32nd Sunday - Does Marriage Last Forever?

 

Does Marriage Last Forever? No. Recall what we say when the vows are exchanged, “in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, until death do we part.”

Marriage is a lifelong commitment, and so when we marry someone, assuming it’s a valid marriage, we are married until either spouse dies.

So, if our first spouse dies and we marry another person, which spouse will we have when we get to heaven? Actually, neither.

Does that mean we won’t be married in heaven? Yes, we won’t have a spouse in heaven. We won’t be married in heaven. Yet, most likely we will be most grateful for our spouse, in helping us to get to heaven.

The Sadducees in the Gospel were wealthy Jews, and nearly all were priests of the governing class. They accepted only the written law of the Old Testament, which are the first five books, also called the Torah, written by Moses. The Sadducees didn’t put much faith into the prophetic books, they didn’t accept the Book of Maccabees (from which our first reading came today) and they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, and they did not even believe in angels. That’s why they were sad, you see!

The Saducees ask Jesus a question that was purposely meant to ridicule the belief in the resurrection, a concept which books like Maccabees promoted.

In order to humiliate Jesus, they quote a law from the book of Deuteronomy stating if a man dies childless, his wife must marry the man’s brother. However, the Sadducees really exaggerate this law, and tell of a woman who married seven brothers, and still didn’t have a child. To make fun of the idea of Resurrection, they ask: “who is going to be the husband of this lady in the afterlife”. Then they must have chuckled, thinking they outwitted Jesus.

However, Our Lord’s answer, becomes the clearest affirmation in all of Scripture that there is life after death and we will rise from the dead.

First of all, Jesus said we only marry in this world. We marry because we want a partner in this life, we can love and care for and one who will love and care for us. But after death, Jesus indicates when we get to heaven, there is no reason to marry any more.  Instead, we become like angels. In heaven, we won’t desire to marry because our life will be different. We will have a union with God, which completely satisfies us.

Suppose a man marries a woman and she dies. Because of her death, he is free to marry. This indicates marriage ends at death. And if he were to marry another woman, and if she dies, he won’t have two marriages in heaven. He will actually have no human marriage in heaven at all.

Rather, in heaven we have union with God in which God gives Himself to us and we give our self to Him. We participate in the divine life of the Trinity, through baptism on earth, but in heaven we perfectly share in God’s divine life and love.

What we can therefore say, is “love lasts forever”. There are three theological virtues, faith, hope and love. In this life on earth, we need to believe in God and all that He has revealed. We believe that when we die, we will go to heaven and have a new resurrected body at the end of the world. We need to have hope, that Jesus will save us and bring us to our home in heaven. We have hope of eternal life, that we will live forever. But when we are in heaven, we will not have faith because we will be with God and fully understand all we believe. We will not have hope because our desires will all be satisfied because we will be with Jesus in heaven. But the love that we have on earth, we will take with us to heaven. Love is eternal, it lasts forever.

One of the purposes of marriage is for the good of the spouse and the greatest good for our spouse is to help them to get to heaven. We are to help our spouse to get to heaven, always giving our spouse the love deserved, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad and until death, do we part. In heaven, we will share that imperfect love we had on earth, with a perfect love forever in heaven.

For young people who eventually begin to look for a spouse, something that’s helpful, in finding a good spouse, is to ask your self this question. “Will this person help me to get to heaven?” If not, then the person would not be a good choice for you. Before dating and during dating, we should pray and ask the Lord to help us to know if the person we are interested is the person God wants us to be with. If the person causes you to fall into serious sin regularly, then, if you were to marry the person, you would end up having great difficulties in your marriage and it most likely would not work out.

Rather, ask the Lord to help you find someone who you will love and who will love you in a holy way, and He will put into your life, the person that will not only help you to get to heaven, but enjoy a life of sacrificial love. We also need to remember there is no perfect person and there is no perfect marriage, but the person we end up marrying will be someone we grow in love as the years go by.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will live forever.” Until the great day of the General Resurrection, when we will receive a new resurrected body like Our Lord’s, let us strive to believe in Him, so that we will share eternal life with Him and with the Virgin Mary, and with all the angels and saints forever in heaven.