Preparation for Sunday mass: Luke 20:27-38

We present here the reading of the Gospel that will be read at mass on the 2nd Sunday of the Great Advent (for the Great Advent see here) (32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time), and we formulate some questions that might help us prepare to hear the reading.

jesus sadducees

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

34 Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

Questions for adults:

- What is resurrection? What are the Sadducees trying to show with their question?

- What does Jesus tell us about resurrection with his response?

- God is God of the living. What does this tell us about death?

Questions for children:

- What do we believe about what happens to us when the body dies?

- What do the Sadducees believe happens to us when the body dies?

- What do learn from Jesus in this reading about what happens to us when the body dies?