God's joy in redemption
In my late twenties, I was always interested in watching Tales of the Unexpected on the BBC; first shown in 1980, these short stories included Roald Dahl's writings. The stories generally had ominous undertones and were slightly comedic...but there was always a twist in the ending….and sometimes a shudder up the spine!
Whatever your opinion about Dahl, his stories for children captured their attention, and he became one of the most famous writers of children's storybooks. It's hard to deny the darkness that lurks in much literature for children; even the children's nursery rhymes Ring a Ring o' Roses or Oranges and Lemons satisfied the macabre, and never did the Brothers Grimm have such an apt surname.
However, for most readers, those dark undertones are seldom grasped because, without understanding the context, culture, and attitudes that existed at the time of writing, much of the actual meaning is lost.
Sometimes, a lack of understanding of the mindset of the society at the time contributes to an inability to completely appreciate the depth of Jesus's teaching contained within His numerous parables. Because what Jesus said then still holds, we must grasp the period's attitudes to adequately comprehend what he meant. People were less open about their sentiments than we are now, but they had deeply rooted beliefs and cultural views. They had unwritten norms, and comprehending them helps to explain the narrative. They had attitudes and expectations that they never spoke of, but everyone knew what was expected of them; everyone knew that honour and shame were the driving factors for these people and woe betide anybody who fell short.
Quickly, let's look at some background.
Three years into Jesus's ministry, the Pharisees and scribes tried to discredit him by claiming he was working with Satan. They used the fact that Jesus frequently hung out with tax collectors, prostitutes, and people expelled from the synagogue. They claimed that Jesus was cosy around Satan's followers but not God's.
These sinners came to Jesus, and at the end of chapter 14, Jesus says,
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
It seems these sinners had ears and wanted to hear…so they came, and Jesus taught them.
In response to the grumbling and accusations from the Pharisees, Jesus started to teach the three parables in Luke 15: the lost sheep, the lost coin and what is frequently known as the prodigal son. These are parables about God's rejoicing over sinners who repent and the joy in heaven when what was lost is found.
Two sons, one father… that's the set-up here. One day, the younger son says,
"Father, give me the share of property coming to me."
Here is a son showing a complete lack of love and gratitude for everything his father and those before him have worked for. It was almost a demand, equivalent to saying, "Listen, Dad, I've got a plan; I want to be free of this family; I want to be free to do what I want to do, and I've got this great plan that doesn't include any of you, but to carry it out I need my share, and I want it now"… it's exactly like saying, "I wish you were dead" because that's when you generally get your inheritance.
Those listening would have been expecting the tale to continue in a typical manner, that the father would have reprimanded his son, that he would have publicly shamed his son and revoked his inheritance. The father, family, and community would have considered the son dead and disowned. This is why, in verse 24, the father says, "This son of mine was dead", and in verse 32, "This brother of yours was dead."…in fact, it was pretty standard to hold a funeral for the troublemaker…he was that dead!...the son had humiliated the father, the highest shame you could think of.
There was only one way back……you paid restitution and earned your place back into the family….hold onto that thought!
Despite the agony of rejected love, the father still loves his son, so he would have apportioned the estate to his sons, 2/3 to the elder and 1/3 to the younger, as was customary.
This is God, giving the sinner his freedom, the sinner who wants nothing to do with God, has no relationship with God, has no love for God, and doesn't want to submit to God. So, God gives the sinner over to his desires, and as we read in Romans chapter 1, God endures the sinner's rejection and lets them have their way.
The younger son took little time to cash in all his assets.
v13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had…
….wow, he hardly let the ink dry on the scroll….he liquidated his assets.
So desperate was he to distance himself from his father and brother that he sold off his assets, probably at some cut-throat rate.
Here, we see the foolishness of the sinner who wants to get away from God. He sells cheap all the opportunities that God has provided for him to hear and respond to the Gospel, everything good that God has put into his life, and once he gets his cash, you can see what happens in verse 13:
"He went on a journey into a distant country."
