Just in case you didn't know it's Christmas time. We hang the lights, trim the tree, sing the carols, and we shop...a lot. We love to buy gifts for the people we love. And if you are a parent, you know the thrill of having your children open their gifts on Christmas morning and squeal with delight because they received the gift they didn't think they would get because it was too expensive. And by the way, it probably was too expensive. But we bought it anyway because the joy we experience in our children's delight was just too much to pass up.
But along with the joy of giving come the woe of paying and in January the credit card bill comes. The memory of our children's joyful squeals quickly vanishes as we realize we spent too much money...it was wasteful, extravagant, prodigal.
Jesus tells a story of another parent's prodigal spending. Interestingly enough, the story has been handed down to us as the prodigal son but the prodigious living of the son does not seem to be to main focus of Jesus teaching but rather the extravagant giving of the father.
You know the story. A foolish young man asks his father for his inheritance while his father is still living. In Jesus culture this was akin to telling his father he hates him and wishes that he were dead. In spite of the great hurt caused by the ungrateful son, the father divides the inheritance up between the young man and his older brother. The young man soon spends all of his inheritance on riotous living and ends up eating and sleeping with pigs. Since pigs were unclean in Jewish culture this was about as low as you could go. The young man has finally had enough and shamefully returns to his father asking only to be a hired man since he does not deserve to be his son. The father instead repays the young man's rebellion by throwing a huge feast, dressing him in his finest robes and placing a ring on his finger. The older brother, now a business partner with his father, is enraged that his father would spend his money so foolishly and berates him saying, "When this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!" The older brother is understandably upset. How could his father continue to give money to his idiot brother! All his father can say is, "We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."
It's a picture of the extravagant love that God the Father has for each of us. He gave a gift that was too costly...the life of his Son. It's a gift that will be squandered and misused, was not deserved and not everyone will receive. And yet the Father delighted in giving it anyway. We should all desire to live like our prodigal Father, extravagant in our loving and giving. Especially at this time of year when we celebrate the most extravagant Gift of all, we should all be...well, prodigal sons.
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12.11.11 Just One Thingby qccrosspoint8 views
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