The Prodigal's Resurrection

During the early part of his ministry, Bryan Chapell was speaking at a series of meetings held by a small church.  More people than expected began attending and the church had prayer meetings for those who were coming.  As Bryan listened to the people pray, he noticed that no-one prayed for one particular young woman who had a notable punk haircut.  Bryan suspected that no-one was praying for her because she wasn’t the sort of person that they wanted in their church.  So he spoke to the pastor.

‘Oh, that is our Maria,’ the pastor replied.  ‘She is a loved part of this church family.’  Then he told Bryan her story.

Maria grew up in a family that was indifferent to her.  She attended the church’s Vacation Bible School as a child.  She was quite troubled and wild.

On one occasion her class in school took an excursion to a local university.  There she met a young man who asked her out.  She was flattered, and romance blossomed.  They got married in a few weeks.  Then Maria discovered how this guy afforded his car and apartment.  He was dealing drugs.  She told him that she was trying to escape that sort of lifestyle, and that if he didn’t stop she would leave him.  He threatened that he would kill himself is she left.  He didn’t stop dealing drugs, she left and he did kill himself.  She was now fifteen, a widow and pregnant.

Maria decided to turn to the only people who had shown real kindness to her—the church.  As they loved her, she fell in love with Jesus.  She was a regular part of that church community, was coming to the meetings and bringing one of her friends with her.  Maria had discovered the grace and life that this parable is all about!

I know that I have spoken on this parable a number of times before, but I have never dealt with one of its crucial themes.  This is a resurrection story.  Look at the words of the father to the elder brother, ‘your brother was dead but is now alive.’  This is the story of the prodigal’s resurrection!

The departure

The younger son had it all.  He belonged to a wealthy family who could afford servants, hired men and a fattened calf.  He had a future with an inheritance awaiting him.  Most of all, he had the most amazing father.  This father does not change in this story.  The loving and gracious man that welcomed the son home is the same man that the son left.  Many young people crave a father like this.  But he did not value his father’s love.

This story is like the human story.  Our first parents, Adam and Eve, had it all.  Yet they did not value our Heavenly Father’s love, and so they rebelled against him.  We have continued in that rebellion.  ‘We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one turning to their own way’ (Isaiah 53).  By nature we have lived with hostility towards God’s loving rule.

The death

As I thought of this parable, I asked myself, ‘in what way did this young lad die?’  I was surprised about how many ways there is.  To start with, he was leaving family, home and community—in that culture it would have not been unusual for there to have been a funeral when such a disobedient child walked out (he was now dead to them).  He was morally dead—the law said that such a child deserved to be put to death.  His older brother describes him as a ‘waster’—he was living a life with no direction and purpose.  He surrounded himself with shallow friends who were nowhere to be seen when his cash ran out.  The father said he was lost.  He was financial bankrupt.  He was alone and despised.  He was rejected by people who would not feed him.  He was in danger of dying in a famine.

The New Testament says that without our lives being centred on Jesus we are like the leaving dead.  We are dead in transgressions and sin (Ephesians 2).  Without Jesus our life lacks hope, purpose and meaning.  We are morally bankrupt.  We are on a road without any hope that is heading to what is called the second death.  Ours is a story of death.

When we were in Croatia, we stay in a lovely village called Jelsa.  Jelsa is a civilised place.  There are many tourists, but they are well behaved.  Yet we have gone to the capital of the island, Hvar town, a couple of times.  Hvar Town is popular with the younger, eighteen to twenty-five year-old crowd.  There is a different feel.  It seems that there is a lot more drink and the young people are seeking to pick one another up.  It is tempting to condemn.  ‘Would you look at the state of your man?’  ‘What does she think she is not wearing?’  However those young people need our compassion.  In their search for love they will use and be used by each other.  Their culture is empty.  Their friendships are shallow.  Their search does not offer meaning.  We follow a man who looked of the crowds with compassion, who came to seek and save that which is lost, who offered life in its fullness, and who came not to condemn but to save.

The deliverer

There was another son who had it all but went to a distant land.  This son did not go in disobedience but love.  He had it all but he gave it up for us.  He didn’t leave home seeking life but giving life.  How different Jesus is to the younger brother!

Yet, like the younger brother, Jesus experienced what it was like to end up in the pits.  He was rejected by fickle friends, he was left all alone, and he actually did die.  It is because of this man that we can be welcomed home and the heavenly Father can say about us, ‘she was dead but is now alive.  He was lost and is now found.’  Now resurrection life is ours.  The truth is that there is no longer any condemnation on us. 