Where did he go…well, any land outside of Israel was Gentile land, so he went into Gentile land…this is just getting worse…can this son dishonour and scorn his father much more? If the village didn't hold a funeral when the son first asked for his share, they certainly would have had one now. The son is dead…as far as everyone is concerned, he is dead and gone.
Needless to say, it didn't go well for him because it seldom goes well for those anxious to get away from God. He squandered his money on loose living and quickly discovered that a fool and his money were soon parted…and very quickly his money was gone…along with his new-found friends….and it's all his fault.
Then a famine struck; Jesus was making this young man's suffering worse in the narrative, but for a good purpose. Jesus wished His hearers to understand the horror this young man was going through and his plight of being without friends or money during a famine. For this boy, the party is most definitely over.
Jesus continues the narrative; the boy ends up begging a man, a Gentile, for anything he can get, and in this case, it was feeding pigs, including a chance to fight with those pigs for carob pods…for pig slop! Jesus's listeners are now hearing of a Jew in Gentile land, feeding pigs…for a Gentile!…this was shameful, unbelievable to those who were hearing it from Jesus.
The Pharisees and scribes hearing this must have been tearing their hair out! We cannot conceive how despicable they thought this conduct was. The son had rebelled and was now facing death; what a tragedy and wasted life.
And this is what sin is: sin is a form of rebellion against God the Father; it's to reject His love and relationship. It is to deny God, not to love God, to hate God, to act as if God was dead – to take all the gifts He has surrounded you with and squander them as though they were nothing.
The son accurately represents the foolish sinner who has gone as low as they can go – in the pig slop – empty, destitute, nowhere to turn, facing death.
Now, the son does the most sensible thing he has done since this tale began…the bible tells us he came to himself; he evaluated himself and his situation.
In verse 17, we see conviction in the prodigal son because, as soon as he came to himself, he said: I'm getting out of this pigsty. I can’t carry on with this lifestyle that brought me here. He said, "I'm going to go to my father. I need to apologise to my father. I'm going to confess to my father that I've sinned against him, but I've not only sinned against my father, but I've also sinned against God; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; please forgive me; I will work as a hired hand to make things right with you, to repay you, please let me back into the family.”
He's ready to return home to this man he knows to be merciful, generous, compassionate, and kind. He remembers the hired men at home had more than they needed to eat, and hired men were the lowest on the employment ladder…they worked for what they could get when they could get it and relied on the generosity of the person hiring them…there were no guarantees, no minimum wages, no fixed hours…their only hope was a generous manager.
So, as a hired man, he could earn enough to pay his father back, work his way back into the family, and hopefully be reconciled.
This was the usual way of thinking at that time….and the Pharisees and scribes listening to Jesus knew this and would have agreed. In this honour/shame culture, the son was expected to make restitution…to work for his forgiveness and reconciliation. This is how it worked and continues to work in many religions... You repent and work your way back; you labour for years till you can pay back, and perhaps you'll be welcomed back via suffering, hard work, and humiliation for years to come......and this was the son's plan.
The son would have expected his father to be "unavailable" for a few days, giving the village time to pour scorn and retribution on his head as he waited outside the home. He had to be shamed because shame was part of the process of forgiveness, of reconciliation.
When he was finally allowed in, there would be a less-than-cool reception from his father, a lot of grovelling, and he would find out how long he needed to work before any thought of reconciliation could begin.
Up to this point, the Pharisees are with Jesus; they agree with what he is saying but certainly don't anticipate what comes next in this tale because the rabbis taught that when a man feels sorry for his sin, to gain favour with God and be restored you do work– you worked to earn forgiveness, everybody understood that this was the way it was done.
But the father's actions in the remainder of the story suddenly turn the Pharisees' world upside down.
