Red Rock News March 28, 2025
- Rev. Dona Johnson |March 30, 2025
The Prodigal Son is a beautiful parable of a father’s love for his rebellious son. Many a parent who has had a strong-willed child, understands very well this painful family dynamic.
Jesus provides a story of such a child, who felt entitled and emboldened to demand his part of his father’s estate before his father dies. Surprisingly, the father honored the callous request of his son. The son wasted no time in squandering every cent of his inheritance. Then a famine struck the land. The son found himself working knee-deep in the slop of a pig-pen. After the son hit rock bottom, he had a change of heart. He decided to come home. He pleaded with his father to take him back not as his son but as one of their servants. The son understood how his rebellious behavior had deeply hurt his father. He felt the shame and guilt of his sins. Now when the father looking out at the horizon, saw his son walking towards home, rather than scold him he grabbed him and kissed his son with a tight embrace. The boy’s homecoming was such an answer to the father’s prayers, it felt like soothing balm on the open wound of his troubled heart. The father responded with a great deal of love and forgiveness. In fact, the father’s heart was so moved by his son’s homecoming that he called to his servants to cloth his son in a robe, a sign of honor. Then he called for a signet ring to be put on
his finger, a sign of authority. Then his father called for a feast to celebrate his son who was dead but came back to life. He was lost and now has been found.
So who is the hero here, the son or the father? This story should be called the parable of the loving father, for it demonstrates how the father’s love for his son eclipses the sin of his son. How often do we offer our forgiveness while also holding a grudge? How often do we offer forgiveness and continue to make the person who wronged us pay for it? Yet, this father expressed no recrimination towards his son only intense joy. When we repent, the Holy Spirit carries us home to Christ’s heart in heaven where we are covered by his righteousness, and we learn to follow and emulate a new way of life.
William Barclay gives a wonderous illustration of the father’s love. “Once Abraham Lincoln was asked how he was going to treat the rebellious southerners when they had finally been defeated and had returned to the Union of the United States. The questioner expected that Lincoln would take a dire vengeance, but he answered, ‘I will treat them as if they had never been away.’
Jesus’ parable points to the very heart of the Christian faith, the unconditional love of God for his people—all people. No matter how far we’ve strayed from God, no matter how deeply we rejected his love for us, when we do come home to God with repentant hearts, God responds in love as if we had never left.
God’s love can defeat the most hardened and rebellious of hearts. God is more merciful in his judgments than we make him out to be. Where we refuse or make forgiveness difficult, God, will forgive when we refuse to. God takes on the responsibility and the burden without counting the cost to find us and bring us home. That is amazing grace!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, we all have prodigal strands of rebellious entitlement and we often fail at faithfully stewarding what you have so graciously given us. Call us back to our first order calling, to sit quietly at your feet, in your holy presence and experience your profound and unconditional love for us.
In Jesus’ + name, we pray. Amen.
- Rev. Dona Johnson |March 30, 2025