Do we delight to be home?  Do we cling lovingly to the Father as the Father clings lovingly to us?  Are we glad that he has saved us from the perils of the distant land?

I want to finish by telling you about one of the most delightful Christians I have ever met.  Her name was Emma McCann, but everyone knew her as Auntie Emma.  She had been a member in the last church I served.

Auntie Emma was in a nursing home in Belfast when I first met her.  She had severe dementia.  My initial visit was only done so that I could say that I had called on her.  I couldn’t see what good I could do for her.  I did not realise all the good that she was going to do for me.

When I visited, I found a woman whose short-term memory only had a two-minute span, but whose mind was in love with Jesus.  She smiled as she spoke about him.  She declared her love for him.  She quoted hymns and verses.  I explained to Caroline, ‘that woman ministered to me.’  I have often wondered if such love would flow out of me if I my mind was stripped to its core.

Auntie Emma’s favourite hymn went, ‘I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold, I’d rather be his than have riches untold.’  She kept on reciting it.  You see, Auntie Emma knew how good it was that the she had been brought home to her Heavenly Father, and so nothing in the distant land shone so brightly any more.  She had been dead but brought to life.  She found what she was looking for and he gave her more satisfaction than she dreamed.  Now she is living in eternity with the source of her delight.

The value of one (Luke 15:1-7)

In 1920s America there was an unusual court case.  It concerned a man who tripped over one of those large ropes they tie to ships and fell off a pier.  He cried for help but his friends were too far away.  However, there was a young man sunbathing close by.  This young man was a good swimmer.  But he didn’t want to get wet.  The man in the water drowned.

The parents of the drowned man were so incensed about this they took the young man to court.  But they lost their case.  The judge ruled that sun-bather had no legal responsibility to go to the aid of a drowning person.

That is a reasonable picture of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees believed that they knew God, but had no concern for other people’s spiritual needs.  They failed to see that our God loves to forgive and they made no effort to reach out to those who need him.  How different they were to Jesus, the good shepherd who comes looking for lost sheep! 

1.      It awful it is to be lost

For a sheep to be lost was perilous.  Unlike dogs or cats, sheep don’t have a great ability to find their way home.  In a short time that sheep would become the victim of predators.  That sheep was doomed, unless the shepherd found it.  So the shepherd leaves the other ninety-nine in a safe place and goes looking.

It is an awful thing to be lost.  The apostle Paul says that before Jesus found us we were dead in transgression and sin … and children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3).  Jesus spoke of humanity being on a wide road leading to destruction.  Lostness results in death.  Charles Spurgeon writes, ‘if you are saved yourself, be on the watch for the souls of others.  Your own heart will not prosper unless it is filled with intense concern to bless your fellow men.  The life of your soul lies in faith; its health lies in love.’

2.    Look at the lengths that Jesus to find the lost

Finding a lost sheep in the rugged Palestinian countryside would have been a very strenuous task.  Some of those predators would have been a danger to the shepherd.  Today, many tourists go off wandering in those same isolated hills and end up having to be brought home on stretchers because of over-exposure to the elements.

Not only are people lost, they have chosen to go astray.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us turned to his own way (Isaiah 53:6).  We weren’t looking for him; we were hostile to him (Romans 8:7).  The good shepherd left his heavenly home, stepped into the wilderness of a rebellious world, endured mocking and rejection and, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  This is personal.  Not only did Jesus die for a mass of humanity, he came looking for you personally.  Paul marvels, ‘I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). 

How gentle this shepherd is!  When he finds the lost sheep, after the long searching, he does not beat it.  He does not seek to teach the dumb, weary sheep a lesson.  He joyfully lifts it up.  That sheep is weak from its wandering, too weak to follow the shepherd home.  The shepherd has to carry it on his shoulders. 

Sheep are heavy creatures.  Our good shepherd is determined to bring us home.  He will not loosen his grip of us.  Having found us, he will not let us go.  Jesus says, ‘For I have come down from heaven … to do the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up on the last day’ (John 6:38-39).

3.     The celebration over those who are brought to repentance

The angels in heaven have an advantage over us when it comes to rejoicing over lost people being found.  You see, we are hindered by an earthy-perspective and a sinful nature.  Their viewpoint is from heaven and they are not tempted towards a harsh, unforgiving and critical-spirit towards people.  They spend their time gazing upon the splendour of our amazing God, and see just how gracious that God is to welcome sinful people as sons and daughters.  They know all about the lamb that was slain for the sins of his people.  They also are more aware of the terrors of righteous judgement that falls upon those who refuse to repent, and so delight in merciful heart of a God who rescues so many from the eternal punishment they deserve.

