Luke 15:11-32 - Trinity
III - June 16, 2013
The
Father’s Love for His Son
Fathers’ Day 2013
The parable of the forgiving
father follows the same theme as these first two parables. It’s usually known as the parable of the
prodigal son. And I suppose that makes
sense, since the theme is repentance.
The son repented, not the father. But what’s great about these stories is that,
although the theme is on repentance, the main character is not the son who
turns back, but the father who waits for and receives with joy his wayward child. Repentance seems like something that we do. And yet true repentance doesn’t begin with us
at all — no more than a coin initiates the task of being found under the rug. No, repentance always begins with the work and
will of the Father. As Jesus says in John
6, “No
one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John
6:44).
In order to learn what
this means, let’s spend some time considering the relationship between God the
Father and His only begotten Son to see what this teaches us about fatherhood. When we call God Father, we’re not speaking
by analogy. This means that we don’t
look here on earth and see what fatherhood is, and then say, “Hey, that’s a lot like how God is.” That’s not why we call Him “Father.” If anything, it’s the other way around. We call our earthly fathers “father” –
despite their failings – because they relate to their children the way God the
Father relates to His. It is a
relationship of self-giving love. This
relationship is eternal, and it does not depend on God’s creation at all. The almighty God has been the Father of His
almighty Son from eternity. There never
has been a time when fatherhood did not exist.
Now this is an amazing
thing, and a perspective that only we Christians have. Because when we talk about God as Father, we’re
not saying what He’s like; we’re
saying what He is. We’re talking about His very essence. The Father has loved the Son from
eternity. And this is not some static
and dry tidbit; it is a dynamic and powerful fact! It is because of this divine relationship
that we are able to say that God is
love.
And we’re not just
being rhetorical here! God’s love is not simply a stronger version of our
own. God’s love defines who He is as the
eternal almighty One. God teaches us
what love is, not the other way around. When
we call God Father, we’re not comparing Him to sinful fathers on earth. We’re confessing the relationship He has with
His Son from eternity. We see this
relationship revealed in the life and work of Jesus. More than that – we are included in it!
The word Father means Source.
He is self-giving—the source of every good thing. The Son receives His life and all things from
His Father. He Himself has life to give
because the Father gives it to Him.
Earthly fathers are
called fathers because they also are the biological source of their children. But of course it is still God who
creates. God creates fathers by creating
children. The role that God gives to
fathers on earth requires that they do more than simply impregnate a woman. A relationship is born when a child is
conceived – a relationship between father and son/daughter that lasts a
lifetime. This is why God instituted
marriage.
We are to love our
children. This is our first duty toward
them. And we think we do a pretty good
job. We give good things to our
children. We give of our lives, as the
Father shares His life with His Son. We
teach them how to talk and what to speak as the Father gave His words to
Christ. We give them what they ask for
because we love them just as the Father loves His Son. But can we really even compare? We fail on all these counts. We hold back and become lazy. We get short-tempered and impatient. We teach them our bad habits, and fail to
teach them good ones. We hand down to
our children, not only our physical imperfections and other shortcomings, but
we hand down to them our sinful nature. And so it is from us that our dear children
inherit death. We fall very short of
God’s standard of fatherhood.
What we are able to
give to our children is not enough. Our
children need to know their heavenly Father more than they need us. This is humbling for a father to admit. But every good thing we give our kids is in
fact a gift from God already. And we
need to give them more than material things or even good manners. We need to give them life – life that we do
not find in ourselves. But we find it in
Christ who sits and eats with sinners.
A poor father is not
the man who fails to teach his boy how to catch a baseball or his girl to get
good grades in school. A poor father is
the father who fails to teach his son or daughter what God reveals through His
Son, Jesus Christ. By failing to teach
his kids the Gospel, a father denies the very essence of fatherhood. He fails to impart true and eternal
life. He fails to love.
But God the Father does
not fail. He gives His life to His
Son. He sends Him to live this life as a
Man here on earth. He sends Him to be
the friend of sinners: the friend of fathers and mothers who sin against their
children – the friend of children who sin against their parents.
Jesus came to save
sinners. It was not by seeing a spark of
worthiness in the men he sat and ate with that compelled Jesus to keep such
company. It was mercy. And so it is also mercy that drives Him here
today. And the mercy that compels Him is
nothing less than the eternal love that binds Him to His Father in heaven. And this love is made known in His
obedience. As the letter to the Hebrews
states, “though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He
suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). And so Jesus
kept company with the likes of us—in order that He might suffer for us.
