Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Holy Apostle Onesimos of the Seventy
Kellia: 1 Kings (1 Samuel) 7:2-17 Epistle: Philemon 1-25 Gospel: St. Mark 12:18-27
St. Mark 12:18-27, especially vs. 27: "He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the
living." In today's Gospel, the Lord Jesus addresses not only the reality of death, but also the greater coming reality, the
defeat of death in the resurrection promised for our mortal bodies. Undeniably, it is the common lot of mankind that all
die, that everybody shall fall in time, that every single body to whom God gives life also shall languish and go down into
the grave. Yet, straight in the teeth of universal death, the Lord Jesus draws our attention to the witness of Holy Scripture
in opposition to the "Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection" (vs. 18). Centuries before Christ, the Prophet Isaiah,
moved by the Holy Spirit, confessed to God, "Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake
and sing for joy! For Thy dew is a dew of light, and on the land of the shades Thou wilt let it fall" (Is. 26:19 RSV).
In refuting the Sadducees and their fanciful tale of a woman married in serial fashion to seven brothers, the Lord Jesus
teaches three truths about resurrection of the body: 1) that the promise of resurrection for our bodies arises from the nature
of God as Life and Life-Giver, 2) that resurrection shall occur in the future, sometime after each of us dies, and 3) that each
of our mortal bodies shall be raised, although, as the Apostle says, they will be raised to "newness of life" (Rom. 6:4, 5) in
a "spiritual body" (1 Cor. 15:44) - something Christ already has manifested.
Anciently, the People of God already had learned to look to God as the Source of life, a truth we ourselves hear regularly in
the Vesperal Psalm: "Thou wilt take their spirit, and they shall cease, and unto dust they shall return. Thou wilt send forth
Thy Spirit, and they shall be created; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth" (Ps. 103:31 32 LXX). Thus the Lord has
ordained life and death for all flesh. He gives life and takes away our breath. We live and die - the great mystery of life
and death. However, the dramatic announcement of the Lord Jesus in this passage "concerning the dead [is] that they rise"
again (vs. 26).
The Lord Jesus reminds us of what He had said to Moses from the burning bush: "I Am the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Ex. 3:6). The Lord Jesus' point clearly is that God speaks in present tense. "Now, in the
present, I Am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." He does not say, "Centuries ago I was the God of the Patriarchs."
God the Lord is He Who renews the face of the earth and restores the dead to life. Of course, for God is the Life-Giver!
He is Life and the One from Whom all life derives and exists. As St. Cyril of Alexandria adds, "God created all things for
incorruption, as it is written...'He hath swallowed up death, having waxed mighty, and God shall again take away all
weeping from every countenance; He shall remove the reproach of the people from the whole earth'" (see Is. 25:8). One of
the reasons the Sadducees denied the reality of resurrection - just as do our modern-day secularists - is because they could
only see and touch death. Hence, men do not accept the Apostolic witness that Christ is risen, "and has become the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:20). Resurrection for mankind is a future gift that God has for those
who unite themselves now to Christ and partake now of His Resurrection power for new life. "For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at
His coming" (1 Cor. 15:22,23).
Physically, in the resurrection, men's bodies shall be like the body of the risen Lord, as St. John of Damascus says, "such
that it entered through the closed doors without difficulty and needed neither food, nor sleep, nor drink," for they shall be
"like angels in heaven" (Mk. 12:25).
Thy Resurrection, O Christ, our Savior, the Angels in heaven sing. Come glorify Christ!