"Remember man, presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man.

I don’t think the Sadducees really cared about Jesus’ opinion on resurrection (Luke 20: 27-38). Not unlike news reporters who ask leading questions to which they already know the answer, the Sadducees tried to embarrass Jesus by having him say something that “contradicts” the law. Yet, motive aside, was their question really unreasonable?  The Sadducees saw the whole person as mortal and did not believe in "resurrection.” They attempted to apply the Jewish law to women, marriage and procreation to trap him. Of course in all cultures marriage and procreation are crucial to maintaining stability and preserving survival and Jesus is really not rejecting or taking a stand on the importance of marriage. However, he is telling the Sadducees that marriage is irrelevant and procreation is unnecessary in life eternal. 

 David Steindl-Rast writes that “Jesus’ resurrection has nothing to do with coming back to life (as with Lazarus in John’s Gospel). The Nicene and Apostle Creeds do not refer to ‘coming back’ to this life. No, resurrection is a sacred movement of completion. It’s a new beginning into a new dimension of existence in which the power of love breaks the bonds of death and humanity. The followers of Jesus experienced the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a life-changing event.”

The Sadducees used the laws of Moses to trap Jesus on resurrection. However, Moses was dealing in a time and place during which a man was responsible for the preservation of his family lineage by marrying his brother's wife if his brother dies (Deuteronomy 25:5-10). Once again Jesus defies earthly convention and challenges the laws of Moses as he reminds us that God cannot be defined or confined by man’s laws. We are only capable of understanding that which our human intellect permits. God's "laws" do not conform to "conventional wisdom"or are they confined to our earthly dimension. God is about something more.

“For many of us mystery became an adversary; unknowing became a weakness. The contemplative spiritual life is an ongoing reversal of this adjustment. It is a slow and sometimes painful process of becoming ‘little children’ again in which we first make friends with mystery and finally fall in love with it again.”  (Gerald May, Dark Night of the Soul).