The Younger Son’s (Our) Return
1. Being Lost
The younger son left home with much pride and money. I guess, also with much excitement and self-confidence. He was ready to take on the world, live his own life, and do his own thing in his own way. He returns home with nothing; his money, health, honor, self-respect, and reputation, all wasted and thrown away. All squandered in senseless living without thinking. The painting illustrates his condition and lostness, the misery and suffering he has gone through. His head is shaven like a prisoner’s. He is dressed in torn undergarments. The soles of his feet tell the story of his long journey. They are scarred and one sandal is broken. We see emptiness, humiliation, and defeat; a man dispossessed of everything. He has become like a slave.
Last week we looked at the ways in which we leave our Father’s home. We leave home when we look for love, acceptance, and purpose in the things of the world. We leave home when we stop listening to the Father’s voice that tells us, you are my beloved. We leave home when we listen to the voices of others and self, and so pursue in the world the love, joy, and peace that only God can give and fulfill. The further we run away from the place where God dwells, the less we are able to hear his voice. And the less we hear his voice, the more entangled we become in the manipulations and power games of the world. Henri Nouwen explains well in his book how we become lost like the younger son. I am going to read slowly a long quotation from his book. Reflect on these statements, examine and ask yourself how this may be true for you. I know this is true for me. I have run away from the Father’s voice many times listening to the wrong voices, and have become lost far away from home. Every day I battle these voices and I must choose between leaving home and staying home.
“I am not sure anymore that I have a safe home, and I observe other people who seem to be better off than I. I wonder how I can get to where they are. I try hard to please, to achieve success, and to be recognized. When I fail, I feel jealous or resentful of these others. When I succeed, I worry that others will be jealous or resentful of me. I become suspicious or defensive and increasingly afraid that I won’t get what I so much desire or will lose what I already have. Caught in this tangle of needs and wants, I no longer know my own true motivations. I feel victimized by my surroundings and distrustful of what others are doing or saying. Always on my guard, I lose my inner freedom and start dividing the world into those who are for me and those who are against me. I wonder if anyone really cares. I start looking for validations for my distrust. And wherever I go, I see them, and say: ‘No one can be trusted.’ And then I wonder whether anyone ever really loved me. The world around me becomes dark. My heart grows heavy. My body is filled with sorrows. My life loses meaning. I have become a lost soul.”
When the younger son had no more money to spend and gifts left to give, the people around him showed no more interest in him. They noticed him no longer. When they could no longer use him for their purposes, he stopped existing for them. When no one wanted to give him the pigs’ food, he realized that they did not even consider him a fellow human being. He was truly and completely lost, and this brought him to his senses. He was disconnected from everything that gives life. He saw that his chosen path was the road of self-destruction that leads to only one place, death! He had to choose between death or life. He came to himself. He remembered who he was, his father’s son, and so he took the first step to return and come home. He chose life.
2. We Must Choose!
This is the spiritual struggle God’s children have faced from the very beginning. We must choose between life or death. “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life …” (Deut 30:19-20). This choice is always before us.
Every day we are tempted to believe the voices of self, the world, and Satan that say: “I am no good. I am worthless. I am unlovable. I am a nobody. I am only a burden.” When we listen to these voices and cling to our old life in the distant lands, we continue to wallow in our lostness. We lose touch with our original identity, with who we are, children of God. We drift further and further away from home and our Father. We are lost in darkness on the road that leads to death. We must choose — the enslavement and conditional love of the world or to be children of God?
When the younger son had lost all and hit rock bottom, he came to himself and realized that he is not a pig, but a human and a son of his father. His return home began when he reclaimed his sonship. In the same way, we must choose life by reclaiming our childhood, our identity as children of God. We must come to ourselves, to our senses, and remember who we are. God created us in his image, and he saw that it was very good (Gen 1:32). Nothing has changed that. Nothing can change that. We are still God’s children. His image is still in us and an integral part of who we are. Yes, his image in us might have become distorted and warped. It may be hidden beneath our sins, baggage, and lostness. Because of sin, we have lost our dignity as God’s children. We are no longer holy and righteous. His image and our childhood are lost in the darkness of our lostness but it is still there. God’s voice is still calling us and his outstretched arms are still waiting to welcome us home.
