Costly

Costly

Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:1-10)

Luke tells us that Jesus told not one, but actually three, separate parables to the Pharisees and the scribes, or teachers, that day who were complaining about the fact that not only did Jesus welcome “sinners,” but he ate with them, too.

The first parable is called the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and it’s the story of a man who was tending a flock of one hundred sheep when one goes wandering off. Maybe it was just a matter of sheep-inattentiveness. However, instead of simply writing the sheep off as a loss, the shepherd went searching until he found that lost sheep. And after finding it, he called everyone around to “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.” (Verse 6)

The second parable is called the Parable of the Lost Coin. In this story, a woman has ten silver coins in her house but somehow loses one of them. Maybe it was just a matter of being a little careless. But, like the shepherd, she’s not going to write it off as a loss either. So she “lights a lamp, sweeps the whole house, and searches diligently until she finds it.” (Verse 8) And when she does, just like the shepherd, she calls her friends and neighbors over and says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.” (She was also happy that her house was clean, too, and just in time for the party!) The third parable’s the story we’ve been studying over the last few weeks, the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Now, there are some obvious similarities in these three stories. For instance, in each parable something is lost, i.e., a sheep, a coin and a son. And, in each, the one who loses something gets it back, i.e., the shepherd, the woman and the father. And, finally, each of the narratives ends on a festive note, and we see people rejoicing and celebrating when the lost have been found.

But with all their similarities, there’s one glaring difference between the last parable and the first two. Did you spot it? Look a little harder, because it’s there. Yep, in the first two parables, the shepherd and the woman go out and search frantically for the lost sheep and the lost coin. Nothing gets in the way of these determined “searchers.” So, by the time we get to the last story, and we hear about the deplorable conditions in which the younger son finds himself, we kind of expect that someone will go out and search for him, too. But no one does. It’s surprising, maybe even a little disquieting, don’t you think? I believe it was intentional.

You see, by placing the three parables side-by-side-by-side, Jesus is inviting us to think, and perhaps ask ourselves, “Shouldn’t someone have gone out looking for the lost boy, just like in the first two parables?” (Probably) “But, if so, who would that be? The father? The older brother, maybe? How about a search party? Better yet, how ‘bout Columbo?” (Sorry)

Of course, Jesus knew his Word like the back of his hand, and he knew that at its very beginning (Genesis 4) it tells another story of an elder and younger brother – Cain and Abel. And in that story, God tells the resentful and proud older brother, “You are your brother’s keeper.”

The late Edmund Clowney, a one-time Escondido resident and professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, recounted in a sermon he once gave the true life story of Daniel Dawson, an Army Lieutenant, whose reconnaissance plane had been shot down over the Vietcong jungle. When his brother, Donald, heard the report, he sold everything he had, left his wife with $20, and went to Vietnam. When he arrived, he got his hands on some soldier’s gear and wandered through the guerilla-controlled jungle, looking for his brother. He carried leaflets with pictures of the plane, and offered a reward to anyone who could provide him with news of the missing pilot. He became known as Anh toi phi-cong — the brother of the pilot, or just “the brother.”

And isn’t that what the older brother in the parable should have done? I mean, this is what a true elder brother would have done, don’t you think? He would have said something like, “Look, Dad, my younger brother was a fool for demanding his inheritance and then simply disappearing. But it’s been months since we’ve heard from him, and I’m getting a little concerned – just like you. Fact is, he’s probably broke and in a gutter somewhere. So, I’m gonna go look for him and when I find him, I’ll bring him back. And if his inheritance has been wasted, as I expect, I’ll bring him back at my expense.” Wait. At the older brother’s expense? Yes, at the brother’s expense.

Because, as Jesus said, the father had divided his property between the two boys before the younger one left town. Everything had been divvied up. The younger brother had gotten his share and, we know from the story, his share was completely gone. So, when the father says to the older brother, “My son, everything I have is yours,” he’s not kidding. He’s telling the literal truth. Every penny that remained of the family estate now belonged to the older brother. Every robe, every ring, every sandal, every fattened calf was the older brother’s by right.

