Wild Jesus, Uncontainable!
Ruth Kennedy 
March 31, 2024
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Luke 24: 1-12 (NRSVA)
1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Resurrection day.
The women made ready the spices that were never needed.
The women went to the place of the dead that was empty.
When those whose ways and natures were in opposition to God were given the Son of God they couldn’t hold him. Death could not hold Life. It cannot.
The spices were left unused.
The tomb was desolate and irrelevant.
When evil tried to contain the power of God, it was broken. God cannot be tamed and renders useless that which tries.
‘He has risen!’
Three words which rendered burial spices useless, broke constraints in thinking, emptied beliefs of doubt.
He has risen!
Jesus, born miraculously of the virgin Mary, who healed the sick, preached good news, set people free from darkness, raised the dead. But died himself. And now alive forevermore offering the same life with God to us.
Is this nonsense to us? Is it so wildly beyond our imaginations that we think it is impossible? The disciples did. They thought the women’s stories of the angels’ explanations and what they saw were baseless nonsense. Doubt had set a small prison around their belief and Jesus was set to bring the prison down. To render it useless, desolate, irrelevant. If the tomb is this prison of doubt, then Jesus leaves it, he isn’t in it.
He has risen!
Tamed God-dreams and hopes need burial spices for they are in tombs of hopelessness. But God is not tame and no cage or leash could hold Jesus and so we do not need these spices in our lives!
He has risen!
The story of useless burial spices and empty tombs are hallmarks of our Christian faith because Jesus is wild. He could not nor ever will be tamed, it is what those three words declare. And we get to rise with Him.
In Jesus, we are wild with no need for burial spices or tombs, only incredible explanations and encounters with heaven, tales of abundant new life in Jesus and stories of being full and overflowing with the Holy Spirit.
Uncontainable.
He has risen! Hallelujah!
Prayer:
Jesus,
Where I’ve been tamed by lies, where I am preparing burial spices for my hopes and where I am visiting a tomb for faith, help me. Forgive me. Heal me. Rewild me.
There is no point in looking for the living among the dead for you are risen!
I lift my eyes up to encounter you, you are giving out to us stories of your abundant love to share with everyone we meet. Give us courage to overflow in these stories even when others think we are saying nonsense.
You, your love, your power, is uncontainable.
Jesus, you are wild, rewild me for you.
Amen.
Hallelujah! Christ is risen!
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