Luke 15:12, I wish you were dead, that is not an exaggeration, the inheritance was distributed at death, to ask for it early was to say, your death is more valuable to me than your life, I want what you can give me, I do not want you, you are worth more to me as a dead man than a living father. Every person listening to Jesus would have gasped, in that culture, a father hearing those words had every right culturally, legally, even religiously, to strike his son across the face, to disown him on the spot, to have the elders of the village declare him dead to the family and here is the first shock of the parable.
Luke 15:13, the father did none of that, he divided his property between them, he gave the son what he asked for, he let him go, no lecture, no guilt trip, no conditions, he watched his son take everything he had been given and walk out the door, knowing full well where that road would lead. This is the nature of God’s love and it is terrifying, God will not force you to stay, he will plead with you, he will call to you, he will leave the door open, but he will not chain you to the table, love that forces is not love and God would rather let you walk into a pigsty of your own choosing, than drag you into a paradise against your will.
Have you ever felt that freedom, the terrifying, exhilarating, dangerous freedom of a God who lets you go, who does not manipulate you into staying, who honors your choice, even when your choice is catastrophic, that is the father in this story and that is your God. The younger son took everything and left, the text says he went to a distant country, not a neighboring village, a distant country, he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and his father, because that is what sin always does.
Sin does not just draw you towards something wrong, it drives you away from someone right, every step into the far country, is a step away from home and the further you go, the harder it becomes to remember what home even felt like. There in that distant country, he squandered his wealth in wild living, wild living in Greek means, recklessly, dissolutely, without restraint, no boundaries, no limits, no one to answer to, for a while it must have felt like freedom.
Luke 15:13, the father did none of that, he divided his property between them, he gave the son what he asked for, he let him go, no lecture, no guilt trip, no conditions, he watched his son take everything he had been given and walk out the door, knowing full well where that road would lead. This is the nature of God’s love and it is terrifying, God will not force you to stay, he will plead with you, he will call to you, he will leave the door open, but he will not chain you to the table, love that forces is not love and God would rather let you walk into a pigsty of your own choosing, than drag you into a paradise against your will.
Have you ever felt that freedom, the terrifying, exhilarating, dangerous freedom of a God who lets you go, who does not manipulate you into staying, who honors your choice, even when your choice is catastrophic, that is the father in this story and that is your God. The younger son took everything and left, the text says he went to a distant country, not a neighboring village, a distant country, he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and his father, because that is what sin always does.
Sin does not just draw you towards something wrong, it drives you away from someone right, every step into the far country, is a step away from home and the further you go, the harder it becomes to remember what home even felt like. There in that distant country, he squandered his wealth in wild living, wild living in Greek means, recklessly, dissolutely, without restraint, no boundaries, no limits, no one to answer to, for a while it must have felt like freedom.