 

It’s tempting to believe that the restoration of the younger brother didn’t involve a cost. We get there by pointing out the fact that the younger brother wanted to make restitution, but his father wouldn’t let him. So, we conclude, his acceptance back into the family was without cost. And we use this conclusion to support the proposition that forgiveness and love should always be free and unconditional. But that’s an oversimplification, I think, and here’s why.

If someone breaks your cell phone, you could demand that they buy you a new one. Right? The alternative, of course, is to forgive them and pay for the replacement yourself, or simply go without your cell phone. (Really?) OK, but now imagine something more serious – someone has maliciously damaged your reputation. Again, like the phone scenario, you have two options. The first would be to make that person pay by going to others who know him and then ruining his name as a way of restoring your own. On the other hand, you could forgive him and take on the much more difficult task of attempting to set the record straight without vilifying him in the process. The forgiveness is free and unconditional to the perpetrator, but it’s costly to you.

Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer, because if the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it’s not mercy, is it? But forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one who forgives. And while the parable of the prodigal son showed us how free the father’s forgiveness was, it also gives us insight into its costliness. You see, the younger brother’s restoration was free to him, but it came at an enormous cost to the older brother because the father could not reinstate him except at the expense of his older son. There was no other way.

But Jesus doesn’t put a true elder brother in the story, does he? One who was willing to pay whatever it cost to go on a search and rescue mission looking for his derelict, younger brother. The younger son gets a Pharisee for a brother, instead. And maybe that’s why the parable leaves us hanging – we’re never told what the elder brother eventually decided. But by putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus is inviting us to imagine what a true older brother would’ve done, or what he’d look like.

So, think of the kind of brother we need. We need one who doesn’t just go to the next country to find us, but one who’ll move heaven and earth to do so. We need a brother who is willing to pay not just money, but the cost of his own life to bring us into God’s family. We’ve all rebelled against God. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a “younger brother” or an “older brother,” because we all deserve rejection.

You see, one of the points of the parable is that forgiveness isn’t free. It always involves a price. Someone has to pay. Again, there was no way for the younger brother to return to the family unless the older brother paid the price, himself. And Jesus, our true “older brother,” paid for our redemption with his life – on a cross.

 

We need to soften our hearts and be moved by the sight of what it cost to bring us home. Jesus emptied himself of his glory and became a servant. (Phil. 2:5-9) He laid aside the omnipotence of his being and, at the cost of his life, paid the debt for our sin and purchased us the only place our hearts can truly find rest – in his Father’s house. And once we begin to comprehend this staggering truth, it can transform us from the inside out. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to offer yourself to someone like that?

John Newton, the author of the hymn, Amazing Grace, wrote another hymn (Olney Hymns, Hymn 3) that succinctly makes this point:

“Our pleasure and our duty,

Though opposite before;

Since we have seen his beauty,

Are joined to part no more:

It is our highest pleasure,

No less than duty’s call;

To love him beyond measure,

And serve him with our all.”

In a few short words, Newton perfectly summarizes our dilemma: we either turn from God and pursue our heart’s desire, like the younger brother, or we repress our desires and perform our moral obligations, like the older brother. But the sacrificial, costly love of Jesus on the cross changes all of that. Because when we see the beauty of what Jesus has done for us, it attracts us to him. We realize that the love we’ve been seeking in other things is really in Jesus. It also eliminates our fear, because if the Lord of the universe loves us enough to die for us, then about what do we have to be afraid?

We will never stop being younger brothers or elder brothers until we acknowledge our need for him, and then rest in faith and gaze with awe at the work of our true elder brother, Jesus Christ. Then, we won’t need religion, because we’ll have a relationship, instead.

Grace,

Randy

Atheists

Atheists

Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable…

“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a far country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’

So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.

‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

The elder brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered has father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ (Luke 15:1-3; 11-32)

What do you see here? Two faces? A lamp stand, instead? Maybe neither one. But if that’s true, you’re just plain challenged, OK? The fascinating thing is that if you focus on either image for too long (and they’re both there), it gets harder and harder to see the other. Hmmmmmm.

OK, you can quit staring now.

So, who did you focus on in the parable? If you’re like most, you probably focused on the dead-beat who basically told his dad, “I wish you were dead. But since that ain’t happenin’, give me what I’m owed so I can get outta this God-forsaken place.” And then we marvel at the father’s reaction when the loser returns and the dad takes him back with open arms and no questions asked. Maybe it just makes us feel better about ourselves to think, “Wow. I’m not that bad!” The problem is that if we focus only on the prodigal, we miss the real message of the story because there’s two brothers in the parable (just like there’s two objects in the illusion), each of whom representing a different way to be separated from God. Separated? Separated.

In reading anything, it’s always good to pay attention to the context. So, in the first two verses of the chapter, we read that there were two groups of people who’d come to listen to Jesus. The first were the “tax collectors and sinners.” These folks corresponded to the younger brother. They didn’t observe the moral laws of the Bible, much less the rules for ceremonial purity followed by the religious elite. They partied, instead. And, like the younger brother in the story, they “left home” by leaving the traditional morality of their families. The second group of listeners, on the other hand, were the “Pharisees and the teachers of the law,” who corresponded to the older brother. They held to the traditional morality of their upbringing. They studied and obeyed the Scripture. They worshipped faithfully, and prayed constantly.

And with just a few words, Luke shows how very different each group’s response was to Jesus. In fact, the progressive tense of the Greek verb translated “were gathering” conveys that the attraction of the younger-brother types to Jesus was an on-going pattern in his ministry; kind of like moths to a flame. They were drawn to him. And their reaction puzzled and angered the moral and religiously upright. Luke summarizes it like this: “This man welcomes sinners and (even) eats with them.” Ooooooh.

So what’s wrong with that? Well, to sit down and eat with someone in the ancient Near East was a sign of acceptance. So, you can see their point, can’t you? “How dare Jesus reach out to scum like that? They never come to our church! He’s not telling them the truth like we do; he’s probably just telling them what they want to hear!” Harrumph, harrumph.

Well then, to whom was Jesus directing his parable? Shhhhhhhh. Don’t tell anyone, but it was directed to the second group, the scribes and Pharisees. You know, the religious know-it-alls. The parable’s a response to their holier-than-thou attitude, and takes an extended look at the soul of the “elder brother,” and climaxes with a plea for them to change their hearts.

Throughout the centuries, the almost universal focus on this parable has been on how the father freely received his repentant, younger son. You can even picture the original listeners to this story welling up with tears as they heard how God will always love and welcome them, no matter what they’ve done. But we sentimentalize the parable if we do that because the real targets of the story are not “wayward sinners,” but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. What? Yep. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, their narrowness, their self-righteousness, and how these things are destroying their souls, and the lives of those around them.

The truth is that the original listeners were not likely melted to tears by this story, but were flabbergasted, offended and, well, …. ticked off! But the thing is that Jesus’ purpose in telling the story was not to warm their hearts, but to shatter their categories. And through this parable, Jesus challenges what nearly everyone had ever thought about God, sin and salvation. His story definitely revealed the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother, but it also condemned the older brother’s moralistic life in the strongest terms. Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost; both life-paths are dead ends, and that every thought the human race has had about how to connect with God has been wrong.

“Older brothers” and “younger brothers” are with us today, sometimes in the very same family. You know the ones. The oldest sibling is the parent-pleaser, the responsible one who obeys the parental units, including their standards. The younger sibling, on the other hand, tends to be the rebel; the free spirit who prefers the company and admiration of his peers. The first child grows up, takes a conventional job, and settles down near mom and dad, while the younger sibling goes off to live in the hip/shabby neighborhoods of, let’s say, New York or L.A.

