Friday, March 4

Friday

So he got up and went to his father.  “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. “The son said to him,  ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants,  ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.  For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. 

-       Luke 15:20-24

All week we have been reflecting on the younger son in this parable.  He has rejected the love of his father and he has wandered far from his family and his spiritual home.  He wanted control of his own life and he wanted to get away from anything and anyone that would remind him of his heritage.  He ended up broken, alone and desperate. 

Now he is returning home.  He is going back to the village and community that he left behind.  He is returning to the family that he rejected and scorned.  He is returning to the father that he treated with such contempt.  I wonder if he ever thought he would see them again (I wonder if he ever wanted to).  Imagine his fear and shame as he traveled the dusty roads home.  He had turned his back on his community and his family and they in turn would have thought of him as an outcast.  It would be one thing to come back someday as a rich man with servants and camels, etc. but he is returning starving, penniless and in rags.

Can you imagine what must have been running through his head as he pondered what kind of reception he would receive?  Would the townspeople mock him as he entered the village? Would his father turn him away with shouts of rage at what he had done?  Would his father ignore him entirely and deny he ever knew him?  Would his older brother look upon him with a smug “you deserve this” expression?

This son got two things right and one thing completely wrong.  First, he got his confession right; “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” he understood that his sin was indeed an offense to both his heavenly Father and his earthly father.  Second, he got his condition right when he said that he was no longer worthy to be called a son.  But he got the heart of his father totally wrong.  He thought the best he could hope for is that his father would perhaps take him back as a servant or a hired hand, but never a son again, that privilege was gone forever because of his terrible choices.

He must have been struck with fear when he saw his father running at him from a distance. In the Middle East, it was considered humiliating for men over age forty to run. As the father ran, he would have had to lift his robe—another humiliation.  Why was his father running?  He must be so enraged, was he going to strike the boy down right there?  But, as the father drew closer, the son would see not anger—but joy.  When the father reached him, he did not strike him, he embraced him and kissed him as a son!!

As this son experiences the father’s visible, costly love for him, his speech melts away (notice that he never even gets to the part where he pleads to be taken in as a hired hand).  All that is left is this feeling that he is not worthy to be the father’s son, the grace of the father is too overwhelming. Then the father restores the son—showering him with the best robe, providing shoes for his feet (slaves were bare-footed, sons wore shoes), placing a ring on his finger (a signet ring would give him the power to transact business in the name of the family).  All that this son thought he had lost forever because of his sin is instantly restored to him the moment he repents! 

From the son’s point of view, he had messed up so bad that he could never be taken back again.  But clearly, from the father’s perspective, this boy never stopped being his son.  It was the father’s costly, unexpected outpouring of visible love that turns the son’s heart toward him—perhaps for the first time. The son’s job (repentance) is simply to accept the embrace of the father.  This is our job too!


Jeff Frazier