[If you would like to listen to this sermon, click on the arrow.]
Audio PlayerThe Sermon for Sunday, March 30th, 2025, the Fourth Sunday in Lent
The Lessons: Joshua 5:1-12; Psalm 34:1-8; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:11-32
The Text: Luke 15:11-32
The Topic: Repentance, forgiveness, and restoration, as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son
INTRODUCTION
A traveler was making his way with a guide through the jungles of Burma. They came to a shallow, wide river and waded through it to the other side. When the traveler came out of the river, numerous leeches were on his torso and legs. His first instinct was to grab them and pull them off.
This guide stopped him, warning that doing so would leave tiny pieces of the leeches under the skin. Eventually, infection would set in. The best way to rid the body of the leeches, the guide advised, was to bathe in a warm balsam bath for several minutes. This would calm the leeches, and soon they would release their hold on the man’s body.
Likewise, when I’ve been hurt by another person, I cannot simply yank the injury from myself and expect that all bitterness, malice, and emotion will be gone. Resentment still hides under the surface. The only way to become truly free of the offense and to forgive others is to bathe in the soothing bath of God’s forgiveness. When I finally fathom the extent of God’s love in Jesus Christ, forgiveness of others will follow.
— Gary Preston, Character Forged from Conflict (Bethany, 1999)[1]
The Parable of the Prodigal Son, which is our Gospel Lesson today, is a picture of God’s love, compassion, and forgiveness in welcoming the repentant sinner into his family, as if he had never sinned. The Parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Drachma (translated “piece of silver” in the KJV) that precede this parable also illustrate the love of God for the sinner and the joy of the Father and the angels of heaven when one sinner repents. Whereas in the preceding parables the emphasis lies on the search of God for the sinner (as a shepherd searches for his lost sheep, and as a woman searches for her silver drachma), in this parable, the emphasis lies on the Father’s joy at the repentance of one sinner and his gracious welcome of his son back into his family.
What was the context that gave rise to these parables? The Pharisees and scribes were complaining that Jesus was welcoming sinners and eating with them (Luke 15:2). These parables were all meant to show that the Lord’s outreach to sinners was extremely worthwhile, since God himself both searches for the repentant sinner and desires him to return to his household. Now in the Parable of the Prodigal Son we see God at work in bringing the younger son to the point of repentance, and it is his hunger while he works as the herdsman for pigs in a foreign land through which he comes to realize that he needs to return to his father and acknowledge his sin against heaven and against him (Luke 15:17-19) and offer himself to him as a servant and no longer as his son. Though hunger might not have been the best motive for repentance, yet God worked through that hunger in the younger son to bring him to a steadfast determination to return to his father and confess his sin to him.
GOD REACHES OUT IN LOVE TO THE PENITENT SINNER
The father in this parable is no ordinary father. While his son is still in the distance, his father sees him and, moved by compassion, runs to meet him, embrace him, and kiss him (Luke 15:20). This was before the son had even begun to confess the wrong that he had done. Now this is an accurate depiction of God’s attitude to everyone who repents of his sin. God’s compassion on the sinner and yearning for him to return to a right relationship with himself stands in the foreground. God knows everyone’s motives and intentions beforehand, before he even prays a prayer of repentance, and he eagerly reaches out to the penitent heart.
GOD COMPLETELY FORGIVES AND RESTORES THE PENITENT PERSON
The returning son confesses to his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son” (Luke 15:21, KJV). When the father hears these words, he does not say, “All right, from now on you will be my servant.” Instead, the father orders his servants to bring the best robe and put it on him, a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. Then he tells his servants to kill the fatted calf and prepare a feast, so that they can celebrate the truth that his son, who was dead, is alive again, who was lost, and is found (Luke 15:22-24). These images point to how God forgives sin and what welcome he gives to the sinner who repents and comes back to him. The ring on his finger, the best robe, and the shoes given to the son show that the father restores his son completely to his sonship with the right to transact business (the ring). The father treats his son as if he had never sinned, and had never left the house, and had never squandered his share of the inheritance. His sin is completely erased as though it had never been committed. God’s complete forgiveness of our sins is affirmed in Psalm 103:
He hath not dealt with us after our sins,
Nor rewarded us after our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is his loving kindness toward them that fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
(Psalm 103:10-12, ASV)
Another testimony to God’s righteousness in forgiving the sin of the person who turns away from sin is given in God’s words through the prophet Ezekiel:
But if the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his transgressions that he hath committed shall be remembered against him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.
(Ezekiel 18:21-22, ASV)
The person who has turned from a sinful, selfish way of life and turned back to God is forgiven and restored as if he had never sinned. It was this insight that the elder son could not accept. He could not accept that his younger brother, after wasting his inheritance on immorality and dissolute living, could be welcomed back with so much celebration. It offended his sense of justice, in that he had always served and obeyed his father, but had never been given a young goat for him to enjoy a feast with his friends (Luke 15:29). The elder brother could not believe the genuineness of the younger son’s repentance. The scribes and Pharisees similarly regarded the publicans and sinners as unlikely to repent of their ways, and therefore their sinfulness remained.
CONCLUSION
Too often, we don’t forgive people as completely as God forgives them. We must not think any the less of anyone who has sinned and sought forgiveness of others and of God. We must not be like the angry elder brother, who refused to forgive his brother and resented his father for throwing a party for his prodigal son.
I have two questions on which we ought to reflect:
- Do you believe God has completely forgiven and restore you in Christ?
- Do you forgive others as God has forgiven you, or do you still hold their sins against them?
[1] p.89, Craig Brian Larson & Phyllis Ten Elshof (General Editors): 1001 Illustrations that Connect. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, Christianity Today International, 2008.