Luke 24:1-12 Jesus interprets death with his resurrection!

Chocolate eggs have become closely associated with Easter. If you are a kid with an Easter basket, you will likely find some today, and if you are an adult, you have likely been eating them for weeks and had to get more delivered to your house so the children could have some. I am not sure what the ingredients are in nougat or crunchy chocolate eggs, but I do like to eat them at Easter. If you are looking for some controversy at your Easter celebrations and Jesus’ resurrection does not bring it, then bring up what is on a candy label, and I am sure that you will find it.

You do not want things that can save your life left up to interpretation. For example, you do not want the reliability of the seat belt in your car left up to interpretation. Instead, you want a proven track record that shows it will save your life. Also, you do not want to call out for help from someone who can leap over a puddle, overpower the lid of a pickle jar and outrun a snail when falling from a skyscraper or facing a supervillain. When you are in midair falling from a skyscraper or in the clutches of a supervillain you need to know who to call, you cannot afford to have it be left up to interpretation. Instead, you want to know Superman will be there for you in a life-or-death scenario.

They thought they knew who he was, but they were wrong. Superman masked his identity working as a journalist, wearing glasses and going by the name Clark Kent. From the outside, it was easy to misinterpret the fact that Clark was the one to call out for in a life-or-death scenario because he was “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” (Jerry Siegel) Even the person closest to him, Lois Lane, did not catch on to his secret identity. A similar misinterpretation happened on the first Easter, as we read in our Gospel reading from Luke 24, 1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. The women who went to Jesus’ tomb had been with him and his disciples, so they knew Jesus well. They also knew he had died and was buried in a sealed tomb. Since Jesus burial had been rushed on Friday, the women planned to prepare Jesus’ body properly for its final resting place after observing the Saturday Sabbath rest. In the women’s minds and the disciples’ minds there was no way to misinterpret Jesus’ death. Their reaction was normal and expected until they found the stone rolled away and his body gone. And before their interpretation of the events spiraled, we read in Luke 24, 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words. The women were overcome by the life-or-death scenario and forgot what Jesus said about his death.

We are often wrong about Jesus’ death. We may be able to quickly rattle off the facts and phrases of Easter that Jesus rose from the grave and the tomb was empty, but to take to heart what this means for us each day often escapes us. Jesus’ death happened because we are quick to judge and criticize other people for breaking our rules, because we are slow to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes to understand their situation, because we assign roles to people in our fantasy life, scripting and manipulating them into doing what we want, because we make our time more valuable than others, because we misinterpret death as a natural part of life or fear it to our core so that we throw any resource we have at it to forestall its coming. All of that to say, Jesus’ death happened because of sin. Jesus died for all the times these, and many other sins ruled over us. And in Jesus’ death these were emptied of their power over us, so we do not need to be overcome by them in the future. So, we are often wrong about Jesus’ death because we do not take to heart that our sins were paid for and buried in Jesus, and in Jesus we have been freed from sin’s control. As the women misinterpreted the death of Jesus thinking he was still buried that first Easter, we often misinterpret Jesus’ death as a far-off benefit waiting in heaven or effective in a sphere that does not quite merge with daily life.

God sent his angels to make sure the women had the correct interpretation of Jesus’ death. When the word interpretation comes into conversations about the Bible, stop and remember what Jesus said. Go to the Bible and read what God has done for you, and you will see how clear he is. When the angels appeared to the women, they reminded them of this truth in Luke 24, 6 … Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words. Jesus did not hide his identity but told them from his own lips in Galilee what he was going to do regardless of how superhuman it may have sounded.

Then, the women shared the good news of Jesus’ resurrection to the disciples, but they were stuck interpreting Jesus’ death as final. But Peter and John went to the tomb and saw the grave clothes, which would be like Lois Lane finding Clark Kent’s clothes in a phone booth after Clark had written multiple newspaper columns stating that under the glasses and suit was the giant ‘S’ and red cape. Jesus told the disciples the plan and Scripture from seven centuries earlier shared God’s answer to death as we heard in our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 25, 7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8 he will swallow up death forever. And Jesus’ death was more than a flex of his power, death was swallowed up, and we have been saved as Isaiah 25 continues to say, 9 In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.” Jesus was not a moral teacher or martyr, he was more, and he claimed to be more. Far superior to Superman, Jesus is the one to call on as we face sin and death not so much because he has great power, but because he used his great power to triumph over evil with his selfless sacrifice to protect and save us.

Jesus is the real superman because he loves us. He is honest so that we do not misinterpret death but understand that it happens to us because we are weak. We are living a life-and-death scenario against our sinful nature, sins, devil, demons, death and hell. These were too much for us, so Jesus became one of us and stood with us, then stood for us on trial and died for us on the cross. At the cross our weakness died in Jesus because he was not weak or deserving of death. The empty tomb and resurrected Jesus confirm God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. Jesus interprets death with his resurrection because the real issue is not life after death, but life after sin. Sin causes death, so if sin is removed, there can be life even though there is death. Because Jesus died for our sins and we are forgiven, death is like walking into a phonebooth where we leave behind the grave clothes and walk out indestructible, immortal and victorious, as we read in our New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 15, 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus gave us his word that he would save us from sin and death, and his resurrection leaves no room for interpretation.

If controversy over the ingredients in a chocolate egg arises today, change the subject. Chocolate egg ingredients or the true identity of Clark Kent do not matter like the answer to a life-and-death scenario. Jesus was honest about his identity and what he was made of that saved us from sin and death. God’s love for you sent Jesus to live, die and rise for you. We do not look for the living among the dead. There is no wondering, no interpreting, just the truth. We have been saved because Jesus interprets death with his resurrection. Amen.

Gunnar Ledermann, Pastor Divine Peace Church