About life after death.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Beware lest your hearts be overwhelmed with refreshments, drunkenness, and worries about this life, lest you surprise you that day. For it shall come as a snare to all that dwell on the face of the earth. Therefore, watch and pray, that ye may be able to escape all that is to come, and to stand before the Son of man. “

We are living the last day of the church year. We will survive him with the thought of death. The hope that death is not the end of life, but quite the opposite: death is a transition to a new, qualitatively better life. Thanks to that, we had the opportunity to know during the year that there is more to what death gives than it takes. Even today’s gospel gives us hope. After all, if “Be on the alert …” (Luke 21:36), we too will live forever if we live for God, with God, and in God.

If we also read the events preceding today’s article, we would find that many of the passages of Jesus’ instruction, both in and out of the temple in Jerusalem, were observed only to catch him in the word. Jesus knows the mindset of their hearts, and when no one has been able to convict the emperor of his anti-state activities, even in the dispute over the tax. Who were the Sadducees themselves? In Jesus’ day, it was a very influential party of some Jews. Some high priests also belonged to it. It was a lords party who allowed themselves a freer, more secular life and did not recognize life after death or resurrection from the dead. Peacefully and without embarrassment, Jesus clearly explained things. Here on earth, in earthly life, there is death and death. But in the other world, death and death do not exist. Jesus’ clear answer today is to strengthen faith in life after death. Today, many people lose faith in life after death.

For example, a recent poll in France found that half the people there did not believe in life after death. But in today’s Gospel, Jesus confirms life after death with His word. He first explains that life after death is not an extension of earthly life. After all, precisely because many people imagine and paint life after death as an extension of earthly life, they do not desire life after death and do not even believe it. Many people here on earth experience various difficulties and tribulations and disappointments and sufferings; how could they long for such a life to continue after death ?! Therefore, in the Gospel, Jesus first radically rejects the idea of ​​eternal life after death in earthly parameters.

Then he tells us that we will be like angels and like sons and daughters of Heavenly Father in the other world. We will be conceived into the infinite love of God and the beauty and joy and bliss that infinitely exceeds all the bliss of this earthly life. That is why the apostle Paul wrote, “Neither the eye hath seen, nor the ear heard, neither the heart hath entered into the heart of men, which God hath prepared for them that love him” (Corinthians 2: 9). A royal palace, for life, is in the eternal love of God, for there is a blissful communion of those who live in the eternal love of God, and only he who has love in himself can be accepted into the eternal love of God.

The Lord Jesus requires us to cultivate love in our hearts here on earth. Love of God and neighbor. This is because only love here in the world is the only way to eternal love in heaven.