Don’t misunderstand Jesus’ words.  He is using irony when he speaks of righteous people who do not need to repent.  The Bible is clear that there are none righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10).  We live in a world where everybody is encouraged to believe that they are essentially a good person.  Such good people are enemies of the gospel.  My neighbour was telling me that he is an atheist, and then added, with a smile, but if there is a heaven he is sure to be going there.  After all he considers himself a good person.  Many sick people do not go to the doctor because they are ignorant of their illness and so miss out on the cure.

Conclusion

There is a quaint little story about some children who sought shelter from a storm many in a church many generations ago in England.  In that church a preacher was speaking on this morning’s verses.  He read from the King James Version, ‘And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.”  One of the children went up to the preacher after the service and said to the preacher, ‘Jesus receives me!  You said that Jesus receives sinners and Edith with them.  I am Edith!’

Jesus does welcome Edith and Paul and Edwin and Joan.  This parable reminds us of the value of one.  Jesus came to rescue millions of people, but he came to rescue them as precious individuals.  He welcomes sinful people and delights in their repentance.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Jesus used our feet to seek for the lost?  Sharing our faith is a missing ingredient in many of our lives.  I don’t speak as someone who finds evangelism easy, and I have missed many opportunities to speak about Jesus.  One writer says, ‘I’ve repeatedly found that it’s the Christians living out the unexpected adventure [of speaking about Jesus] who are enjoying the most fulfilling relationships with God.’  You see, Jesus wants you to share your faith not just because he has a love for the lost, but also because he delights to bless those he has found.

(The opening illustration, story about Edith and the insight about why angles rejoice were taken from Scott McKay, preaching at Saint John Newlands).

What are you ashamed of? (updated) (Luke 15)

In one of his sermons on the prodigal son, the great nineteenth-century London preacher, Charles Spurgeon, tells of how a dog won his affection:

‘When I walked down my garden some time ago I found a dog amusing himself among the flowers.  I knew that he was no gardener, and no dog of mine, so I threw a stick at him and bade him begone.  After I had done so, he conquered me, and made me ashamed that I had spoken roughly to him, for he picked up my stick, and, wagging his tail pleasantly, he brought the stick to me, and dropped at my feet.  Do you think I could strike him or drive him away after that?  No, I patted him and called him good names.  The dog had conquered the man.’

Spurgeon applies the lesson to prodigals.  If an imperfect man is inclined to have pity on a mischievous dog, how much more sympathy does God have for a wayward person who returns to him.  ‘And you, poor sinner, dog as you are, can have confidence enough in God to come to him just as you are, it is not in his heart to spurn you.  There is an omnipotence in simple faith which will conquer even the divine Being himself.  Only do but trust him as he reveals himself in Jesus, and you shall find salvation.’

Shame can keep us from feeling free in God.  Men, you may be ashamed of the things that you have viewed on your screens.  You have failed so often, that you wonder how God could still have patience with you.  Women, I don’t know the particular failings that you struggle with, but there are bound to be things in your life that embarrass you.  Parents, you may be ashamed of the many ways in which you have failed your children.  Maybe you carry the wounds of a parent who exclaimed, ‘I am so disappointed in you.’

I used to have a recurring dream.  It occurred when I first began paid work for a church.  In the dream I would be in the town’s supermarket, and I would realise that I was in my underpants.  I believe that I was having that dream because I was scared of being exposed.  ‘What if the people in the church knew what I was really like?  What if they knew of my struggles with lust, the insecurity of my faith and how little of the Bible I really knew?’  Do you battle the inner shame of feeling that you can’t live up to the image you present of yourself?  More painful still, maybe you are hiding secrets, because you are embarrassed about some things in your past and present.

A blogger called Tim Challies writes, ‘so many Christians live their lives racked with guilt and shame.  They think back to all the things they did, the sins they committed, whether two days ago or two decades, and live under a cloud of shame.  This shame hurts, it burns, it incapacitates.’  This morning we are going to see that God loves to cover our shame.

The young man brought shame upon himself, his family and his community

The younger son is doing something shameful in asking for his share of the estate.  ‘…in that culture, the normal response to this level of impudence would be, at the very least, a hard slap across the face from the father.  This would have typically been done publically to shame the son who had shown such disdain for the father’ (MacArthur).

