Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put a question to Jesus. From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus was aware that his mission was going to thrust him into the shoes of the great prophets of old (cf. Mark 6:4). Like them, he had not come to do his own bidding. He was God’s messenger, and just like the prophets who had plied their trade before him, he was to be God’s representative to the people. As a prophet, in addition to making the presence of God felt in the community, he was to remind the people of their covenantal relationship with God. If he was going to stay true to his identity as a prophet, this mission would put him in a collision course with those who are intent on persisting in their waywardness. Jesus was perfectly aware of this and he wholeheartedly embraced it. It was such an awareness that enabled him to face his detractors with boldness whenever they confronted him. His willingness to engage his detractors was not fueled by a personal desire to bring them down but rather a desire to correct their misconceptions for the benefit of the people. The encounter with the Sadducees about which we hear in today’s Gospel reading was among such instances.
The Sadducees were among the religious leadership who were not afraid to openly show their opposition to Jesus (the list included the chief priests, the Pharisees, and the scribes). For the most part, their quarrel with Jesus revolved around what they perceived as Jesus’ deliberate attempts to deviate from the customs and traditions of the community. In their eyes, not only was Jesus not keen on preserving the tradition of the elders and teaching others to do the same (not to keep the traditions and customs), he was also “coming up” with interpretations of the existing teaching that had not been sanctioned by the teaching authority. Since the religious leadership were finding it difficult to turn the people against Jesus, the only quiver left in their arrow was to discredit him as an imposter rabbi. This strategy included posing particularly contentious questions to Jesus with the hope of entrapping him in his response. On this particular encounter, the Sadducees decided to throw at him the contentious issue of the resurrection. 
Resurrection from the dead is a central tenet of the Christian faith. It is a teaching that, although “perfected” by the Christian religion, can be said to have been inherited from Christianity’s parent religion, Judaism. However, it is a teaching that has always courted controversy. The Sadducees, despite being a legitimate religious party within Judaism, did not subscribe to the the doctrine of the resurrection. While we are not told why the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, one of their reasons can be gleaned from the scenario they put forth to Jesus. From the scenario narrated by them, it simply wouldn’t ‘make sense’ to believe in the resurrection. They even invoked the authority of Moses to defend their stand: ‘ If indeed there is a resurrection, then although the seven brothers would legally be ‘husbands’ to this woman, practically, she couldn’t be with all of them. It would create a scene that wouldn’t be solved.’
Jesus understood their thinking and responded in kind: ‘ Granted there is no resurrection as you very well contend, why would Moses refer to the Lord as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (cf. Exodus 3:6) whom you very well know had died and were buried? This would make the Lord a God of the dead, although this will contradict Moses who says the Lord is a God of the living. But Moses can’t lie. This leaves us with only one possibility: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob continue to live beyond death.’ For the members of the Christian faith, the belief in the resurrection is emboldened by the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. St. Paul refers to the risen Christ as the first fruits of the resurrection (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:20). 
What will the resurrection be like? ‘ Only the children of God can know,’ says Jesus ‘ for they are the ones who do experience the resurrection.’ However, one thing is clear: the life of the resurrection is without the unnecessary concerns of this age (life without Christ, a life prior to knowing Christ). It is a life that is focused solely on those things that draw us closer to the angelic state (understood as a life without sin), a life that seeks to lead to our transformation into sons and daughters of God. A resurrected life is a life that is patterned after the life of Christ. It is a life of charity, a life disposed towards the other. It is a life that does not seek its own interests but rather of the other. It is a life that seeks to preserve the web of relationships in which we were created and in which we must exist. 
We are a people of the resurrection. We are a people whose lives have been renewed in the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. We began living our new, resurrected lives the day we were baptized when we rejected Satan and all his works of darkness.