Prodigal Son
Isaiah 53: 4-12
Luke 15: 11-32
April 12, 1974
In the moving novel entitled The Blood of the Lamb, Peter de Brise tells the story of a family whose little daughter is dying of leukemia. One evening, the father comes to the hospital, and the little girl is all excited because that afternoon she had seen an old Laurel and Hardy movie on TV, which was her first experience of that sort of thing. She said to her father, the neatest part was when the little man threw a pie into the face of the big man. I was really scared, because I didn’t know what he was going to do. But guess what? He didn’t hit back. He waited for a long time and then deliberately began to wipe the custard from his eyes and cheeks and sling it on the floor. It was amazing, the big man just stood there and took it and did not hit back. The father joined her in astonishment at such a reaction. He too felt it unusual to see that kind of strength that could be hurt and not hurt back. It takes one sort of strength to inflict pain on people, but it is strength of an altogether different sort to have pain inflicted on you and not strike back. We know a great deal about the first kind of strength. This is the strength that works to make itself impregnable, secure in its power. if Russia can strike at us, we have the strength to level all their major cities. We are a superpower. if a man tries to take my job, I have enough votes to humble him. We are super politicians, if someone insults me, I can tell him what for right back in spades. We’re strong, at least with one kind of strength.
But the other kind of strength, the strength that a reconciler has, is the strength of taking it and not giving back in kind. This we know so little about.
Looking again at the DeVry story, we find that a few days after the TV movie, the little girl in the hospital had a birthday. And, as families are want to do in those circumstances, they made elaborate plans for a celebration. The family got to the hospital early that morning with a birthday cake and all kinds of presents, only to hear the nurse say the little girl had suddenly taken a turn for the worse, and the outlook was not good at all. As the family stood around helplessly, her birthday became her death day, and, eventually, they had to gather up what they had brought for the celebration and leave the hospital. It was a Catholic institution with a huge crucifix in the lobby. As the father walked out, he was so overcome by rage and grief that he impulsively took the birthday cake and hurled it in the face of the crucified one. No sooner had he done this than he recalled in poor. What kind of blasphemy have I committed he thought to himself, how will God react? Have I offended the power of the universe?
But after a long moment, through eyes filled with tears, it seemed as if the father saw those hands free themselves from the nails and move slowly toward the soiled face. Then patiently, deliberately, the icing was wiped from the eyes and the cheeks with a gentle motion, and suddenly, it came to the father that there would be no retaliation.
There was the case of another big man taking it from a little man and not hurting back. There was strength in enduring pain without inflicting it. And as we read further in the book, this was the turning point in the father’s reconciliation to God. It appears to me that this little episode illustrates the dynamic process of reconciliation. Or let us go even further, and say that the story illustrated something of the cost and the promise of reconciliation. The cost to a big man is great; he must take it from a small man without striking back. But the promise of the restored relationship, of healing the break, is certainly worth the price. Today, we are in the process of reflecting that men didn’t just throw a cake in the face of God. They threw slaps and nails and hatred and violence. And God turned this darkness, this bad Friday, into a Good Friday.
Have you ever wondered as I have done, why the symbol of the Christian faith is the cross? Have you ever wondered as I have done, why the early Christians couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate symbol? A symbol of Easter, of resurrection, instead of a symbol of that Friday, which is so inextricably tied up with hatred and violence and death. Well, let me suggest to you the answer that occurred to me the other night.
The cross is the deepest point in our history, the point where God and man come together. For this is when God reconciles man. It is in the act of crucifixion not resurrection, that God shows man how much he loves him. It is in the act of crucifixion that man understands the cost of reconciling love
. Think for a moment with me about the crucifixion. Isn’t it fantastic, amazing, astounding? Here is the act of God enduring, taking, suffering and yet even with this going further than just taking it, he actually still reaches out to man at his most unlovable nature. Jesus tried to help us understand this process by simplifying the story and telling it in terms of our father who has an errant son. Who wastes his fortune, in a far country, basically turning his back on his father. But when things go badly decides to return home. The father, having taken the son’s rejection, still runs out to meet him. You can see the act of reconciliation isn’t a matter of justice, of someone getting his just desserts. It’s a matter of forgiving love being acted out. And that kind of action is almost beyond our comprehension.
There is a story of a Chinese painter who wished to paint a picture of the prodigal son. His first offering had the father standing by the gate, looking down the road toward the son who was obviously coming home. A Christian friend said, No you don’t have it quite right. the father should not be standing waiting; he should be running to meet his son. The artist said, I can’t understand that. After being rejected by the son, the father runs out, no Chinese father would do that, the friend replied. That’s just the point. It’s fantastic, but this story is the astonishing love of God. The final painting showed the father running to meet his son, and the shoes on his feet didn’t match.
I wonder if you all were artists and were painting the crucifixion scene, what would you put into the picture? For it’s a scene of reconciliation, reconciliation that’s so utterly fantastic that, sometimes, it causes me to tremble. Tremble.