We need to come to ourselves, remember who we are, and reclaim our childhood. We must stop and become still so that we can hear God’s voice calling us, you are my child, my beloved. We must stop listening to the dark voices that drown out the gentle, soft, light-giving, and life-giving voice of the Father. We must come to our senses and repent, “Have mercy on me for I am a sinner.” Then we must turn around, turn away from the wide and paved road that leads to death. We must choose the narrow and difficult road that leads home. Reclaiming our childhood as God’s children is only the first step. Now begins the long journey home, the way to becoming a child of God again.
3. The Long Way Home — Becoming a Child of God Again
And on this journey home we face the next big challenge. The younger son has come to himself, confessed his sin, repented, and turned back home, but he is still far from his father’s love. He prepares himself to make a deal with his father. He has lost the dignity of sonship. He may even think he has lost the right to be a son. He is willing to be a servant so that at least he can survive. This is one of the greatest challenges of the Christian life — to receive God’s forgiveness. We doubt his unconditional love. Will I be truly welcome? We doubt his amazing grace and think we must still do something to earn his forgiveness and love. We are full of guilt about the past and worries about the future. We realize our failures and acknowledge our sins, but we are not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, grace is always greater (Rom 5:20). We still cling to our sense of worthlessness, to self, and so, we see ourselves as hired servants, in a place far below that of children. Belief in total, absolute forgiveness does not come easily. There is something in us that keeps us clinging to our sins, and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning. God wants to restore me to the full dignity of sonship but I keep insisting on settling for being a hired servant. As long as I desire to cling to some of my old life, keep some part of my heart for myself, and not surrender all to God’s love, then I become a hired servant. It seems easier. As a hired servant I still have some control. So, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay.
The journey home begins when we reclaim our identity and dignity as children of God. And the way home requires that we surrender ourselves so absolutely to God’s love that a new person can emerge. Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. The way home involves that we practice becoming a child of God again. We must be born again. Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. … no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:3,5). The way home is the same as the way to a new childhood. Jesus said, “… unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3).
We must allow the Holy Spirit to renew us, reborn us, and change us to become like Christ. What does that look like? Jesus gave a very clear description of Himself and God’s children. The beatitudes of Matthew 5 — Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. These words are a self-portrait of Jesus, the Beloved Son of God. This is how He lived on the journey home. This is a portrait of the child of God. This is how our Lord wants us to live on the journey home. These blessings are the route, the map, for the journey home. And on the way home we discover and experience the blessings and joy of becoming a child of God. We shall be comforted, inherit the earth, be satisfied, receive mercy, see God, be called children of God, and inherit the kingdom of heaven. Becoming a child of God is living out these blessings. They are the signposts that show us the way to Jesus and back home. And as we live them out, we are the signposts that show the way to Jesus for the children who are still lost.
4. Jesus Christ, the True Prodigal Son
And this is very important because Jesus is the True Prodigal Son who pioneered and opened the way for us to return home. The eternal Son became a child so that we might become children again and re-enter with him into the Father’s kingdom. Jesus himself became the prodigal son for our sake. He left the house of his Heavenly Father, came to a foreign country, gave away all that he had, and returned through his cross to his Father’s home. He did this as the obedient Son, sent out to bring home all the lost children of God.
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the innocent one who became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21). He did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. He is the sinless Son of God who cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus is the prodigal son of the Father who gave away everything the Father had given him so that we could become like Him and return with Him to his Father’s home. The only way home is through and with Jesus Christ. He draws all people into himself and brings them home.
Because of Jesus, we are children of God now. In this life and this world, our Father’s home is in our hearts. There the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit dwell in us. We are on our way to our eternal home. And “… what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). On that day, we will be dressed in fine linen, bright and pure, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. We will sit down at the marriage feast of the Lamb. And the Father will say, “Let us eat and celebrate because my children who were dead have returned to live. They were lost and have been found again. My prodigal Son, Jesus, has brought them all back home.”