children of God. In that future life we will be radically different, and our view of the universe will be transformed. Yesterday’s reading looked to the coming “day of God” and the Book of Revelation says there will be no more death or mourning, “for the former world has passed away” (Rev 21:4). In that future state there will be no more need for marriage but the bonds of love will not be eliminated. If what we do here and now affect our life hereafter, marriage and family ties may still have meaning, since love is at their heart.

Let us not forget that when this life ends, our final judgment will be decided on the level of our loving; the extent of our giving; whether we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, comforted the sick, visited prisoners etc. (Mt 25:40). If love for strangers is so rewarded and remembered, surely the love and self-sacrifice in marriage must also be rewarded.

The Sadducees were a sect in Judaism during the Second Temple Period (the Second Century BC to the Destruction of the Temple in 70 AD). This particular sect in Judaism at least in contrast to the Pharisees and the Essenes held some distinctive beliefs. They only recognized the authority of the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch), for which they found nothing to suggest a life beyond this earthly life. In short, they do not believe in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, life after death, angels and spirits. These people knowing that Jesus saw things differently, they set him a kind of riddle to trap him. The scenario they proposed imagines the afterlife as the physical extension of our present, bodily life. But Jesus envisions total newness. “When they rise … they do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven.”

The afterlife is not in physical continuity with what we experience here and now; it will be of a different quality entirely, beyond our present power to understand. The Apostle Paul foresees the afterlife in terms of transformation. “We shall all be changed” (1Cor 15:52). In his Second Letter to Timothy as he read in today´s first reading, Paul expresses his trust in that future: “I know the one in whom I have put my trust.” Later he speaks of “the crown which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day” (4:7). Our love for God and for each other will be perfected in heaven, where we shall be all that God means us to be.

If indeed, we believe in the afterlife, then we should live our lives as people who will be judged… Like the Psalmist, “To you, O Lord, we lift up our eyes… till he shows us his mercy…