Coming Home

If there is one Gospel that seems to speak to me more than any else it is this one. But I have to admit that I have been reading the whole thing very wrong over the last 30 years. I have missed a great deal from this Gospel message. There is a simple statement that explain and helps us in the whole Gospel and this is it “There was a man who had two sons.” From this statement we can see that the whole story infringes on these words. IF we are constantly reminded of these words as we explore the story it comes alive.

So there are three main characters in the story the younger Son the Elder Son and the Father. Let us look at these in characters in turn.

The younger Son is described as wanting half of his inheritance and so in asking he goes off and spends all his money we are told on a life of debauchery. We are told that he then would have eating the food of the pigs. For the people hearing this it would have been the lowest thing to do.  He then “comes to his senses.” I am not sure if he does though? What he does is a typical thing that we have all done. He composes his speech and rehearses what he is going to say. He tells us that that he does not deserve to be called his Son. And yet let us again look back at the opening statement “A man has two sons.” He may not feel that he deserves it but the reality is that he is.

This is also our reality too. We sometimes do not feel that we deserve God’s love but the reality is that we do.

The elder Son is also an interesting character. His Anger to his brother is tangle able. Listen to the language “this son of yours” nothing to do with the fact that he is his brother. He is like a two year old. You can almost hear him say “it’s not fair” and stamp his feet. I wonder how many of us have done that in our lives. He also gives away how he feels about how he has spent his time working for his Father “I have slaved for you all these years.” He has felt like a Slave rather than a Son. And yet we go back to the original statement “A man had two sons.

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The elder Son shows us something about ourselves we too can feel angry when there seems to be an injustice especially when we feel that someone had done wrong and we might say “No one cares about how I feel.”

Let us now look at the response of the Father. The first thing that we notice is that he is looking out for his Son. He then runs to meet him something that men in the time of Jesus never did, He was filled with joy that he never even heard his Son’s apology and says “ Quick get the best robe” basically let’s have a party. He loves his Son that has rejected him. And then we can see how he deals with the elder angry Son. He basically tells him that he should celebrate that his brother has come home.

When we look at that beginning phrase “A man had two Sons.” Through their anger and running away, through their not understanding his love for them he showed compassion and love for both of them. He knew that no matter what they had done, no matter where they had been, no matter how much they pulled against their believes, and traveled far away from home, He was their Father and is ours too and loves us too and he waits for us too to welcome us home.