And these natural, temperamental differences have become more pronounced in the past several centuries. For instance, in the early nineteenth century, industrialization gave rise to a new middle class, the bourgeois, who sought legitimacy through hard work and moral integrity. However, in response to bourgeois hypocrisy and rigidity, communities of bohemians then came into being, kind of like the indie-rock scene today. Bohemians stressed freedom from convention, and personal autonomy.

To some degree, today’s culture wars are playing out these same conflicting temperaments and impulses. More and more people consider themselves non-religious, or even anti-religious. They believe moral issues are highly complex, and they are very suspicious of any individual, or institution, that claims moral authority over the lives of others. Despite (or, perhaps, due to) the rise of this secular bent, there’s also been considerable growth in conservative, orthodox religious movements. Shocked at what they perceive as an avalanche of moral relativism, many have organized to “take back the culture,” and take as dim a view of “younger brothers” as the Pharisees did.

So, whose side was Jesus on, anyway? In The Lord of the Rings, when the hobbits ask ancient Treebeard whose side he’s on, he answers: “I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side …. But there are some things, of course, whose side I’m altogether not on.” And Jesus’ answer to this same question, through the parable, is similar. He’s on the side of neither the irreligious nor the religious, but he singles out religious moralism as a particularly deadly spiritual condition.

Granted, it’s hard for us to realize this today, but when Christianity first appeared on the scene, it wasn’t called a religion. It was the “non-religion.” For instance, imagine a friend of an early Christian chatting with his Christian friend over lunch one day. “So, where’s your temple?” “We don’t have one,” the Christian would reply. “But how’s that? I mean, where do your priests work?” “Uh, we don’t have priests,” the Christian would say.

“But … but,” the friend would sputter, “where’s the sacrifices made to please your god?” The Christian would have responded that Christians didn’t offer sacrifices anymore because Jesus was the temple of all temples, the priest of all priests, and the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

No one had ever heard anything like this before. So, the Romans called them “atheists,” because what the Christians were saying about spiritual reality was unique and couldn’t be classified with other world religions. This parable, then, explains why the Romans were absolutely right to call them atheists. And the irony shouldn’t be lost on us as we stand in the middle of our modern culture. To most people, Christianity is religion and is moralism. The only alternative to it, besides some other world religion, is pluralistic secularism, i.e., a system which is not under the control of any religion or singular belief system. But from the beginning, it wasn’t that way: Christianity was recognized as something else entirely.

The point is that the religiously observant people were offended by Jesus, while the ones estranged from religious and moral observances were intrigued and attracted to him. We see this throughout the New Testament. In every case where Jesus meets a religious person and a sexual outcast (Luke 7), or a religious person and a racial outcast (John 3-4), or a religious person and a political outcast (Luke 19), the outcast is the one who connects with Jesus and the elder-brother type is the one who simply doesn’t get it.

Jesus’ teaching consistently attracted the irreligious, while simultaneously offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. But today, for the most part, our churches don’t seem to have this same effect. The kind of outsiders that Jesus attracted are anything but attracted to today’s contemporary churches, even the most avant-garde. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people, while the broken and the marginal avoid church altogether. And that can only lead to one conclusion: if our preaching and our practice do not have the same effect on people's lives as Jesus’ had, then maybe we’re not declaring the same message that Jesus did.

In other words, if our churches and our lives aren’t appealing to the younger-brother types, maybe it’s because we have a lot more older-brother types sitting in our church pews than we think.

Ouch.

Grace,

Randy

Home

Home

There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a far country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. (Luke 15:11-13)

The parable of the Prodigal Son is a pretty familiar story to most. In a nutshell, it’s about a father who had two sons. The younger asked for his share of the inheritance, got it, and promptly left for Las Vegas where he blew it all. Humbly, he returned home and, to his amazement, was welcomed with open arms by his father. This reunion, however, alienated and angered his older brother, and the story closes with the father appealing to his firstborn to join in the celebration and forgiveness of his younger brother. Interestingly, we’re never told if the older brother came to the party. But that’s for another time, and on the surface of it all, the story’s not all that gripping. But in it are the seeds of the Gospel.

