During these last days, we are very terrified by Yolanda, the very powerful typhoon Yolanda that has just been destroying some coastal areas in the Philippines and created many fatalities. Before such threatening and frightening danger, we feel as if our life was at the margin. Government has alerted us to the danger of Yolanda and has put many troops or safe and rescue system to anticipate the outgoing destruction and to minimize the victims. Each of us hopes that the typhoon may not go by our dwelling houses. We are afraid of being taken away or blown out by the wind. This experience teaches us that even though we are aware of our death, we try to survive as much as possible. Our inborn instinct orients us to go on living beyond the death, in afterlife.

 

Hope is one of the beautiful elements in Christian faith. It’s expressed in our creed: I believe in the resurrection of the dead. The idea of after life or some kind of resurrection and eternal life, took long time to develop in Israel. The first reading, taken from the second book of Macabre testifies the very beginning of the clearest statement about resurrection in all Old Testament. We must take into account that it was written on the second century before Christ, during the period of Jews revolt against Syrian authorities under Antiochus Epiphanies, Syrian ruler who tried to impose Greek culture and religion. The martyrdom of seven brothers was inspired somehow by their belief in resurrection. That there was a dispute between Jesus and the Sadducees shows us that at that time there was not a common or well defined and acceptable doctrine about resurrection.

 

We believe in the resurrection of the dead! What does it really mean for us? First, it has nothing to do with immortality of soul as if our soul lifted up without knowing its destination and its future. We can not understand the resurrection if we think in a magical way, in the same way as Sadducees. For them, men and women will live in afterlife as we have lived in the earth. That’s why they thought that the married men will live as married men also in afterlife. In fact, they posed that problem not to disagree with the legality of marriage, but just to oppose Jesus teaching about resurrection.

 

Second, faith in resurrection helps us to give sense in more credible way to our life in present time. We must be able to survive in the midst of daily challenges. When we find troubles, difficulties and obstacles in our jobs, we should not give up. When we suffer, don’t punish anyone, even God, because he never abandons us. He suffers together with us in order to release us from sufferings. Faith in resurrection asks us neither to keep away from sufferings nor to search it. The suffering never comes from God. It comes frequently from us as human being. So we have to face it with courage and intelligence.

 

Third, faith in resurrection inspires us to oppose any culture of death, any manifestations of injustice and evil. We have to take a look around us. They could be in our customs, in our society even in our personal life that colonize us, for example a hedonistic life style imposed by some mass media. This media make us believe that we will be truly worthy if we imitate the latest hair style of famous artists or if we convey to latest fashion style. They produce thrills, excitement and emptiness. They never produce the nourishment and happiness and they never say anything about who we really are. Our God is not the God of the dead but the leaving. Therefore we are worthy at the very beginning of our existence. Our dignity never depends on what the television offers to us. It takes it source from God who welcomes and loves us without condition, whoever and whatever we are. Faith in resurrection never puts our hope in an utopian dream. Our hope is a real hope that makes us free and happy. (32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Tardelly,s.x.)