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The father in the parable of the prodigal son puts all of us earthly fathers to shame. He is, after all, the very picture of the Triune God Himself! “Who is a God like you,” Micah asks, “pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression…[who] does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love?” There is no other. There is no other God. There is no other Father we could possibly want.
“Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.” The young, impetuous son comes to the Father and essentially says to him: “I wish you were dead.” This was unheard of in Middle Eastern culture at the time of Jesus and even to the present day. Such a request was a major insult. Whether the Father granted the request or not, the son would have been shunned by the rest of the community — the household of slaves and hired hands, family, villagers. Everyone would have been rightly ticked off at the young son.
Have you ever said this, “Oh, what I could do with a windfall of cash”? One friend said this to me recently when we discussed this topic: “Be careful what you are asking for. How is it that most of us would get a ‘windfall’? Someone in your family has to die for there to be an insurance payment or inheritance.” He was right. Be careful what you are asking for.
But the young son knew exactly what he was asking for. He was cutting off all relationships with family and community. Here, the son not only asks for his share of the inheritance, but also goes on to sell off his share, take the proceeds, and go to live in a far–off country. He essentially declares that he can live without them all, that they all might as well be dead as far as he is concerned.
The amazing thing about the Father at this point is that he grants the boy's request. He allows his son to take it and sell it and go. He loves his son so much that he will allow him even his insult and his ability to reject the love and care of his Father. The boy is totally lost — dead, even — to his father, his brother, his extended family and community. Mammon is the new father of this boy. Money is the idol he bows down to and lives for.
This youngest son is the very picture of all of us as well when we give in to our sinful flesh. When you fall for the idolatry of this world, you are doing the same as this boy. You are rejecting the love and providential care of your Heavenly Father. Adam was the first prodigal son, the first to reject his Father. He rejected his role as the created child of God, as husband and head of his family, as defender of his wife, and instead allowed himself and his wife to fall, to lust for, reach out and take that which was not his.
Ever since, it is our nature that you and I lust for and crave that which does not belong to us. Jesus does not say in the parable why the son wants to cut himself off from his Father, his brother, his community. But think of why you do not get along with others. We so easily become preoccupied with that which we do not like about each other, forgetting all the many blessings God is constantly giving us through those He places in our lives. Petty jealousy, petty dissentions and arguments, worrying about the speck in our brother's eye while forgetting the log in our own. These are why someone allows their lust and covetousness to take over and replace the Fatherly care God gives us.
As soon as your sinful flesh sees what appears to be greener grass, when a shinier and more luscious piece of fruit that appeals to our lusting eye and heart appears on the other side of the fence, we look for the smallest possible excuse to abandon and reject those whom God has placed into our lives: our family members, our congregation, our school, our pastors, our coworkers, anyone who is our neighbor. You and I will look to reject first, and think about the daily vocations and callings given us by Almighty God later — maybe.
Maybe — if we hit the rock bottom through some preaching of the law, like a famine, and realize our sinful condition as the boy in the parable does. But if we never do, even if things seem to go on as normal — and sometimes God loves us enough to allow us to live in our own mistakes, just as the Father does for the prodigal son — we are in danger of living unrepentantly of our sin, acting outwardly for a lifetime as if we had gotten away with it. But God knows and sees in each heart.
The lost son lost everything in his extravagant living in the foreign land. Just then, a famine comes, and he becomes in dire need, but is still unrepentant. He is willing to become a pig herder for a gentile before he will go back home. He was willing to live among unclean animals, rejecting his Jewish faith as well.
But it came to pass: the pig herder received no charity in his need from anyone. Soon, at the point of death from hunger, coveting the food of the pig herd, he at last hits rock bottom. It takes getting to the point of death sometimes to stop sinful idolatry and foolishness.
Yet, the repentance was not yet full, not yet genuine. He will admit to sinning against God and his Father, admit he has committed an awful offense. But he will command his father how to make up for it. He'll tell him: “Make me as one of your wage earners.”