It’s important to read Jesus’ parable in the context of the whole of Luke since the story really has a much larger context. So, if we read the narrative in light of the Bible’s repeated theme of exile and homecoming, we begin to understand that Jesus gave us more than a touching account of redemption. In a sense, he has retold the story of the entire human race, and promised nothing less than hope for the whole world.

In Jesus’ parable, the younger brother goes to a distant country expecting a better life. However, after some pretty wild partying, he’s disappointed and reminisces about home, longing for the food that was so plentiful at his dad’s place. And, frankly, so do we all because “home” is a powerful influence over human life. We all have fond memories of times, people and places where we felt truly at “home.” However, if we ever have an opportunity to get back to the places we remember so fondly, we’re often disappointed.

For many years, my wife spent several weeks each summer at her grandparent’s ranch in Needville, Texas. The very recall of that time and place brought a wash of warm memories. But a recent return to the now-dilapidated property brought tears instead. The once pristine home of her summer youth lay ravaged by time and inattention, stealing from her a place to which she can no longer call “home.”

Home is a powerful but elusive concept. And the strong feelings that surround home reveal some deep longings within us for a place that fits us; a place where we can be, or perhaps find, our true selves. But it seems that no real place ever satisfies these desires, although lots of situations may arouse them. In East of Eden, John Steinbeck says of the mountains of central California that he wanted “to climb into their warm foothills almost as you want to climb into the lap of a beloved mother.”

The memory of home seems to be evoked by certain sights, sounds and even smells. But they can only arouse a desire they can’t fulfill. For instance, many know of the disappointment that Christmas and Thanksgiving can sometimes bring. We prepare for the holidays hoping that, finally, this year, the family gathering at home will bring the warmth, joy, comfort and love that we want from it – like a Norman Rockwell painting. But these events sometimes fail, crushed under the weight of impossible expectations. C.S. Lewis, in his sermon The Weight of Glory, refers to these experiences. “Our life-long nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.”

There seems to be a sense in which we are all like the younger brother. We are all exiles, always longing for home. We are always traveling, but never arriving. Our houses and families are only stops along the way, but they aren’t home. Home, for whatever reason, seems to evade us. But why is the thought of “home” so powerful yet so elusive? The answer may surprise you.

In the beginning of the book of Genesis, we learn the reason why all people feel like exiles, like we aren’t really home. We’re told that we were created to live in the garden of God. That was the world we were built for: a place in which there was always love and never disease. And it was all that and then some because it was life in the very the presence of God. There we were to adore and serve him; to know, enjoy, and reflect his beauty. That was our original home.

But, as in Jesus’ parable, God was the “father” of that home and we rebelled against his authority. We wanted to live without God’s interference, and so we turned away and became alienated. Prodigal. Rashly or wastefully extravagant. We lost our home for the same reason the younger brother lost his, and the result was exile.

And we’ve been wandering as spiritual exiles ever since, living in a world that no longer fits our deepest longings. Although we ache for bodies that “run and will not grow weary” (Isaiah 40:31), we are subject to disease, aging and death. Though we need a love that lasts, all our relationships are subject to the inevitable ravages of time, crumbling in our hands. Even people who stay true to us die and leave us, or we die and leave them. And though we want to make a difference in the world through our work, we are constantly frustrated and never fully realize our hopes or dreams. We may work hard to re-create the home that we have lost, but it only exists in the presence of the heavenly father from whom we have run.

This theme is played out again and again in the Bible. After Adam and Eve’s exile from the Garden of Eden, their son, Cain, was forced to wander the earth without a home because he’d murdered his brother, Abel. Later, Jacob cheated his father and brother and fled into exile for years. After that, Jacob’s sons and his family were taken from their homeland into Egypt because of famine. There the Israelites were enslaved until, under Moses, they returned to their ancestral home. Centuries later, David, before he became king, lived like a fugitive.

