"Lost and Found"

 

 "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."

"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old is gone, the new is here!" -- II Corinthians 5:16, 17

 

            Several years ago I got to see Rembrandt's painting, "Return of the Prodigal Son," at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is very large and very powerful emotionally, and there is much to see in it. I felt blessed to be standing in front of it. Clearly, Rembrandt had been deeply moved by this remarkable, astonishing parable. There is so much to see in the story, so much of both the Gospel and of ourselves in it. Artists have painted its scenes, writers expanded on its themes, preachers have explored every detail, and I'm sure a country and western song or two has emerged from it. Every time I read it I feel I am standing in the presence of something very special. It leads us to God's grace. It is an invitation to joy.

            We begin by reminding ourselves that this is a parable; it is a story that Jesus told. In the story the younger son reminds us of repentant sinners, like tax collectors who ate with Jesus and came to faith. The elder son reminds us of the Pharisees and others who valued holiness and earned righteousness and living a life separate from the world. The father reminds us of God who rejoices when one sinner repents. In this story we come to see the Father of Jesus Christ, the one Jesus wants us to know and love. For all that, it remains a story about a family, even as it points us to grace and to the path of repentance.

            The story has an open beginning and ending. We enter in the middle of a family dispute, and we do not know why the young son wants his inheritance or why he wants to leave. At the end of the story the elder son is still standing outside the celebration. He has been invited. We do not know if he will attend. It is these open ends that allow us to step into the story, to make it our story.

             There are some Old Testament Scriptures that help us in reading the parable. Jesus was very much formed by the Word.

            In Jeremiah 31:18-20 Ephraim moans, "Restore me, and I will return, because you are the Lord my God. After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth." Then the Lord responds, "Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him."

            Psalm 103 says the Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him."

            When we told this parable to our VBS children, we used some simple visuals. Here are the pigs. They are cute and pink and look friendly and loveable. But the point in the story is that for the Jews pigs are an unclean animal, and they are not allowed to eat them or to touch them. The younger son goes into a far country and he "scatters his property" in that land. When he runs out of money, in desperation he "attaches" himself to a Gentile farmer who raises pigs. He was not hired to a job with pay. The custom was that if you were in need, you could follow a farmer around and he would be obligated to show hospitality to you, and provide work. So this farmer sent the young man to care for the pigs in order to get rid of him. He thought this  young man would leave rather than become ritually unclean. So the boy traded a relationship with his father for an attachment with a farmer who did not feed him, but made him unclean.

            The young son also had attached himself to prostitutes. He bought a substitute for relationship from women who did not care for him at all. He became morally unclean and attached himself in sexual sin, a sin that clings closely. So, because of his attachments, his replacements for relationship, he became in all ways unclean.

            The lost son pulled away from his family with his inheritance, and soon it ceased to bless him. He lived in the Far Country without father or family. He attached himself to one who did not feed him. He became unclean with prostitutes and pigs, and he lost his family, so that they could touch him. He died to the relationships that gave him life.

            At that point he begins a process of repentance. He is starving, unclean, cut off from all relationship. That is when "he came to his senses" or literally, "he came to himself." Have you ever experienced that? When things are going wrong and then you wake up, and decide to live in a new way, and admit what you have been doing is not working. You realize what is important in life, and begin to feel hope that it can be yours. You have no desire to continue in those ways that seemed to promise so much and turned out to be so empty. This is the grace of God. Sometimes God simply brings us to ourselves. You wake up with a longing for true relationship. You hunger for God. You feel deep sorrow for your sins. You stop blaming everyone else. Nothing has changed but everything is different.

            When he comes to himself, the young man begins to hope for a better life. He thinks again of his father's house, of the meaning of home. It no longer seems restrictive to him. He had replaced a relationship with God and with his family with a bunch of worldly attachments that led him to poverty. Now he sees his father in a true light.

            It is at the point of hope that he formulates an honest confession of his sin. He will say out loud that he has sinned against both God and his father. He owns what he has done. He sees that he did not just break the rules or express his freedom or search for his identity. He sinned against God. At the heart of what he did in all his sinning, was a breaking of relationship with his creator and redeemer. He had turned his back on God before he left home. Before he gave in to a host of temptations, he had strayed from God. His sin was also against his father. He named it. "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you."

             Sometimes people confess their sins and failures with many tears and great sincerity, but expect everything to be restored, to move ahead as if nothing had happened. But this young man did not demand the return of his rights as a son just because he had confessed his sins. Not only did he confess his sins, he admitted his unworthiness. When he finally gets to his father, he does not even ask for a job. He comes with no expectations, and places himself completely in his father's hands. All he knows is that he is unworthy to be a son.

            Klyne Snodgrass writes, "The Prodigal declares that he is not worthy of his own identity and wants something less. But grace lets him be who he is supposed to be." The great truth we see here, Klyne says, is that "humans are not legitimately inhabitants of the Far Country; they are children of the Heavenly Father."  

            The parable points us to repentance that restores a relationship with God, our Father. Jesus came proclaiming Jubilee, the forgiveness of debt and restoration of all things. He healed and he forgave, and in that Jubilee there is rejoicing. The lost are found, the dead are alive again. "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old is gone, the new is here!"

            The young son is drawn into a celebration by the embrace of his father. He is not invited to the party, he is carried into it. The father runs to him and embraces him. He touches the unclean one and welcomes him fully into the family. He does not take him as a hired hand, but as a son. He does not grudgingly offer a few carob pods eaten by the pigs, but he kills the fattened calf. He carries the lost sheep back into the fold. He receives the dead back to life. The Father wants lost people found. When they are, there is a party.

            The older brother is invited to the party. The one son is embraced, the other invited – both are welcome. There is a relationship with God that is so much better than the attachments of this world. Come to the Party! There is a joy in the Father that he longs to share with his people. He cleanses us of the uncleanness of sin. He transforms our personal holiness and obedience into celebration.

            Amen.