The prodigal God pt5

The Feast of the Father
Text : Luke 15:11-32 NIV
Al t erna t e Ti t le: We Had to Celebra t e
Int roduc t ion: We have looked at the story of the younger brother, then we put it into its context
with the story of the elder brother. Then we put the story of the two brothers into the context of the
whole chapter. Each time we saw another important part of Jesus’ message. But we are not quite
done. We need to see the story in the context of the whole Bible. Jesus was immersed in the
Scriptures, and in this story he is giving us the essence of the whole Biblical storyline in one vivid
narrative. If we see that, we will get a 30,000 foot view of what the Bible is all about. We learn about
1) the human condition, 2) the divine solution, and 3) the new communion.
1. The human condi t ion—verses 13-17.
• The younger brother’s sin turned him into an exile from his home. He had disgraced his family
and the entire community would have been outraged. He would have had to take his money and
go far away, and he did.
• When he did so, he became an image of the human race. For we were made for life in the Garden
of Eden. Our true home is in the presence of God. But we have lost our home. We are all exiles.
• “Home” is the place that truly fits and suits us. We were made to know and serve God, to live in
his presence and enjoy his love and beauty.
• However, because we wanted to be our own Saviors and Lords, we lost God, and therefore
we wander in the world and experience what the philosopher Heidegger called
unheimlichkeit. The word is translates as “eeriness” or “uncanniness” but literally it means
“away from home.” Heidegger is referring to the anxiety and spiritual nausea that comes
from never feeling at home in the world.
• This world doesn’t address the needs of our heart. We long for a love that can’t be lost, for
escape from death, for the triumph of justice over wrong. But such things will never be
found here.
• When the younger brother “came to his senses” he realized that he needed to go home, but
how? He realized he was an outcast, so why would they receive him? Still, he went home.
2. The divine solut ion—verses 31-32.
• The centerpiece of the parable is a feast. The father throws a feast, filled with “music and
dancing” and the greatest delicacies, to mark the reconciliation and restoration of his son. He
says that when the younger son came home, “we had to celebrate.” There was no choice. Why is
the feast so important?
• In the Old Testament, meals ratified covenants, celebrated victories, and marked all special
family occasions and transitions, such as births, weddings, and funerals. Also, a feast was
established to mark the greatest event in the salvation history of God’s people to that time—the
Passover. Why were meals so important?
• In ancient times, meals were prolonged affairs that lasted all evening, usually until bedtime—
since there was little else to do after the sun went down and after a strenuous day of
labor. So evening meals became the center of family life and therefore both a symbol and
practice of intimacy.
• But we don’t need to be people of the first century to grasp all this. It is at meals that you
most feel at home. In a meal your body is getting what it needs—the pleasure and
nourishment of food and rest. But also, at meals your heart is getting what it needs—
laughter and friendship. Even today, if you have a family reunion or some kind of
homecoming—you eat. And it is at those great feasts that no matter what else is going
wrong in our lives, we feel almost at home.
• The feast means that God will bring us home some day.
• As Jesus says: “Many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the
feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 8:11). Because of our
true elder brother, God will some day make this world home again. He’s going to wipe
away death, suffering, and tears, and will give us bodies that run and are never weary.
• And when we get there, we will say something like what Jewel the Unicorn said at the end
of the Chronicles of Narnia: “I’ve come home at last! I belong here. This is the land I’ve
been looking for all my life, though I never knew it!”
• The younger brother did not expect to be brought back into the family, he did not expect a
feast, since he had sinned. But that is what he gets. And the elder brother objects. Why?
• Because meals signified acceptance and relationship, the religious leaders forbid believers
from eating with “sinners.” To eat with someone was to receive him, virtually as family.
How could you do that for someone who has rejected God? Besides that, didn’t everyone
know that you become like the people you love and spend the most time with? If you eat
with sinners, it was reasoned, you would become a sinner.
• The Jewish dietary laws were extremely elaborate. They were seen as quite effective in
keeping Jews from being polluted by the pagan practices of their neighbors. In fact, during
the time between testaments, leading up to Jesus’ day, preoccupation with ritual purity
increased, as Judea came under the boot of one set of pagan masters after another. Meals
more and more became boundary markers between the righteous and sinners.
• But Jesus shattered this practice, as we see in Luke 15:2. He eats with the notoriously
wicked and the marginalized. How can he do this? How can sinners be included in the
feast?
3. The new communion—“thi s brother of your wa s dead and i s a l ive aga in.”
• Jesus leaves his own true home (Phil. 2), wanders without a home (Matt 8:20), and is finally
crucified outside the gate of Jerusalem, a sign of exile and rejection (Heb. 13:11-12). Jesus
experiences the exile that the human race deserves. He is alienated and cast out so we can be
brought home.
• On the cross, Jesus loses fellowship and communion with the father. He cries out, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:45). He is forsaken and “cast out” of the family, so
that we can be brought in.
• As we can see from the parable itself, Jesus calls younger brothers to repent. He does not only
eat with them for the sake of “inclusiveness” or just to defy convention—rather he calls people
to change.
• And he gives us the foretaste of that great feast, what we call “The Lord’s Supper” or
Communion. To sit at the Communion table you don’t have to be perfect, only repentant. So
anyone can come, and anyone does come.
• Think of it like this—the ultimate son, who was dead and cut off, is now alive again. So we have
to celebrate! And the way we celebrate what he has done for us, is to create a new community of
forgiven sinners, in which anyone can be a part. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve
done, it doesn’t matter what your race or class or background is. Any repentant sinner can come
and be a brother and a sister, because of the death and resurrection of our true elder brother,
who took our exile and punishment upon himself.
• The death and resurrection of the Son, and the love of the Father, create a new community of
men and women who regularly break bread together to celebrate the new life and common
union they have through Jesus. It is not enough just to have an individual personal relationship
with God through Christ. You have to be an active part of the feast, the new community, the
family of God. That is where together we become conformed into the image of the one who did
all this for us.