It’s no coincidence that story after story in the Bible contains this pattern of exile. The message of the Bible is that the human race is a band of exiles trying to come home. You see, the parable of the prodigal son is about every one of us.

“Home,” Robert Frost said, “…is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” The younger brother, however, knew that a successful return was not inevitable since his sins had created a barrier between himself and his father. He knew that he might be rejected and forced to stay in exile – forever. In the same way, the Bible shows how high the barriers are for our own homecoming as a human race.

For instance, during the Babylonian exile, the prophets of Israel predicted a great return and homecoming through the grace of God. Eventually, the people of Israel were given permission to leave Babylon and return to Israel. However, only a small percentage actually returned to Palestine, and there they continued to be under Persian domination and control. Later, one great world-power after another would invade and control Israel – first Greece, then Syria and finally, Rome.

The people were still oppressed. But why? Maybe one of the reasons is the brokenness within human beings. Israel, in particular, and the human race, in general, was still mired in selfishness, pride and sin. We are oppressed by conflicts within our own hearts, as well as constant battles and warfare with neighboring nations. We need a radical change in our very nature.

But another reason may be the brokenness around human beings. We live in a natural world that is fallen. We were not made for a world of disease and natural disaster; a world in which everything decays and dies. This world, as it now exists, is not the home we long for. So, a real, final homecoming would mean a radical change not only in our own human nature, but in the very fabric of the world in which we live.

By the time of Jesus’ ministry, many in Israel realized that, despite their return from Babylon, the nation was still in exile. Injustice and oppression dominated their national life. The final homecoming hadn’t yet happened. So, many began to pray to God for deliverance. The problem was that they pictured their delivery home as a national, political liberation for Israel. It was thought that the Messiah, the king who would redeem Israel, would be a figure of great military strength and political power. He would come to his people, be recognized and received by them, and then lead them on to victory.

But then Jesus appeared, and declared that he was bringing in “the kingdom of God.” (Mark 1:15) The people crowded around to hear him, but nothing about him fit their expectations. He was born in a feeding trough, far from home – not in a palace fit for a king. During his ministry, Jesus wandered and settled nowhere. In fact, Jesus said of himself, “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matt. 8:20) He remained completely outside the social networks of political and economic power. He didn’t even seek academic or religious credentials.

Finally, at the end of his life, he was crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem, a powerful symbol of rejection – of exile. And as he died he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) An excruciating cry of homelessness.

But Jesus hadn’t come to simply deliver Israel from political oppression; he came to save us all from sin and death itself. He came to bring the human race “home.” So, it’s fitting that he didn’t come in strength, but in weakness. He came and experienced the exile that we deserved. He was expelled from the presence of the Father and thrust into a darkness of the uttermost spiritual alienation. You see, he took our place. He took upon himself the curse of human rebellion and cosmic homelessness, so that we could be welcomed into our true home.

At the end of the story of the prodigal son, there’s a feast. So, too, at the end of the book of Revelation. At the end of history, there’s a feast, too. The “marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Revelation 19) The Lamb is Jesus, who was sacrificed for the sins of the world so that we could be pardoned and brought home. This feast happens in the New Jerusalem, the City of God that comes down out of heaven to fill the earth. (Revelation 21-22) And we’re told that God’s presence is in that city. So, too, is the tree of life whose leaves now provide “the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:2) The same tree of life that was in the Garden of Eden.

In other words, at the end of history the whole earth becomes the Garden of God once again where “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain – for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) Jesus, unlike the founder of any major faith, holds out hope for the human race. Our future is not some sort of ethereal, impersonal other-consciousness. We won’t be floating through the air and strumming harps, either. Instead, we’ll eat, hug, sing, laugh and dance in the kingdom of God to a degree of joy that we can’t even begin to imagine.

Jesus will make the world our perfect home again. We will no longer be living “east of Eden,” always wandering and never arriving. We will come home and the Father will meet us and embrace us, and we will be brought into the celebration planned from the beginning of time for our return.

Home – at last.

Grace,

Randy