Being an older brother is difficult. It comes with increased responsibilities and a certain status within the family. Responsibility and status can be, if not embraced properly, a very dangerous thing to the soul of man. When corrupted, these things, whether real or perceived, have been the downfall of nations as well as individuals. Here Jesus says to the Pharisees and to their modern day counterparts, the God of all creation loves you, come and celebrate...your Egyptians brothers, your Pakistani brothers, your American brothers, your Greek brothers, your Roman brothers, your African brothers, your Iraqi brothers, your Afghan brothers...your Brother is returning home.
Like Cain, however, rage rises up. The house is a wreck, they blew our family inheritance on whores and all false things...and you lavish them with your love, you accept this sacrifice of repentance, which is no sacrifice at all...it just fit his circumstances (not to mention makes good sense anyway) and then turn round and bless him with your best? How dare you! Look at all I've done! I've been in the fields breaking my back and then I come home to this?
And here Jesus gives tremendous grace to his self-righteous yet hard working and faithful contemporaries. The father does not tell him to be off, does not (as a father would) rebuke him for his insolence, self-righteousness and stiff-necked nature, but rather draws him into the same grace and mercy. Everything I have belongs to you. You're always with me. Come join the party!...Your brother was dead, and now is alive. He was lost, but now is found.
Will he join the party? Or will he sink further into rebellion against his father? Seeing only that now the younger brother is with him too, in a seemingly exalted state given this whole party. He will always be with their father going forward too, can he handle that? Will he murder his brother like Cain? Or perhaps he will now run off? Or perhaps he can forgive...but is he made of the same substance? Will he truly become a child of his father...This amazing, set apart father.
Jesus left the story unfinished, he left it up to them to write...May the ending be written in the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
'But now in Yeshua Messiah you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Messiah Yeshua Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.' And ALL God's people said...AMEN! ALLELUIA! AMEN MARANATHA!
No comments:
Post a Comment