Backsliding & Return

He had taken everything his father would one day leave him and spent it in record time. Foreign country, wild living, and then — famine. The friends who had enjoyed his money were gone. The only work he could find was feeding pigs, and he was hungry enough to consider eating their food. It was as far from home as a Jewish boy could get: spiritually, geographically, and socially.

"When he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'" He rehearsed his speech. He started walking. He was a long way off when the impossible happened.

The father had been watching the road. When he saw that familiar shape in the distance — even from far off, a father knows his child — something broke open in him. He felt compassion. He ran. He didn't send a servant with conditions. He ran himself, without waiting, without demanding the speech first.

This is the image Jesus gives us of God. Not waiting in cold patience. Not calculating whether the return was genuine enough. Running. Toward the one who is still a long way off.

Jesus tells the story of the running father in Luke 15 — but He bookends it with two shorter stories that make the same point. A shepherd has a hundred sheep and one goes missing. He leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one that is lost until he finds it. And when he finds it, he does not drag it home with a lecture. He "lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing."

Then a woman has ten coins and loses one. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds it. And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors: "Rejoice with me, for I have found my coin that was lost."

Jesus says the same thing happens in heaven: "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." The math of heaven is strange. The one who wandered and returned is the occasion for celebration that surpasses the ones who never left.

The father runs because joy cannot be contained. Heaven celebrates because the lost has been found. Your return is not a relief to God. It is a party.

The son still had his speech prepared. He started it: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." He got that far. The father interrupted.

"Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."

The robe was the honor covering. The ring was the family signet — authority restored. The sandals were the mark of a son, not a servant. All of it given before the speech was finished. The father did not need to hear the rest of the confession before restoring everything. He already knew. He was already celebrating.

And the older son, outside, angry — was invited in too. The father went out to him as well. The extravagance of the welcome was not wasted on the undeserving. That is the whole point. It is always wasted on the undeserving. That is what makes it grace.