Father Runs
Luke 15: 20 – 24 The Prodigal Son
And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
But the father said to his servants, “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 fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. “ And they began to make merry.
In Ken Bailey's analysis of The Prodigal Son: As the son comes closer to his home, he would likely be feeling fear and shame. He wished his father dead, left family and community, and now he has lost everything. He expects to face his father’s and brother’s anger and rejection. Besides the family, the close knit community would also reject and banish him, as was the custom. Any Jew who loses his money among foreigners will face the Kezazah (literally “the cutting off.”) The Kezazah would be performed by breaking a clay pot at the feet of the prodigal as visual symbol to the prodigal that the community rejected him forever.
I would imagine that when the son saw his father (God) running to him at a distance, he would be struck with fear. In the Middle East, it was considered humiliating for men over age forty to run. As the father ran, he would have had to lift his robe--another humiliation. As the father drew closer, the son would see not anger--but joy. And when the father reached him, the father kissed him over and over.
After experiencing the father’s visible, costly love for him, the son’s manipulative speech was gone, and all he could say was that he is not worthy to be the father’s son. But the father restored the son: put shoes on the son (sons, not slaves, wore shoes); put his best robe on him; and put the ring on his finger (a signet ring would give him the power to transact business).
The imagery here is that of the son returning with dirty rags and a contrived speech. But it was the father’s costly outpouring of visible love that turns the son’s heart toward him--perhaps for the first time. The son’s work (repentance) is SIMPLY ACCEPTING BEING FOUND.
Told in conjunction with The Prodigal Son, The Lost Sheep provides vivid imagery of this as well. For details please see the Parables Tab. The lost sheep is lost in the wilderness. Once a sheep realizes that it is lost, it freezes, shakes, and can only bleat (cry out). For the shepherd, the act of finding and restoring the sheep often takes two or three days. The good shepherd (God) takes the responsibility to find and restore the sheep. He does this with joy. The shepherd must carry the sheep—50 to 70 lbs. for an adult sheep--because, even when the sheep hears the shepherd’s voice, it cannot move because it is too scared. Here too the sheep is not able restore (repent) itself. The only thing the sheep can do is accept being found and have the shepherd restore it.
God joyfully takes the responsibility to find us and restore us. We too simply need to accept being found. Throughout the bible, grace is proclaimed. In these parables, Jesus explains why God came to us in Jesus, and why he chose to die. We, like the prodigal, want to run our lives ourselves--even if we starve. On the prodigal’s return home: he didn’t want to be reconciled with the father: he wanted to get food and pay back the money himself. This is true for us as well. Even when we return to him with wrong motives, God wants to restore us as his sons and daughters.
The following quote is taken directly from The Cross & the Prodigal,“The father’s suffering at the beginning of their estrangement has no effect on the prodigal. He is not even aware of it. A demonstration of the father’s suffering for him must be witnessed by the son. Without this the son in his callousness will never discover the suffering of his father and will never understand that he is its cause. Without this visible demonstration the prodigal will return to the house as a servant. Quite likely he will gradually take on more and more of the characteristics of his older brother. (Please see below.) Without this visible demonstration of costly love, there can be no reconciliation. Isn’t this the story of the way of God as he deals with the sin of the world on Golgotha (location of the cross)?”
How we personally define repentance in large part defines how we interact with God and others. When we feel responsible for our own repentance (like the Pharisees), there is tremendous pressure to be “good.” The problem is that, when we focus on being “good”, we forget the importance of the relationship with God and endlessly oscillate between self-righteousness and guilt. We then project this thinking onto others. Yet, when we realize that God takes the responsibility (with joy) to find and restore us, we can release much of what controls us.