The joy of being the prodigal son
What was lost is now found, what was dead is now alive
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: 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 servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.
“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.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But 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.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”1
When we’re reading this, do we ever slightly feel for the older son? You know, he was upstanding, obedient, the example of what any parent would want for a child. He was never celebrated like this, yet just as soon as his younger brother comes home, a feast like no other is thrown for him.
“It’s not fair,” we say. The one who deserves the party doesn’t get one and is left working in the fields, and the one who absolutely doesn’t deserve anything gets thrown the grandest of celebrations fit for a king. So we approach our dear savior and say, “Jesus, this doesn’t make sense. Why would the undeserving son get all the praise and glory that should go to the deserving son? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Jesus knows what he’s doing here, and he has a way of surprising us and subverting our expectations. Just as soon as we think we get what he’s saying, he seems to go off script, and we’re left scratching our heads. Jesus takes the picture that we expected, and flips it in a way that’s unexpected.
This picture, this story that Christ tells, isn’t a picture of an earthly father and an earthly son – no, Jesus paints a picture that tells a story of all of us and our relationship to our heavenly Father.
When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they took the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the inheritance that they wanted now, even though God knew that they wouldn’t be able to handle it. They broke his only command to them and brought chaos upon the world.
We also get graces and blessings that God bestows upon us in life, but we waste them recklessly. We take what God has given us for granted far too often. It’s easy for us to miss his goodness because we have a habit of tainting it and transforming it into sinfulness.
We, whether we admit to it or not, are like the prodigal son. The son who takes this goodness, this inheritance from his father, and wastes it on sinful behaviors instead of good. We’ve all behaved just as recklessly as he.
Yet, God shows us that despite this wasteful living of ours not meeting what he would want, there is no better place for us to be than that of the returning prodigal. Poor, impoverished, in rags, completely broken, and beaten down.
I think the most astonishing thing is that the father of the prodigal is watching and waiting, as if he knows and expects his returning son. As soon as he sees that son, there’s no rage on his mind. There’s no wrath. There’s joy. There’s compassion. There’s mercy.
We’re told that the father noticed his son when he was still “far off,” as if the father was peering through his binoculars when he saw the broken, weary, dirt-stained face of his lost son. The father didn’t walk out to greet him or let him get all the way to the house. No, the father literally ran out to greet this son. It didn’t matter that the father was probably well advanced in his years and not as youthful as he once was. The father was moved so deeply that he didn’t hesitate and couldn’t wait a moment longer, and he immediately embraced his straying son.
The son starts to suggest that he’d do anything, that he is unworthy to be his father’s son, and would rather be considered his servant. He deeply realizes his depraved condition. He can’t live without his father’s providence. But to the father, this is nonsense. He doesn’t hold what his son has done against him. His son’s past is irrelevant, and he’s already forgotten any reason he had to be mad. He is so fixated on his state of joy and compassion that he makes it into a festival. The return of his lost son is worth celebrating more than anything else in the world.
This is the one thing that Jesus does best here in this parable and throughout all his life, for that matter. He shows us the heart of our heavenly Father. It’s been said that we dare not contemplate our God without first looking at his Son. This parable is no outlier. Jesus leads us deeper into knowing the heart of God.
I think there’s such amazing depth to this parable, and it’s so much to unpack. But that’s the beauty of Jesus’ parables – they are both rich in meaning, and they speak to everyone.
To us prodigals, God meets us where we’re at and makes no demands. He sees us, broken, beaten down, in desperate need. He knows we’ve done wrong, but he’s chosen to forget it. To not impute it to us. To not hold it against us. He’s there to forgive our sins, even before we’ve totally recognized that’s what we’ve needed or wanted.
God has such a huge heart of compassion. He ignores our demand to take anything less than what he’s willing to give. We were his children the day we left, and we’re still his children as we come stumbling back to him. Nothing could ever change that. He decides to exalt us in a way that seems unfair, but to God, nothing could be more untrue. He sees us for who we are, apart from our wrongs. We are his children, whom he loves and rejoices in because we’ve come back to him and we’ve recognized how much we need him.
