Monday Reflections...a new profile picture...and some Luke 15 thoughts

There we are again.  It was time to take off the facial hair (talking about me of course) and see what was happening under the beard.  Stephanie is as beautiful as ever. 

Another Sunday has rolled by and it leads into another Monday and thoughts already about the next passage to be covered.  We are in Luke chapter 15 and I presented the first 10 verses on Sunday.

We looked at the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.  Even though we have 2 groups in the presence of Jesus, the sinners there to listen and the scribes there to complain, we tend to think of ourselves as the hero of any story.  We become the shepherd looking for the lost sheep or the woman looking for the lost coin.  We are the ones who are bringing them to the celebration.

If we hold that thought pattern then the next story puts us as the father receiving home his lost younger son.  Maybe we go from it being obvious to look for the sheep and the coin but not so obvious to have open arms to someone who "took the money and run."  We would draw a line in the sand and say, "not one step closer."  

"You made your bed with wild living and now you can sleep in it." 

Maybe it would be more obvious to disown this son rather than decorate him with a new robe, ring, and sandals.  

This is the parable of the trilogy that makes us put God in the place of the shepherd, the woman, and the father.  He is the One who is seeking, finding, restoring, and celebrating.  If we don't put Him in that place then we have a big question about the older son who comes in from the field.  Who is he?  Remember, there are 2 groups present before Jesus as He tells these 3 parables.

If God is the father in the parable, then the younger wild son is obviously the sinners and tax collectors who are listening.  What group is left?  It makes the older son coming in from the field complaining, the scribes and the Pharisees.  It hit me in my study this morning that the older son needs to become a true son of the father too.  If he was, then he would represent his father (be as him) and therefore celebrate as he was but he wasn't.  

The older son was religiously loyal 

but he wasn't spiritually bonded to the father.

Jesus leaves the last parable hanging without telling us if the older son came in to the party after his father begged him to do so.  Actually, I think the only way he could have would be to do what the younger son did.  He would have to come to his senses and repent.  He would come to his father also as one unworthy to be called his father's son.  He and his younger brother were very much the same as sinners but one had come in repentance and the other was still rebelling to be the hero of the story.  

It is so important to not lose "who" is "who" in these parables.  We truly won't celebrate with God over one being found if we haven't experienced it ourselves and have kept Him the hero of our lives.

Adam