As well as a public renunciation, there might be a formal dismissal from the family and possibly even a funeral for the son.  That would have been the only way to avoid allowing the boy to bring lasting reproach against the family’s good name.  However, the father ‘was willing to endure the pain of spurned affections and public humiliation rather than disown his son’ (MacArthur).  The Pharisees and teachers of the law who were listening to Jesus would have considered this father’s response to be shamefully weak.

As the younger son heads off to the distant land, he brings disgrace to his family, his village and his religion.  Then he lives shamefully among the pagans, and soon he experiences his own disgrace.  When famine comes, he goes to a farmer looking for work.  I doubt that this farmer was looking to employ anyone at that time.  But in that shame-culture you did not turn down a request for help.  So the farmer offers the boy a job that no self-respecting Jew could accept—feeding unclean pigs.

Shame kept him from returning home

So why didn’t he just head home?  I think that he stayed in the pigsty because he feared the shame that he would experience if he returned home.  Middle-eastern expert, Ken Bailey, explains that had he come home after dishonouring his village among the gentiles, he would have been greeted by people who would have broken a clay pot in front of him and declared that he was dead to them.  For the rest of his days, young lads, with nothing better to do, would have followed him around, taunting him and throwing dung at him.  He was also aware that his bitter older brother would never let him forget what he had done.  The shame he expected to be exposed to on returning home would be greater than the shame of feeding those pigs.

But, what actually happens on his return?  The father endures shame for the sake of his wayward son.  When the father sees the son in the distance, he sprints.  That’s significant.  In that culture there was a proverb that said you could tell the manner of a man by the way he walked.  Men over thirty did not run.  Respectable men walked in a slow dignified manner.

I don’t know if you have heard of Garrison Keillor.  He is a radio comedian that tells stories about an imaginary place called Lake Wobegon.  Lake Wobegon, explains Keillor, was the sort of place where everybody knew everybody else’s business.  In fact in Lake Wobegon people did not have to use indicators when driving because everyone knew where you were going.

First-century Palestinian villages were the same.  Farmers did not live in isolation amongst their fields.  For security they lived in villages and went out to work in their fields.  So everybody has seen the shameful son set off to the distant land, and they see the father lift his clock, expose his knees and make a fool of himself as he sprints through the village to embrace his son.

I know that what motivated the father to run to his son was his overwhelming feeling of compassion.  I also suspect that he was determined to get to him before the village could have their pot-breaking ceremony.  He did not want his son to experience such pain and disgrace.  If he gets to the son first, and accepts him, then, because of his status in that society, the rest of the village will have to accept him.  He is willing to be shamed to ensure his son is not.

The great nineteenth-century London preacher, Charles Spurgeon, says, ‘had the story been that of a selfish human father only, it might have been written that “as he was coming near, his father ran out, and kicked him.”’  Many fathers would have looked at the emaciated boy, in rags and covered in pigs’ dirt, and contemptuously declared, ‘look at the state of you!’  But not this father!  This father orders the best robe to cover the boy’s shame.

But not everyone wants to forget his shame

Apparently the fatted-calf could have fed up to two hundred people.  That means that the father is inviting the whole village.  He is showing hospitality to the very people who gossiped about his wayward son and looked down their noses when they saw him race out to greet him.  The father shows grace to those who shamed him, as we see very clearly in his dealings with the older brother.

But many people don’t want to face your shame

In that culture nothing was considered worse than shaming someone.  The older brother goes out of his way to shame his dad.  Ken Bailey says that it is hard to overstate the sense of embarrassment that would have been caused by the father having to leave the party and plead with the older son to come in.  Fathers did not plead, they simply yielded unquestioned authority.  No one in that society would have been shocked if the father had order the older son in and given him a public beating for showing such a lack of respect.  As he got up and left, I imagine the guests whispering to each other, ‘this father is making a fool of himself, again.’ 

The older son refuses to address his dad with any term of respect—the omission of the word ‘father’ is telling.  Yet the older son thinks he has nothing to be ashamed of.  With great self-righteousness he says, ‘I have never disobeyed your command.’  Like the Pharisees and teachers of the law, he covered up a cold and bitter heart with proud acts of outward obedience.  How sad it is that so many of us insult God as we cry out, ‘but I am a good person.’  Such pretence will fill us with the insecurity and slavery of having to put on a face to impress.   