There are two problems. First, the boy will come back to the community, but will work for his father and thus live on the other side of town on his own terms, maintaining his independence from the Father and his brother. In other words, he wants the money, but does not want to live with the family.
The second problem is that he wants to pay the Father back. He thinks that perhaps he can make it up in some way to his Father. But how could one possibly pay off such a debt — the insult of cutting one's self off from one's family and one's community? How does one pay back selling a large parcel of the family's land to a stranger, and then leaving and frittering away all the proceeds, forever losing that wealth for his family? Can a value be placed on such a debt?
But you and I will think the same thing of when we sin before God and before our neighbors. We will regret our action enough to want to say we are sorry, to admit our wrong perhaps, and to even offer to make restitution for our wrong. But like the boy, we'll hope to smooth things over and still go on with the life path we've chosen. You and I will also think that perhaps there is a way that we can appease God and pay off our debt caused by our sinful behavior.
But you and I are mistaken, and so was the prodigal son. We are dead to our Heavenly Father, lost in our sins. There is nothing in us good that we can offer back to God for our sins. There is no smoothing things over, no making up for that which was done wrong, no repairing that which is broken, on our own, by our own efforts.
Yet, it is not a hopeless situation. The son returns home. But before he arrives, the Father is looking for him. The Father sees him coming, feels compassion for his son, runs to him, embraces him, and kisses him.
Where the son had rejected his father totally, wishing never to see him again, the Father watches and hopes for his son to return. Where the son felt no love for his Father and wished him dead, the Father has compassion on the destitute son. Where the son ran away to a far country away from his Father, the Father runs out to meet him. Where the son severed ties with his Father, the Father restores his son to his family and to the community. He embraces and kisses him, showing the community and family who would have followed this unusual running nobleman that the son is forgiven and still to be accepted.
More than that, the Father cuts off the son's plan. There is no repayment possible or necessary. He merely accepts the repentance of the son on face value. His forgiveness of the son is pure grace and mercy. The son is reclothed in the signs of his family — the robe, the ring, the shoes. The fattened calf is sacrificed for the whole community to celebrate. He was dead, but is alive again. He was lost, and is found.
It is not a hopeless situation for you. Repent. Return home. Depend and trust on the mercy and grace of your Heavenly Father. Be reconciled and restored to God today, freely, without price. That is the picture of God we see in this parable. God will freely restore and reconcile Himself to you.
God has done this for you by coming into the midst of our rejection, our covetousness, our lust, our idolatry, taking on our sinful flesh and our lost condition and our dead condition, and acting on our behalf, defeated these on His cross, turning our death to sin into the life of an eternal Easter. Where we could not pay back the debt of our sin, Jesus was the fattened calf sacrificed to atone for us all. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom you and I are the foremost. By grace, through faith, on account of Jesus, we receive mercy, patience, and pure grace from God: the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
God our Father embraces you by coming to you with His Easter victory in the waters of Holy Baptism, putting the robe of His Son's righteousness on you. He provides you with the ongoing feast of His forgiveness with the great meal of His Son's holy body and blood given under bread and wine. He freely absolves us of our sins, restoring us to the Heavenly Father, in giving us pastors to hear our confession, grant us Christ's absolution, and proclaiming the Gospel news in our ears.
There is a great hymn by the Lutheran hymn writer and pastor Paul Gerhardt that is not often sung by English Lutherans, and not in the pew edition of our hymnal. It sums up this picture of our true Father very well:
As a father, ever yearning,
Longing to be reconciled,
Seeks the prodigal's returning,
Loving still the wayward child,
So my many sins and errors
Find a tender, pard'ning God,
Chast'ning frailty with His rod,
Not in vengeance with His terrors.
All things else have but their day;
God's great love abides for aye.
[Faith and genuine love for God responds:]
Since there's neither change nor coldness
In God's love that on me smiled,
I now lift my hands in boldness,
Coming to You as Your child.
Grant me grace, O God, I pray You,
That I may with all my might,
All my lifetime, day and night,
Love and trust You and obey You
And, when this brief life is o'er,
Praise and love You evermore.(Lutheran Service Book #970, stanzas 4–5)
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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