“You are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for his laws.” – 2 Maccabees 7:14
Have you ever decided against pursuing a goal, because you were afraid you might fail? I know that I have, and I’d be willing to bet that most of us would try far more daring deeds if we knew we couldn’t be defeated.
Beyond failure, the fear of death is perhaps an even greater inhibitor of ambitious action. And, rightly so, since the instinct toward self-preservation often helps protect us from danger.
But, what if we seriously believed that death could not hold us down in the end? What if we truly took to heart the Lord’s promise of resurrection? What if our profession of faith in “the life of the world to come” was something more than just words we recite on Sundays?
How would you live your life if you knew that one day you could rise again? Would you hunker down and play it safe, or would you throw caution to the wind to do something great for the glory of God?
We need to rediscover the virtue of magnificence. As Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologiae, “It belongs to magnificence to do (facere) something great (magna), as its name implies.” We need to stop making excuses and start putting our beliefs boldly into action. We need to give a little more. We need to speak a little louder. We need to fear a little less.
The witness of the martyrs should inspire us to abandon our possessions, our comfort, our reputations, and even our lives for the sake of the kingdom of God. Their hope in the resurrection gave them the courage to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. That same hope should encourage us too.
Indeed, we are cut from the same cloth as the Saints. They were regular men and women, with the same flesh and blood as you and me. But, they had great faith that God could, and would, raise them from the dead. This hope propelled them to leave their fears behind and follow Him through thick and thin. It also compelled them to love.
The idea of love makes very little sense without a hope in the resurrection of the dead. If there is nothing beyond this world, and if the grave is our final destination, then the most reasonable course of action is to “eat, drink, and be merry” while it lasts. Why do anything unselfish if this life is all you’ve got? You only live once (or YOLO, as the kids say), right?
Wrong. As our readings for this Sunday assure us, there is something worth living for beyond the grave. The love we show toward others in this life does make a difference in the next. “If we die with him, we shall also live with him” (2 Timothy 2:11). If we place our hope in the Lord, and cast aside our fears, we can do something magnificent for the good of our neighbors and the glory of His Name.
Lord Jesus, may your resurrection strengthen our hope in the promise that we too may one day rise from the dead with all the saints in glory. Amen.