Jesus endured shame for us

Thankfully, we have a very different older brother.  Jesus is the only person who has never done anything to feel ashamed of.  He is also the older brother who takes away our shame.  His are the robes of righteousness that cover our spiritual nakedness (Revelation 7:13-14).  Like the father, Jesus acted in a way that his society considered shameful so that we could be accepted home.  Crucifixion was not talked about it in polite company.  If a child talked about the crucifixions that had taken place that day, they might have been told to wash their mouth out.  However the writer to the Hebrews tells us to, ‘fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Hebrews 12:2). 

John Piper explains that Jesus’ ‘friends gave way in shaming abandonment; his reputation gave way in shaming mockery; his decency gave way in shaming nakedness; his comfort gave way in shaming torture.’

Conclusion:  It is sinful to hold on to our shame

I can’t tell you that everyone else will forget your past, but I can tell you about divine forgetfulness.  God promises, ‘I will remember you sin no more.’  He has covered our shame.  He wants us to be happy and free.

Sometimes we hold onto our shame because we are proud.  Rather than let God deal with it, we want to prove our worth.  We imagine a day where people could say, ‘you are so different than the emaciated wretch you once were.’  But such pride dishonours God’s grace.

And now we can be transparent.  We can admit to today’s failings because the blood of Jesus goes on cleansing us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:7).  While others might look down on us, we have the acceptance of the only one who really matters.  As the former slave-trader and hymn-writer said near the end of his life, ‘although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Saviour.’

Three sons and a prodigal dad (Luke 15)

A pastor used to counsel a young man who was struggling with alcohol-addiction.  What the young man did not realise is that the pastor saw out the window and watched him hide his beer before they talked.  Then after the man had told the pastor how much he wanted to be free from drinking, he would collect his beer again.  Now the pastor did not doubt the sincerity of that young man.  But he could see that that his addiction had control of him.  This got the pastor thinking: ‘Where does really power to change come from?’

We can offer lots of help to those who are battling various sins.  We can warn people of the consequences, encourage them to have accountability partners and avoid places of temptation.  But nothing brings change with the same power as experiencing the love of God.

So we are going to look at a parable that magnifies the life-transforming, sin-defeating and joy-giving love of God.  I call it the parable of the three sons and the prodigal dad. 

Son 1: The rebel

Jack Miller, writes, ‘Many times we think, whether consciously or unconsciously, that we can go on vacation from God.  What’s really happening is that we think of God as the enemy of our happiness, and we go our own way.  But God is not our enemy.  He’s our friend, and he wants us to be happy and free.’

The younger son wasn’t satisfied with his father’s love.  So he makes a callous request.  Father, give me my share of the estate.  The estate would normally have been divided up after the father’s death, but this son is saying, ‘I can’t wait for you to die.  Your being alive is getting in the way of my fun.  So sod the conventions and give me my inheritance now.’

he son then turns his inheritance to cash.  In a culture where you spent years bargaining over fields, he sold in a rush.  You can be sure that he didn’t get anywhere near the best price.  There is always something very foolish in our rebellions against God.  The psalmist reminds us that many are the woes of the wicked.  Sin always brings some measure of sorrow and emptiness.

The younger son is also incredibly selfish.  That land had been in his family for generations.  But he goes off, sells it and squanders it.  He has no intention of providing for his father in his old age or passing on an inheritance to future descendants.  Every sin has self as a root—self-centredness, selfish, self-righteousness, being self-absorbed, self-importance, and so on. 

Then he sets off for a distant country with no intention of ever coming home.  When famine comes, and the son is dying from hunger in a famine, he is getting exactly what he deserved.  Death is what our rebellion deserves.  But God loved us when we were dead in transgressions and sin, sending his Son to die for us while we were still hostile towards him, and now continues to love us even though we are so often filled with self-interest. 

The prodigal father

The word prodigal can mean ‘wasteful’, and so fits the younger son.  However, ‘prodigal’ also means ‘lavish’, and this father is lavish in his love.  Tim Keller calls his book on this parable, ‘The Prodigal God’.

The younger son comes to his senses and travels home with a plan.  ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’  He doesn’t seem to understand his father’s love—his father wants him as a son, not a hired man.  Maybe, in pride, he thinks that he can start to pay back some of his debts.

