The Story of a Father’s Love
The “Parable of the Prodigal Son” speaks to us all on many levels because it has emotions in it that we can easily identify with. It has grief, joy, desperation, elation and rage. It is also has an open ended, unresolved and raw finish, just like life. This story that Jesus gives us just doesn’t have a happily ever after kind of feeling we like from stories and movies. But that’s not really how life is either. Is it?
Real Life Intrudes
We don’t know for sure that we will find eternal love, get that next promotion, ace that next test, get our kids back on the right track, and on and on. Many fine this a great distress in life because they don’t know what’s coming next for sure. But if that is our mindset, we miss out on the great adventure which is life. We get busy ,moving to the next thing, watching for the next emergency or planning for the next contingency that we forget to relish the present and the lessons it has to bring us.
There are questions in this parable which we must search ourselves to answer?
- Did Dave, Jr, the older son, back down to the house and go in?
- Does Dave, Jr. accept his brother back with open arms, eventually?
- Are they like the boys on the Ponderosa, who watch out for each other but never seem to quite have it together? (you know- Adam, Hoss and Little Jo)
- Does Dave, Jr leave the farm?
- Will Philip, the younger son, really see the light and get his act together?
These sound like questions from a soap opera commercial. But, these are human concerns and have little to do with what Jesus is talking about in this moment?
Why parables?
Christ’s purpose in using parables was to teach people on a level that they could understand and identify with. He is trying to demonstrate, in word pictures, the magnanimity and grandness of God’s love for all of his children, especially the lost ones.
Although he has probably had his heart broken and been deeply wounded by his younger son’s foolishness and rebellion, the father, Dave, Sr. expressed pure and unadulterated joy, when his contrary son came dragging his you-know-what home. Who would not be moved by that kind of love? Dave, Jr. (the older son) has only steely-hearted resentment over the father’s mercy to his brother.
The central message of the parable, then, is an urgent and sobering entreaty to hard-hearted listeners whose attitudes mirrored the elder brother’s. The parable of the prodigal son is not a warm and fuzzy feel-good message, but it is a powerful wake-up call with a very solemn warning.
Learn to celebrate the lost who have been found.
Look into your heart.
What is your heart made of, and what is it made for?
Go and do that!
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