Midweek Lent– “Lost and found—a journey with Jesus into the Father’s arms”
Week 4: The embracing father
Thomas Arnold, a historian and educator in England in the early 1800’s once said: “The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in that in the others, people seek God, while in Christianity God seeks people.”
That’s most clearly seen in tonight’s parable. Last week we focused on the character of the younger son. We heard how he demanded his share of the inheritance from his father, turned his back on his family and went to a faraway country (which, in the Jewish culture of the day would suggest he has turned his back on God too). The younger son is often referred to as ‘The prodigal son’. The word ‘prodigal’ means ‘recklessly extravagant’ or ‘having spent everything’. That’s a fitting term for this son who squanders all his money on reckless living.
Without cash flow, he hires himself out to a pig farmer. His life is literally in the pits when a famine spreads throughout the land, and with no money and no food, he even longs to eat the scraps the pigs eat.
Now let’s switch our focus to the father in the story. It’s important for us to understand, culturally, just how deeply he has been dishonoured, shamed and hurt.
How often do families entrenched in deep conflict cut someone out of their will? Well, in this instance, it’s the reverse. In asking for his share of the inheritance while the father is still alive, the younger son is cutting his father out of his life. In this grab for cash, he’s really saying: “I wish you were dead!” Imagine how that would have grieved the father. There is nothing in this story to suggest the father is harsh or unloving and has written his son off—only the opposite: he is compassionate and loves his two boys. Now one of them wants out—but why? What’s he done?
The youngest son’s fleeing to a far away land means the father has lost connection with his son. Without an iPhone, Instagram or Facebook, he’s not going to hear from him any time soon—imagine his grief and worry. The wealth the father has accumulated through years of hard work was intended to fund his children’s futures with their families of their own—but now the younger son’s portion of the inheritance looks as though it will be frittered away in the seedy, low-lit venues of the Hindley Streets and King’s Crosses of the day.
In a closeknit village, with the neighbours looking on in shock, as the youngest son thumbs his nose at his father and cuts his own family off, the father has been deeply shamed. How can it end this way with his son whom he loves; his boy he played hide and seek with and kicked the footy with, and took fishing, and threw birthday parties for, and helped with homework, and said bedtime prayers with at night?
The father’s heart breaks for his son; wondering, hoping, longing through the hours of the night that now seem to stretch out forever. As soon as first light comes each day and he goes outside to work, his gaze is always fixed on the horizon, where the sky meets the road far off in the distance, where he last saw his son, until the top of his head disappeared from view.
Now, a traditional middle eastern father was expected both to defend the family’s honour and uphold cultural values. Should this have actually happened, it would have been expected that the father would drive his son away and wouldn’t even think about taking him back, to set an example. So imagine the shock for the religious leaders—even the disgust—at how the storyline unfolds. No retribution, no justice. The kid gets off scot-free, and the father just takes it!
Before the son even gets home, his father sees him and runs to his son. Normally no middle eastern head of the home would dare disgrace themselves by hitching up their garments and exposing their legs in public so they could run. But the father’s mind is focused only on his son. Whatever disgrace and humiliation he will suffer is all worth it, to again embrace his son. Before the son can even finish his confession, his father has compassion on him and embraces his son, even though he is stinking like pig crap, and covered in mud and straw.
But then there’s more!!!
The father commands his servants to quickly bring the best robe. a ring for his son’s finger, and sandals for his feet. In the culture of the day, sandals were a luxury, and when the host supplied them to guests it signalled that the guest had a special place of belonging in their home. The ring represents the restoration to the family as an intimate member, and ‘the best robe’ was kept for distinguished guests. In doing this, the father covers over the shame of his son with grace and reverses the situation by honouring his son publicly. He has not only restored his son to the family home but given him a place of high honour in it. The father gives the command to kill the fatted calf—a practice done only for the greatest of celebrations because meat was expensive and reserved only for the most important occasions: “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now is found.”
To the eldest son—who comes to see what the heck is going on—and indeed to the religious leaders to whom Jesus tells this story—dad’s lost the plot! But dad hasn’t lost it. This is intentional, and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. The father initiates love to both sons, coming out to them. It’s not the younger son’s repentance that causes the father’s love, but the reverse—the father’s affection makes the son’s expression of remorse easier.
Onlookers might accuse the father of rewarding bad behaviour. But he isn’t rewarding bad behaviour. It’s not a reward for any kind of behaviour. Its not even a reward. The father doesn’t do all this because the son has somehow deserved it. The father has done it simply because…the boy is his son.
This parable is a story Jesus tells to teach us what our Heavenly Father is like and what we are like. In a sense, we are all the prodigal sons and daughters. Just as the younger son was lost and dead in sin, so are we all. Ever since Adam and Eve thumbed their nose at God and were cast out of the Garden of Eden, we have all wandered to a distant country, far away from God. Like the younger son, we are spiritually bankrupt before our Heavenly Father. The son’s confession to his father in the parable is true for us in reality—”Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son (or your daughter).”
Yet Jesus’ parable is ultimately about what the father does. Often this parable is known as the parable of the prodigal son—we heard last week that the word ‘prodigal’ means ‘recklessly extravagant’ or ‘having spent everything.’ It is a parable also about the prodigal father, who has extravagantly spent everything, holding nothing back, to reconcile the lost to him,
The father in the parable points to our Heavenly Father’s extravagance, who lavishes all his riches on the world in the person of Christ, who came to take the filth of our own sin upon himself and clothe us with his own righteousness. When we look at Christ on the Cross, arms stretched wide, we see the Father’s own readiness to look for, run after and embrace all the lost. Many will reject and despise Jesus and so waste the Father’s riches and condemn themselves. But that’s God’s extravagant love, for all people. He longs for all people to come home, actively seeking out those who turn their backs on him to restore them to his kingdom.
Even though, like the younger son didn’t deserve his father’s gracious favour, we don’t deserve our Heavenly Father’s gracious favour either. But he has done all that the father did in the parable for us, and even more.
Like the father in the parable, God comes to us—he doesn’t wait for us to come to him. Before we can even finish our confession, our Father interrupts us and shows us his compassion because of the forgiveness of sins Christ crucified won for the world. Your Father in Heaven has restored you to his heavenly home. This is not by trying to work our way to a room under our Heavenly Father’s roof. Like the younger son, we cannot work our way back into God’s family and pay off the unpayable debt we amassed. We cannot do anything to warrant our Heavenly Father’s favour and saving help.
But this is completely free gift. As the father who restored the younger son to his home did so at great personal cost, our Heavenly Father’s restoration of us into his family came at a great personal cost to him as well. At the Cross, our Heavenly Father maintained his love for us while bearing the incredible agony of leaving his Son to die on the Cross.
Your Father in Heaven embraced you, and brought you into his family, not as slaves, or workers, but as freed people—freed by the precious blood of Christ. He has given you a pair of sandals, a ring on your finger, as it were, when he graciously gave you a place of belonging with high honour in his kingdom. This happened in baptism, where your Father in Heaven gave you the best robe—the robe of Jesus’ righteousness to cover over all unrighteousness.
Our Father in Heaven hasn’t done all of this for us because we deserve it, but simply because we are his sons, his daughters in Christ. For as John says: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Amen.