The father, who has been spending his time looking at the horizon, is filled with compassion when he sees his son.  Apparently, the Greek word translated ‘compassion’ is a word filled with deep emotion, and is only ever used in the gospels of Jesus or people in his parables who act like him.  So the father sprints, literally falls into the son’s neck, and kisses that boy again and again and again.  The son had come home preparing to kiss his father’s feet; instead, the father is kissing the son’s pig-stinking head (MacArthur).

Now look carefully at what the son says.  ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  What about being made a hired man?  It’s unnecessary.  That’s not what the father wants.  The father wants him as a son.  The son realises it would be an insult to attempt to pay back his debt.  It is the kindness of God leads to genuine repentance (Romans 2:4).

The father looks on the dirty ragged lad with delight.  Gets the finest robe (I can’t help thinking of how our spiritual nakedness has been covered in the robe of Christ’s righteousness).  Then he gives the son a ring—I love this, the signet ring was used for commercial transactions (imagine that the father gives a role of responsibility to such an untrustworthy boy!).  God entrusts us with the greater privilege of being ambassadors of Christ.  Whereas slaves went barefoot, sons wore sandals on their feet—Christians are sandaled people!

Son 2:  The Resentful

I am actually more struck by the love of the father for the elder brother than the younger.  This elder brother is a cold, hard-hearted, mean-spirited, arrogant, self-righteous, bitter young man.  Remember that this son represents the Pharisees and teachers of the law.  Like the older son, they resented how Jesus welcomed home notorious sinners.  Yet Jesus uses this story to show God lovingly pleading with them to come and join the celebration of grace.

The older son hears the music, and I think he knows exactly what is going on.  There has not been a party in that house since his brother left home.  He is filled with anger.  Then he goes out of his way to embarrass his dad.

The son does not address the father with a customary term of respect.  No title, no affection, no respect. Then the accusations begin.  ‘All these years I have been slaving for you.’  Don’t be too impressed by his words.  He is the heir to the estate.  His father is rich enough to have servants and hired men.  The elder son’s work didn’t involve breaking his back.  He would have sat in the shade and organised the labour.  I imagine his work was actually very satisfying. 

Does he not realise that his father didn’t want him as a slave but as a son?   Does he not realise that his father wants him to enjoy his love?  Does he not understand that his father is not looking for him to justify his existence or pay his way?  The older son does not value the father’s love!

The older son blames his dad for the younger son’s rebellion.  He refers to this son of yours.  He is not my brother but your son.  ‘It’s your fault that he is such a failure.  It is your fault he left home.  You were always too soft-hearted.’  He then actually seems to suggest that the father owes him an apology, for not being generous to him, even though everything his father had was actually at his disposal. 

This son, like all self-righteous people, deserves to be left outside the party—so many people refuse to see their need of grace and so they are heading for hell.  But how does the father respond to the calculated insults of the older son?   He addresses the elder son with the tender address, ‘My son’(using a different word, than the word translated son, meaning, ‘my child’).  He loves this cold-hearted young man.  Through this story, Jesus is inviting proud, self-justifying people to repent of their hostile hearts and experience the joy of grace.

Apparently there was a custom, which still exists in many cultures of the world, where the eldest son would serve as head-waiter at such a party.  It was designed to complement the guests by saying, ‘you are so important to me, that my eldest is your servant.’  The elder brother was not willing to humble himself for his brother, and, like the Pharisees felt no joy at the thought of rebels being granted forgiveness.  However, all through this chapter of Luke there is the picture of heavenly celebration over rebels coming to repentance. 

Son 3: The rescuing brother

There is a third son in this passage.  There is the son who is telling this parable.  Jesus is both like the father and is also a complete contrast to the elder brother.  Jesus is the elder brother we are longing for.

The elder brother did not want to humble himself as and serve as head-waiter in the party on honour of the younger son.  Jesus has humbled himself in order to bring us home.  ‘He who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross’ (Philippians 2:6-8).

One commentator suggests that the elder brother would have been expected to plead with the younger son not to go, and then when he left to lead a search party to the distant land.  Jesus, our older brother, left heaven, to a distant land, coming to seek and save that which was lost.  Like the shepherd, earlier in this chapter, who came looking for lost sheep like us! 