God’s love compelled Him. He
obeyed. This is what God does. This is love.
The parable that I’m
finally getting to paints us a startling picture of the kind of person Jesus
came to save. The prodigal son is the
opposite of Jesus, and you will see yourself in him.
He says to his father, “Father, give me the portion that falls to
me.” And what does the father give
him? He gives him his life. The young man thanklessly received it as
though he deserved it. His father’s life
meant nothing to him. He lived for
himself far away from the source of it all.
He lived like a swine
with the life his father gave him. And
it was only when his stuff was finally gone that he began to envy what the
swine still had. Such is the nature of
sin. When a person lives his life as
though it makes no difference to God how he lives it, then he stops wanting
what God gives to his children. When one
stops regarding God as his Father, he stops trusting him as his Father
too.
This can be seen as
Jesus’ story continues. Even when the
young man comes to himself, and remembers how good he had it when he was with
his father, even then he doesn’t set out to be welcomed home as a son. Oh, he knows he’s sinned. He knows he deserves nothing. But he hopes to strike a deal with his father
in order that his life might improve. “Make me like one of your hired servants.”
Talk about the nature
of sin. This is the closest to
repentance that we sinners can come to on our own. We make a deal. We promise to work. We say, “I
am not worthy to receive good things for free; but I’ll work for them. I’ll earn it if I have to.”
But the Father doesn’t listen
to such deals and promises. He sees His
child from afar and runs to him. He
embraces him. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no
longer worthy to be called your son.”
True enough, the Father says. But
the Father cuts us off before we can speak another word. He forgives.
He welcomes His son. He covers
his shame. He honors him. He ends all negotiations and all plans to earn
His favor, and He grants true repentance by revealing a love that had never
died.
True repentance begins
with the Father. He reveals His
love. We see our lives of sin. We see our failures – perhaps some of the
failures that I mentioned earlier. We
know our sin. So does Jesus. And it is for His sake that the Father loves
us. When God looks at us through the
blood that His Son shed to atone for our sins, He doesn’t see our lives of
sin. He sees the perfect life of Jesus. He doesn’t see the ungrateful boy who took
His father’s life and wasted it on self-serving pleasures. He doesn’t see the father who should have
taught his children, but didn’t, who should have corrected them, but didn’t. He doesn’t see the young man or woman who has
fallen into temptation like a lost sheep again and again. No, He sees the life He is pleased with.
He sees His beloved Son
from eternity live His life to serve others.
He sees Him go far from His heavenly home to eat with sinful swine even
while He lived a life that honored God.
He sees Him long, not for the delights of this wicked world, but for the
word of God – as Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent
Me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34). This is His will. The Father sees Jesus give His life in bitter
agony to redeem you and me from our sin and from death. And through Jesus’ death on the cross, the
Father sees our sins paid for. This Son
did not waste His life. He spent it
well.
When we come to the
Father, when we come to church ashamed of our sins and repentant, we claim not
what we see in ourselves, or what we try to show others. No, we claim what the Father sees even as He
keeps a constant look out for us to come home to Him. We claim the love He has for His Son, because
in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, the love God has for His Son from
eternity is the love He has for us today. We lay claim to the status of sons and
daughters, unworthy though we are, because Christ is not unworthy. He is the good and faithful Son. It is into His death and resurrection that we
have been baptized. When we claim the
promise of our Baptism, we claim the perfect life that Jesus lived in our
place, and God is well pleased to call us His beloved sons and daughters.
This is mercy. Heaven rejoices when we repent. But look who starts the party. It wasn’t the defeated young man dragging his
feet. It was the father who caused his
whole household to rejoice and be merry.
Likewise, it is not something that we produce that causes the angels to
rejoice when one sinner repents. They
are rejoicing in God’s mercy for you.
And we rejoice too.
The older son was
bitter. He did not rejoice. It wasn’t fair. He never asked for such a celebration. He did not rejoice in mercy, because he did
not believe he needed mercy. But he did. He did not so much as ask for a goat. But he should have asked for the fatted
calf. He should have sought from his
father everything his father had. That’s
what a son does. That’s what Jesus
did.
And so do we. We ask for everything by coming here to get
it, where all the treasures of heaven are spread before us in word and
sacrament. And we teach our sons and
daughters to do the same. Jesus did not
waste what He received. He spent it well
for us. He gave His life into
death. He took it back again in order to
give us eternal life. He pleased the
Father. And for His sake the Father is
pleased with us. It is through this
relationship that lasts forever that we become the children of God, and that Christian
fathers learn how to love their children too.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
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