The young men in the reading from Maccabees, because of their belief in the Resurrection embraced pain and death rather than consume pig's flesh, our hope in the Resurrection gives us courage to refuse all that is unclean, all that is displeasing to God, all that leads to death of the Soul. The Christian Way has always been to prefer physical death rather than anything which might destroy the Soul.
"He is the God of the Living not of the Dead" and Christ desires we should be fully alive. St Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in the 3rd century, "The Glory of God is Man fully alive". The Gospels are full of accounts of Christ bringing either the Dead to Life, the little girl, the widow of Naine's son, Lazarus. More often it is the half-dead he brings to life, Life in Him. The madman living amongst the tombs is given Life, the Lepers rotting whilst they live are cleansed, restored to the congregation of Israel and given Life, the blind groping through life in darkness are healed and see Life himself, the women bent double spends her life looking at the ground, she meets Christ, is healed and looks directly at God in the face of his Son.
To us He offers Life in its fullness through the Sacraments, through meditative reflection on the scriptures, through pray and when we live out the Gospels with our brothers and sisters in the Communion of the Church.
Let us be fully alive in Christ, the God of the Living, who brings the dead and the half dead to Life!
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