The younger son’s return must have cost the older brother.  The younger son has sold his share of the land.  He will now live on what would belong to his older brother.  The party was being funded with money that would have eventually come to the older brother.  Was the father planning to give the younger son another inheritance?  That would cost the older brother.  This may be a part of his resentment.  Yet we will not have any chance of fully grasping God’s love until we realise the price that Jesus, our older brother, was prepared to prepare for our homecoming.  ‘This is love,’ says the apostle John, ‘not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’

Conclusion—what you love the most will control you

A young man was training to be a pastor.  At weekends he spoke at a little small country church.  One Sunday, an elder at the church asked if he would like to join this family for a picnic.  They went to restored Victorian village, at a spot where the Mississippi river was a mile wide.  Everything was beautiful in the autumn sunshine.  Then the elder’s daughter asked him to join her for a walk.  He really liked her, so he did not say, ‘actually I am sitting here enjoying the view!’  His greater love for the girl moved him away from his love for that view.  (When I heard him tell that story, he pointed out that he has been walking with that girl now for over forty years.)

We sin because we love the pleasures that sin offers.  The younger son went to the distant land because he desired the pleasures it offered more than he desired to be at home with his father.  The elder son would not go into the party because he loved self-righteousness and he hated grace.  James says, ‘each person is tempted when he is allured and tempted by his own desires.’

So how do we overcome those desires?  We overcome our love for sin by displacing it with a greater love.  Jesus was not nagging the disciples when he said, ‘if you love me, you will obey my commands.’  He was simply pointing out that what we love the most controls us.  We obey God when our love for God displaces our love for sin.  But this love for God is God given.  ‘We love because he first loved us.

So, your primary spiritual problem is not that you don’t love God enough—although, like me, you don’t love God enough.  Your primary spiritual problem is that you don’t realise how much God loves you.  That is what makes reading a passage like this one so life-transforming—God uses the beauty of the gospel applied through the person of the Holy Spirit to cause us to love him more.  See the loving father coming to kiss you again and again.  See him graciously pleading with cold-hearted self-righteous people to come and enjoy the celebration of grace.  See how that father reflects the incomparable compassion of Jesus.  See your loving older brother who came from heaven to bring you home.  See him lay down his life that you might be a dearly beloved child of God.  Let that love melt your heart and change your life.

What are you ashamed about?

What are you ashamed about?  Are you ashamed of the things that you have viewed on your screens?  Are you ashamed of the many times you were too cowardly to stand up and identify with Jesus?  As a parent, you may be ashamed about the many ways in which you have failed your children.  As a son or daughter you may remember the sting of hearing a parent say, ‘I am so disappointed in you.’  You may be hiding a shameful secret. ‘What if people knew what I was really like?’ You may be ashamed about the times when you were angry, moody, impatient and oversensitive.

Tim Challies writes, ‘so many Christians live their lives racked with guilt and shame.  They think back to all the things they did, the sins they committed, whether two days ago or two decades, and live under a cloud of shame.  This shame hurts, it burns, it incapacitates.  It raises the question, what … is the place of shame, in the Christian life?

Let’s look at the parable of the father who covers his son’s shame.

The young man brought shame upon himself, his family and his community

The younger son is doing something shameful in asking for his share of the estate.  ‘…in that culture, the normal response to this level of impudence would be, at the very least, a hard slap across the face from the father.  This would have typically been done publically to shame the son who had shown such disdain for the father’ (MacArthur).

The father would have been expected to give the boy a ceremonial slap across the face, a public renunciation, formal dismissal from the family, and possibly even a funeral.  That would have been the only way to avoid allowing the boy to bring lasting reproach against the family’s good name.  The father ‘was willing to endure the pain of spurned affections and public humiliation rather than disown his son’ (MacArthur).  Jesus’ hearers would have considered the father’s response to be shamefully weak. 

Sons were to be a source of pride and joy.  This son could be seen as a source of embarrassment.  The law told children to honour their mother and father.  The law said that he deserved to die.  As he heads off to squander his wealth in the distant land, he brings disgrace to his family, his village and his religion.

He lives shamefully among the pagans, and then he experiences his own disgrace.  When famine comes, he goes to a farmer looking for work.  I doubt that this farmer was looking to employ anyone at that time.  But in that shame-culture you did not turn down a request for help in that culture.  So the farmer offers a job that no self-respecting Jew could accept—feeding unclean pigs.

The hymn-writer, John Newton, pondered the prodigal and has him ask, ‘what have I gained by sin, but hunger, shame and fear?  My father’s house abounds in bread, while I am starving here!’

Shame kept him from returning home

Why didn’t he just head home?  He stayed in the pigsty because of what he feared would happen if he returned to his village.

Middle-eastern expert, Ken Bailey, explains that had he come home after dishonouring his village among the gentiles, he would have been greeted by people who would have broken a clay pot in front of him and declared that he was dead to them.

