Worship Opportunities

“Little girl, are you lost?” These are the words I remember a kind couple speaking to me. Straying from the group to get a drink of water, I had the terrifying experience of being separated from my family at Disney World. The couple comforted me until I was found by my family. In my 8-year-old mind, I was lost for hours; in reality it was minutes. 

I thought of this experience as I read Luke 15. Unlike those found in the parables of this chapter, we didn’t celebrate my return with a feast, but we might’ve celebrated by flying high on the Dumbo ride.

Last week I wrote here about how often God’s compassion is magnified towards His chosen people, Israel, and how it especially stood out to me as I was reading Nehemiah 9. Since my reading plan overlapped with the New Testament book of Luke, this portion was fresh on my mind as I read.

Just as we see God’s compassion repeatedly extended to His covenant people, we see His same compassion embodied in the Son and extended to sinners.

Moved with compassion, Christ sees and takes action. He sees crowds like sheep without a shepherd and teaches them. He sees the hungry and feeds them. He sees the sick and heals them. 

All these movements of His compassion ultimately point beyond their physical and emotional brokenness, reaching to meet their deepest need: reconciliation in their broken relationship with the Father. 

In Luke 15, Jesus teaches about three things that are lost: 1/100 sheep, 1/10 coins, and… 2/2 brothers. Both were, in a sense, lost. 

Luke notes Jesus’s audience at the beginning of chapter 15. The tax collectors and sinners came and listened (v. 1); the Pharisees came and criticized (v. 2). 

You are probably familiar with the story of the prodigal son. The younger son asks to be given an early inheritance. In response, the father gives it to both of his sons (…So he distributed the assets to them. 15:12). The younger goes off to a far country, squanders these generous resources on foolish living, and when he has nothing left, he is met with even more of nothing: a famine hits this land. 

Dying of hunger, he thinks of his father. He makes a plan to return as a servant, labeling himself “no longer worthy” to be called a son. 

Stop and think for a minute- Christian, do you ever label yourself or others the way this son did, thinking your sin or that of others is too offensive for the Father to receive you back? 

The parable goes on to tell us the son returns. His repentant heart recognizes his sin. While the son was still a long way off, the father saw him…

I love that the father recognizes the son while he was still a long way off. Our boys are in cross country season, so I am often straining my eyes to see “a long way off” for where they are in the pack of runners. I’m so familiar with their running form and with their stature that even from far away, I can usually spot them.

And I also feel the warmth of what wells up in the father when he sees his son: he is filled with… compassion.

If you were the father, how would you fill in that blank? What would you be filled with? Frustration? Rage? Sorrow? Indifference? 

The father’s compassion moves him to run to his son, embrace, and kiss him. He doesn’t wait in a dignified manner for his son to approach him; he runs to his son… something that would have been unusual and undignified in this ancient honor/shame culture. 

After acknowledging his sin, the son tells his father, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” The son repents and returns; the father restores. He clothes his son with new garments: a robe, sandals, and a ring. The father joyfully and generously gives them. 

An extravagant celebration banquet is prepared and the younger son receives it. (If you have time, look at Luke 14 and see how Jesus might be echoing something He was just teaching regarding another banquet!)

The older son hears the celebration and inquires about it to another servant, but rather than celebrate his brother’s return, he responds with anger. 

Look who wants him at the banquet, though: his father. He comes out and pleads with the older son. The father goes to both of his sons. One comes; the other… we aren’t told.

We can appreciate so much about the father in this parable. He cares that both sons be at this banquet celebration. His heart is one of compassion, and his compassion calls to both– to the self-condemning and to the self-elevating. One was lost and was found. The other, who measured himself by performance, is still, in a sense, lost.

Christ’s embodied compassion calls to both loud and clear- the performance seekers and the wayward rebels. 

I knew I was lost in Disney World; I needed my family to find me. The younger brother eventually realized he was lost and needed his father. The older brother was blind to his lostness. The compassionate father sees them both and calls them to come. Am I the older, the younger, or a little bit of both (YES)? His heart is the same for us. Will we respond?