Next I will begin a blog series about my favourite parables
that Jesus told. A parable is a story which illustrates a concept or a lesson,
perhaps better than a simple one-line statement could convey. Jesus regularly
spoke in parables when he was presented with a question or a confrontation. Whether
you have heard these stories before or not, I hope you can re-read them with me
in their entirety before I discuss what they mean to me. I have copied the
entirety of the text below for your convenience.
The first parable that I want to discuss is a well-known
classic, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus tells this story in response to
the Pharisees (uptight religious perfectionists) who criticized Jesus for
eating with “sinners.” See all of Luke 15 for context.
Jesus said…
A certain man had two
sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion
of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
And not many days
after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far
country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
And when he had spent
all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
And he went and
joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to
feed swine.
And he would fain
have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave
unto him.
And when he came to
himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and
to spare, and I perish with hunger!
I will arise and go
to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and
before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy
hired servants.
And he arose, and
came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And the son said unto
him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more
worthy to be called thy son.
But the father said
to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring
on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
And bring hither the
fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
For this my son was
dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be
merry. (Luke 15:11-24)
My Thoughts: The
Character of God
What I love most about this story is what it tells us about
the character of God. Too often people think of God as a distant and
judgemental authority figure who is just waiting for us to screw up so he can
toss us into the pit of hell. Jesus portrays a God (represented by the father
in the story) who stands in the field waiting for his child to return, and then
runs to him when he sees him
approaching. Jesus portrays a God who cares deeply for and eats with “sinners”
like you and me.
This was a parable that struck me in a profound (and I
believe God-sent) way one day leading up to my conversion. One day in June
2012, I was supervising my own son (he was two at the time) at an indoor park
in a big city mall, and as he dashed from one end of the park to the other I
lost sight of him. For a minute that lasted much longer in my mind, I panicked,
searching desperately for him. When I finally found him I had such a wave of
relief and joy. It was at that point that this parable came to mind. I hadn’t
read it for years, but it came to me as though from heaven. It shortly occurred
to me what God was telling me – THAT is how he feels about his children. When
they are “lost” in this world, doing their own thing, he looks for them. When
they come back to him, he celebrates and clothes them with love.
As an atheist I had the impression, based on my
understanding of certain Old Testament stories, that the biblical God was
actually quite cruel and morally deprived. That moment in the mall sent a
profound message to me about God’s true character. And subsequent reading of
Jesus’ words has continued to inform my understanding of God as a loving father
who desperately desires the return of his children – so much so that he would
literally die for us.
Jesus reveals God’s heart
for us
God is incomprehensible to us – he exists outside of time,
space, and matter. But he makes himself known to us through Jesus, in a way that
we can better understand. As such, we can only understand the true character of
God through the character of Jesus! As the Bible says, “No
man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of
the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). If
you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus – read about what he said and
did. And I hope you agree that Jesus reveals the character of God in a very
powerful way in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
If you feel distant from God, know that he
will not force you back to the house – but he will be standing out in the field
waiting for you to return. And he will run to you when he sees you returning. “Draw
nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8).
Next week, I hope to continue this series
with another of my favourite parables that Jesus taught. God bless you!
No comments:
Post a Comment