Is this all there is?

In the Gospel I reflected on today, Jesus debated with some Sadducees who denied that there’s a resurrection (Luke 20:27-40).  After refuting their hypothetical situation of a woman marrying seven brothers, Jesus pointed to the encounter between Moses and God at the burning bush (Exodus 3).  He reminded them that God identified Himself as the "God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," and therefore "he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."

Toward the end of the Sixties, Peggy Lee recorded the hit song, “Is that all there is?”  

In these days of COVID and political unrest and hatred some of us may be challenged by the same question; “Is this all there is”?   We’ve hoped for something better and it didn’t happen.  We want a brighter future, and we can’t see it.  We long for a life without pain or suffering, but instead we find a life that includes hurts and disappointment.  We ask, “Is this all there is?”

The fact that’s extremely important for us to remember is that to God, "all are alive."  Much too often, people can see each other not in terms of life, but of death.  It’s all too apparent in our world today how individuals or groups of people can be full of hatred toward others.  They want to see the other group dead!  At other times, it’s not so much a matter of open hostility than it is complete indifference.  Here, the fate of the person is of no consequence to the other.

How do we respond to these attitudes of death, or what Saint Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death”?   We need to develop the same attitude that Jesus attributes to God: we must be able to see all as alive.  We can’t seek to condemn others to death, and we can’t be indifferent to the plight of others.  We’re called to share life!  We’re called to share the hope we have in Jesus Christ!  We need to witness to our trust in God who doesn’t give up on life and doesn’t give up on us!