He runs out to meet us. Our God is not passive; he’s very engaged and active and filled with compassion. He sees our wounds and covers them up. He embraces us and shows us that he’s loved us this entire time. Nothing could change that.
Also, we know that all of heaven rejoices and celebrates when we come back to our heavenly Father. In the verse before this parable, Jesus says, “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”2 As demonstrated by the parable, this repentance is less of a turning away from our failings, but a recognition of them and a posture that turns back to God and allows him to bind us up and take care of our mistakes and wounds.
This also speaks volumes about how God thinks about all people and how important it is that we are emphatic about the Gospel as those who have been blessed to be called prodigals. When the son returns, his father doesn’t crush him down or humble him – he actually does the exact opposite. God desperately loves all of his prodigal children. The people that we share this planet with. The fellow humans who are our neighbors. God loves all of them and actively wants to run out to welcome them back again.
There is joy in being a prodigal that God loves. An unimaginable amount of joy, in fact. God didn’t make us to just proceed to turn his back on us after what happened in Genesis 3, or else his book and story would have ended there. God continues to remain active and to show mercy and love to his creation. God loved us (and that includes absolutely everyone) so much that he gave his own Son up to take the place of us prodigals. He allowed his own Son to be humbled and punished in the way that we deserved, suffering a painful death and separation from our heavenly Father, so that we might be able to come back to God and let him love us freely.
As we know from the Prophet Hosea, God tells us, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”3 God does not delight in our attempts to please him of our own will. Instead, he much prefers to show us mercy and would have us acknowledge our reliance on him.
That’s what the older son got wrong.
He complains that he’s slaved away for his father. He demands that he deserves better, but the father is confused at the lack of joy in his older son and his jealousy.
It was never about being obedient to his Father; he just did so without any sort of joy. He ignored the blessings that he had in a different, much more dangerous way. He was apathetic to what he already had.
And this can be a warning to us too. A warning to not miss the point of what our salvation is supposed to be. A warning to remain joyful even when we are faithful and obedient. A warning that we can still end up despising God, even if we claim to follow him.
I can’t help but think that there are a lot of Christians who are missing out on the joy of being a redeemed prodigal because they are stuck in their ways about the law (and legalistic tendencies) to the point that sacrifice matters more to them than God’s mercy. It is never about what we could sacrifice for God, because he still loves us, no matter how faithless or faithful we are.
The older son wasn’t truly reliant on the unconditional love of his father, and so it’s no surprise when he’s upset that he didn’t earn his father’s love and that he made up conditions to his father’s love that weren’t there. The way his father loved him was just as unearned as the way his father loved his younger brother. His obedience didn’t do him any good in earning the love of his father; it just led him to ignore it.
We’ve all been both the younger son and the older son, but we do well to realize that we’re much better off as the younger son. The younger son who gets to realize time and time again how much God loves him. The younger son, who realizes that even when life has gone awry, they still have someone who will love them no matter what they’ve done.
We are prodigals, it is true. Prodigals who beg at the feet of a Father whose gaze over us doesn’t sway or falter. Prodigals, who are beloved children of God.
God’s kingdom isn’t one with rules or conditions. It isn’t earned or gained by our own vain pursuits. No, God’s kingdom is one without conditions. One where both the younger and older sons belong. One in which God is reconciling all of his children back to himself.
God is waiting for all of his prodigal children to come home. He wants them and desperately pursues them. Our God has set aside what seems to be the just thing to do and instead has chosen to be loving and gracious.
This is the story of his unconditional love, which doesn’t look upon our sinfulness but looks upon us with grace because the price has already been paid. You are worth so much more to him than you imagine.
So when you’ve made yourself weary in this world that has nothing good to offer, come home to him, and he will give you a place to stay and find peace and rest in him eternally.
The New International Version. Zondervan, 2011, p. Lk 15:11–32.
ibid., p. Lk 15:10.
ibid., p. Ho 6:6.