Reflecting on Mark's Gospel - Mark 12:18-27

Awkward questions continue as Jesus is confronted with a rather unlikely scenario by one of the groups of religious leaders, those known as the Sadducees. Indeed, we could say that they try to involve Jesus in significant theological debate.

This particular group held that there was no resurrection and so, as we might expect, that is the issue which they tackle in their dialogue with Jesus. They pick on the custom that held that in the case of a married man who died, leaving a wife but no child, his brother, assuming he had one, should marry the widow and raise any children as though they belonged to the deceased brother. They imagine a situation in which seven brothers are each, in turn, faced with this situation; and they wonder whose wife the woman will be in the resurrection as she has been married to all seven.

Jesus’ response effectively suggests that it is the wrong question. He points out that resurrection life will be very different and that it will not include a human institution like marriage. He thus closes down the debate, though also mentioning that God is concerned with the living, not with the dead. Resurrection is, by definition, part of the sphere of the living but we cannot know, and do not need to worry, exactly how things will be.

Jesus refers to the patriarchs and to God’s identification as their God when he spoke with Moses from the burning bush. The point is that God is God of all, and, by inference, we may suggest that there is not a great deal to be gained by worrying about tiny details. As Morna Hooker (The Gospel according to Saint Mark) says – “if God is the God of the patriarchs (and of those who came after them), he does not cease to be their God at their death; experience of fellowship with God demands belief in some kind of continuing relationship with him.”