Instead of treating his son as dead, it seems the father was watching out for his return; having seen him in the distance, he did the unthinkable and ran, which was unacceptable for the Pharisees and scribes. In the Middle East, people of rank and any social standing just did not run because they had to take their robe in their hands, hitch it up and…. horror of horrors…show their legs and exposing the leg was considered shameful.
The father watched patiently for his wayward son….and God is still watching today; right now, God the Father is still looking for his wayward children to return.
Then we read of the father's actions on reaching his son, how he felt compassion for him, embraced him, and covered him in kisses. Visualise this boy; he has been living in the pig pens and fighting the pigs for food; he is dirty, smelly, and has the aroma of pig surrounding him in every pore of his skin. His neck, where he has sweated walking home, would have been ingrained with pig dung…he must have stunk…but his father kissed him on the neck and loved him. The father emptied himself of pride and honour and threw his arms around his son to protect him from being shamed by anyone else in the village.
We see here that the father is willing to bear the shame, the abuse, and the slander because he did not respond to his son's sin according to the rabbis' teaching and certainly not according to the expectations of the Pharisees.
He responded according to his love for his son.
This is truly amazing. Have you ever wondered how eager God was to have you home and receive you into His Kingdom? Here, we see Jesus teaching that God will embrace the sinner; He will run towards and embrace a repentant sinner that stinks in his sin, filthy from his sin, and plant kisses all over that sinner's head.
God longs to save sinners living in pig pens, reconcile them to Himself, and restore them to the family.
That father is doing precisely what Jesus did, what he did in our communities, our cities, towns and villages, what He did in our lives. He bore the shame, the slander, the ridicule and the condemning so that He could throw His arms around us, kiss us, and reconcile with us….regardless of how badly we stunk…regardless of how high our sins were piled up…and all this happened to the son without any need for him to make restitution…without any works. That's how it happens with us.
The son knows he's not worthy to be back in the family, to be a true son, but he has faith in his father, and his father responds with forgiveness, and God responds with forgiveness when we come in repentance and faith in Christ.
There is good reason why Jesus depicts the son as the lowest of the low, a despicable sinner. If Jesus can demonstrate his Father's attitude, love, and offer of grace towards the worst of sinners, then those listening to Jesus would understand that there is hope for those who aren't as bad…..that there is hope for them.
We know that in the story, the father orders the servants to give the son the best family robe; this represents the robe of the righteousness of Christ, without which no one can enter the Kingdom of God, the family ring that signifies he is a son and not a servant or a slave, and the sandals that are only worn by masters and sons.
This is a picture of salvation. When the sinner, just like the son, comes empty with absolutely nothing, throws himself on God's mercy, and says, "I've wasted everything. My sins are piled as high as heaven. I've sinned against you. I can offer you nothing. I will do what it takes." Then, God embraces him in love and says, "You don't need to work. I give you full sonship with all rights, privileges, honours, and authority."
That's salvation.
But the Pharisees still don't understand; they only understand the law and works.
They don't understand God's honour is within His loving grace and forgiveness.
This is undeserved forgiveness, sonship, salvation, and honour…and this is why the tax collectors and sinners came to Jesus; this is why Jesus associated himself with them.
They wanted to hear from someone who could offer what they needed most, from one who offered forgiveness. They wanted to hear from Jesus, who said, "God will forgive you, restore you and reconcile you.”
Like the sheep that was brought back, like the recovered coin, God is in the business of recovering needy, washed-out, lonely, desperate sinners.
This is where He finds His joy. This is what gives God pleasure.
This is where heaven rejoices….the party wasn't for the son…the party was for the Father who rejoices in a sinner who repents just as the shepherd rejoiced over the found sheep, the woman over the found coin…God the Father rejoices over a found child.
And God holds a party; he celebrates His joy every time a sinner repents, and the party is for His honour, and heaven and the angels celebrate, singing in honour of a great and glorious Father who loves to reconcile sinners to Himself.
To God be all glory, honour and power.
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