2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14/ 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5/ Luke 20:27-38
Last week, there were two occasions which made us turn our attention to the dimension of the spiritual world.
First, there was All Saints Day, a day in which we ponder about the great company of saints in heaven.
The saints are in the spiritual dimension of the presence of God, a dimension that is beyond the here and now.
Yet, it is also a dimension that we are in touch with, and what we could term as “the communion of saints”.
And then on the next day, which is All Souls Day, we remember those who have gone before us and we offer prayers for them that God will grant them eternal rest.
So, whether it’s All Saints and All Souls, it is a spiritual dimension that calls for our attention and evokes our emotions.
But just the day prior to All Saints and All Souls, there is this peculiar event called Halloween.
Halloween is of western origins. Halloween actually means “Hallowed Evening” which means holy evening.
Because it is on the 31st Oct, which is the eve of All Saints Day, the Church termed it as a holy evening and a vigil for the celebration of All Saints Day.
But it was actually to counter a pagan festival of a Celtic religion called “Druid”.
In that “Druid” religion, it was believed that on that day, the 31st Oct, the spirits of all those who died during the year would rise up and roam around.
The Church tried to counter that by naming that day Halloween and propagated the teaching that the souls of the virtuous will rise to heaven and rejoice in heaven in the celebration of All Saints Day.
However, that didn’t quite succeed. The idea of a holy evening didn’t change the people’s fantasy of the scary and ghostly. (Sigh, just like how a talk on ghosts will always attract more people than a talk on saints!)
Hence, even nowadays, the general theme of the Halloween party is to dress up like the figures of the underworld.
So adults and even children will dress up as zombies, vampires, witches, warlocks, corpse, etc.
By and large, it is to be scary and ghostly, and all that is supposed to be for fun.
Yet, we may wonder where is the distinction between what is for fun and what is for real.
Is it real fun, or is that having fun with the real?
What we heard in the first reading was for real.
The seven brothers and their mother stood firmly in their faith against the temptations to deny God.
And with that, the persecution and torture began. One by one, the seven brothers were tortured and killed. They were skinned alive, dismembered and subjected to other grisly forms of torture.
And the mother who saw all her seven sons perish in one day was finally put to death.
Indeed it was a heart wrenching story of martyrdom and we cringe at the thought of how human beings can be so viciously tortured and executed just because of their faith in God.
In the Gospel, we heard about the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in the resurrection, posing a seemingly ridiculous and absurd scenario to Jesus.
The Sadducees would have known about the story of the martyrdom of the seven brothers and their mother.
However, they twisted that story around and made up a case of seven brothers and a woman and threw in a law from Moses about marriage and having children.
Their question was this: In the after-life, whose wife would she be, since all seven brothers had married her?
They were not asking that question for fun. But their question was funny or at least, it sounded funny.
But that is because they didn’t believe in the resurrection and hence to them, the after-life was some kind of shadowy, meaningless existence in a place called Sheol.
And because the after-life seemed so absurd and meaningless, then their aim was to enjoy a life of luxury and have their desires fulfilled.
That was why the Sadducees were rich and they hold high positions, because this life was all they had. Beyond the grave is a meaningless existence.
And here is where Jesus gave a teaching on the after-life and on the resurrection.
Beyond the grave is not a meaningless existence.
Rather, beyond the grave, we rise to be with the God of the living, the God who is life and who gives life.
If we believe in that, then it must have an impact in the present life, in the here and now.
We just can’t go around and dressing up and acting like zombies and vampires or get fascinated with the scary or ghostly.
That would be a mockery of the after-life, and an insult to the God of life.
If we truly believe in the Resurrection, then we would want to live a life of holiness.
We would want to be in communion with the saints in heaven by asking them for their intercession.
We would also want to be in communion with those who have gone before us, by praying for them so that they can be with God and have the fullness of life.
Halloween may have come and gone, and some might see it as a funny costume party that has no meaning.
But we know what it means – it means “Holy Evening”.
And if we truly believe in the Resurrection, we also want it to have in our lives, a holy meaning.
Then we would truly witness to God, who is God not of the dead, but of the living.