How Deep the Father's Love For Us

How Great the Father’s Love for Us In Luke 15:11-32 we find a story told by Jesus Christ. To better understand the story it would help if we understand the situation that Jesus was in when He told the story. The Bible tells us that Jesus was speaking to a group of people that were known publicly as bad or sinful people. These were the type of people who would have agreed that their lives were not good. At the same time standing nearby was a group of Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious leaders who were very powerful. They pressured everyone to obey all their religious rules. They taught that if you didn’t obey all their rules and rituals then you could not be close to God. They also taught that if a person relates with sinful people he must be sinful as well. The Pharisees’ view was so extreme that they even taught to not even be with sinful people to teach them God, as Word. Luke 15:1-2 says, “Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Now tax collectors were considered the worst of the sinners. At this time in history the Romans had power over the Jews. If a Jew wanted and had enough money they could buy a tax collecting “franchise” from the Roman government which would allow them to collect money from their fellow Jews on behalf of the Roman government. The tax collectors were then allowed to collect as much as they wanted as long as Rome received their part. In reality the tax collectors were almost like an Israeli Mafia who stole from their own people. Because of this they were often put out of their families, ostracized from their community and hated by everyone. But they were rich. These were some of the people that Jesus was spending time with and the religious leaders could not understand how a supposed “man of God” would ever spend time with sinners like this. In the Middle Eastern culture to eat with someone was seen by others as supporting their lifestyle or the type of people that they were, but Jesus did not worry about what people thought. We know from Luke 5:30-32 that Jesus believed that "It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Because of that he often spent time among the sinful people who were ready and willing to receive his teaching. So here we have Jesus Christ, the Son of God, sitting with and teaching people who were considered the worst of sinners, and standing not far away were the arrogant “super spiritual” religious leaders listening and judging every word that Jesus said. This is the situation that Jesus was in when he told the following story. Jesus told of a man with two sons. The younger son comes to his father and asks for his part of the inheritance. Now the inheritance was never given to the sons until the father died. So in the culture of that day it was the same as telling your father, “I wish you were dead.” But instead of slapping the son or having him publicly whipped to save the Father and the family’s honor, which would have been the normal response, the father grants the son’s request. In the thinking of Jesus’ listeners the father’s actions would have been unthinkable. Jesus is telling a story that is an extreme. In the middle east culture shame and honor are key. One avoids shame at all costs. This story was so extreme that the listeners are probably thinking that this story would never happen in real life. Jesus was describing unthinkable shameful actions so that the people would begin to grasp the unimaginable love of the Father. “The son then takes the money and goes to a distant country where he wastes all the money on wild living. Eventually the money ran out and the son was left with nothing. A famine comes to that foreign land and the son is desperate to find food. He hires himself out to a citizen of that country and is sent out to the field to feed pigs, but no one gave him anything to eat. “ The son, in a matter of months, spent all the money that had taken generations for his family to accumulate. How foolish this young man was. Such a disgrace, and it only got worse. For a Jewish person pigs were considered unclean animals. This would have been horrifying for the listeners that the son would have fallen to this point of desperation that he would even consider this type of work. Finally, the son “came to his senses” and made a plan. He would return to his father and beg to be made a servant, not a son. But even with this plan he was not being realistic. He had already taken and wasted more money than he could ever repay. According to Dr. Kenneth Bailey, an Arabic and New Testament scholar who taught at seminaries in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus for 40 years, gives this interesting perspective. “Jesus' original audience would not have seen this as the turning point. For the first thousand years, the universal Arabic translation was not that “he had come to his senses” but rather that the prodigal "returned to himself (nepash)" or more specifically "he would depend on himself". Had the son been repentant, Jesus would have used Shub, a Hebrew word meaning "return to God". The son is going to pay-it-back himself. He will not become a slave but rather a skilled craftsman so that he can restore himself. It is with this mindset that he returns to his village.“ Thinking he could go back as a servant and make things right would be the same as thinking you could pay back a billion euro debt with a minimum wage job. That kind of thinking doesn’t even make sense. A hired worker was the poorest of the poor. They were the ones who would gather in the city square each morning hoping that someone would come buy and hire them for the day to do some odd job. Scripture even commands that hired workers be paid at the end of a day’s work because that is the only way they would have money to buy food for their family. It is good that the son has realized that he has sinned against God and his father, but the belief that he could somehow make it right by his own efforts shows that he does not understand the size of his wrongdoing and the hopelessness of his efforts to make things right. Nonetheless the son started his journey home. Because of the shame that he had brought on his family and the failure that he experienced financially he was expecting to be ridiculed and ostracized by his community once he returned. That was part of the cultural punishment that was often received by people with grave misbehavior, but the father had other plans. Jesus described it with these words. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. If anyone should have been running it should have been the boy. He should have been the one begging for the mercy of the father, but instead the father ran. In Middle Eastern culture that was shameful. Middle aged men were never to been seen running and showing their legs. But in this instance we see the father gladly taking shame upon himself so that his son will be shielded from it. Because of the father’s actions the boy never experienced the punishment from the community. Instead “The father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So, they began to celebrate.” The son never even got a chance to present his idea of becoming a servant. The father immediately once again gave him son status by giving him the best robe, shoes, sandals, and the family ring that gave him full authority as a son. The father even prepared a huge celebration for his son who had returned. That is how God feels about the sinful person who comes home to the heavenly Father. Bailey says that in the parable, Jesus is redefining repentance to mean “accepting being found.” When we feel responsible for our own repentance (like the Pharisees did), there is tremendous self-imposed pressure to be “good,” to pay-it-back. The inherent problem with this approach is that when one focuses on being “good,” one forgets his or her relationship with God creating a endless cycle of going back and forth between feelings of self-righteousness and guilt. Yet, when we realize that God has taken the responsibility — with joy — for the finding and restoring us, we discover that much of what controlled us is released. The first part of the story was primarily given for the sinful people that Jesus was sitting with and teaching. It was a huge offer of mercy and grace and love to each one of them. But Jesus wasn’t finished. This story was also being overheard by arrogant religious leaders who were standing at a distance. For them he continued the story. Jesus told of the older brother who had never left home. He told how the older brother heard the celebration as he came home from working in the fields. He asked the reason for the celebration. When he found out it was for his rebellious brother who had now returned home, he was furious. The older brother refused to join the celebration. His father came out to talk with him but the older son just yelled at his father reminding him about how good a son he was and how he had never received a party. There was no love in his heart for his brother or his father, only for himself. This was Jesus’ message for the religious leaders. Although the older son stayed nearer to the father geographically his heart was farther from the father then the son who had left and now returned. This was true for Jesus’ listeners that day. Jesus was surrounded by sinful people who were now coming close to God and God was celebrating. But the religious leaders who appeared to be near God were really the ones who were farthest from Him and were the ones most displeasing to God. Their lack of love for others exposed their selfishness and godlessness. This story applies to us all. All of us have at one point in our lives been distant from God. Some have publicly turned their back on God while others have privately turned their back on God while still claiming to be near Him. Either way, God, like the father in the story, waits for us with open arms if only we will return to Him. This same unconditional love is offered to all those who will humble themselves before God and receive it. God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will inherit eternal life (John 3:16). Today may we become more aware of our sin and be left in awe of the greatness of the Father who loves us anyway.