For the rest of his days, young lads, with nothing better to do, would have followed him around, taunting him and throwing dung at him.  He was also aware that his bitter older brother would never let him forget what he had done.

The shame he expected to be exposed to on returning home would be greater than the shame of feeding those pigs.

The father endures shame to cover his shame

But, what actually happens on his return?

His father saw him from a distance, was filled with compassion and sprinted to meet him.  That’s significant.  In that culture there was a proverb that said you could tell the manner of a man by the way he walked.  Men over thirty did not run.  Respectable men walked in a slow dignified manner.  Farmers lived in the village and went out to the field; so everyone sees him as he lifts his robes, exposes his knees and races through the village.

One of the reasons he ran was to get there before anybody else.  Remember the pot-breaking ceremony?  He did not want his son to experience such pain and disgrace.  If he gets to the son first, and accepts him, then, because of his status in that society, the rest of the village will have to accept him.

Spurgeon says, ‘had the story been that of a selfish human father only, it might have been written that “as he was coming near, his father ran out, and kicked him.”’  Many fathers would have looked at the emaciated boy, in rags and covered in pigs’ dirt, and contemptuously declared, ‘look at the state of you!’

But not this father!  This father orders the best robe and covers the boy’s shame.

But not everyone wants to forget your shame

Apparently the fatted-calf could have fed up to two hundred people.  That means that the father is inviting the whole village.  He is showing hospitality to the very people who gossiped about his wayward son and looked down their noses when they saw him race out to greet him.

However, while the father may have quickly forgotten the boy’s shame, you can be sure that not everyone in the village was so gracious.  His older brother was certainly not okay about it.

Many people don’t want to face their shame

While the younger son faced his shame and had it covered by the father, the older son had a different way of dealing with shame.  He denied he had anything to be ashamed of.  In that culture nothing was considered worse than shaming someone.  Yet it would have been considered embarrassing for the father to have to leave the party and go and plead with the elder son.  The elder son is trying to shame his father.  There would have been murmuring among the guests as they watched the father leave the room.  ‘His older son does not respect him.’    

Fathers in that culture did not typically plead.  They simply yielded unquestioned authority.  No one in that society would have been shocked if the father had order the older son in and given him a public beating for showing such a lack of respect (MacArthur). 

His older son refuses to address him with any term of respect—the omission of the address, ‘father’, stands out.  Yet the older son can say, ‘I never disobeyed your command.’  I have done nothing to be ashamed of.  Like the Pharisees and teachers of the law, he tried to cover over the coldness of his heart towards the father by self-righteous acts of obedience.  How tragic it is that many people will ultimately insult God by claiming that ‘I am a good person’ who does not need your grace!  Jesus pleads with the self-righteous to acknowledge their contempt for the mercy of God and let him forgive them.  We aren’t told if the elder son came into the party, we know that most of the Pharisees and teachers of the law continued to despise the grace of Jesus, but there were some, like Nicodemus, who began to celebrate the fact that God wants the proud and arrogant to come into the party of grace.  

Jesus endured shame for us

But we have another older brother.  He is like the father who was willing to humble himself to cover our shame.  Jesus told this parable on his way to Jerusalem, where he would endure shame for us!  The writer to the Hebrews tells us to, ‘fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Hebrews 12:2).  John Piper explains that Jesus’ ‘friends gave way in shaming abandonment; his reputation gave way in shaming mockery; his decency gave way in shaming nakedness; his comfort gave way in shaming torture.’  Jesus was utterly humiliated so that we would no longer have to live with our shame.

Conclusion:  It is sinful to hold on to our shame

Many people don’t want God to deal with their shame.  You would rather try to cover your own shame.  You try to prove to people that we are better than our shameful actions suggest.  You long for the day when the people say, ‘you are so different from that shameful wretch that returned from the distant land.’  The engage is self-justifying behaviour.  You are striving to prove yourself.  But God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

As well as pride, unbelief stops people rejoicing that God has covered their shame.  It is unbelief when people’s opinion matters more to you than God’s opinion.  The people of the village were not okay with what the son did, but he rests content in his father’s acceptance.  Does the fact that God is not ashamed of you more than compensate for the things people may say about you? ‘Jesus, I believe; help me in my unbelief!’

Tim Challies writes, ‘when I sin I should feel ashamed; it should cause me to run to my heavenly Father; but, as I receive his forgiveness, I must let go of my shame!’  Indeed, it is wrong for a Christian to hold on to their shame!