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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am sure that, at one point or another, all of us have lost things: a favorite toy, our wallet, our keys. If we ever found them, we probably celebrated and were glad that that which had been lost was then found. Celebrating and being glad that someone who was lost is found is central to the Third Reading on this Fourth Sunday in Lent, what used to be called by the Latin name “Laetare”, the first Latin word of the traditional Introit appointed for this day, translated “Rejoice!” Although that Latin word is not used in the usual Latin translation of the Third Reading, the Readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent nevertheless are a bit more joyful than others in this solemn season, much like the readings for the Third Sunday in Advent are a bit more joyful than others in that solemn season. Today, with our Third Reading’s focus on celebrating and being glad that someone who was lost is found, we focus our thoughts on the theme “Lost and Found”.
The Third Reading gives us the beginning and end of the 15th chapter of St. Luke’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account, in which chapter Pharisees and scribes grumble about Jesus’s receiving and eating with sinners. Jesus proceeds to tell essentially three parables about rejoicing over something “lost and found”: first, a lost sheep; second, a lost coin; and third, a lost son. Our three-year series of readings gives us the parables of the sheep and coin later this year, so this morning we focus on the likely‑familiar parable of the son who had been lost but was found.
Unique to St. Luke’s Gospel account, this parable of the son who had been lost but was found is usually called “The Parable of The Prodigal Son”, where “prodigal” is usually taken to refer to the younger son’s squandering his property in reckless living in a far country. The great detail and length of the parable as Jesus told it seems to lead some to interpret the parable in great detail and at great length (there are whole books devoted to the interpretation of just this parable, and last August 8th we essentially spent an hour on it in our Bible Study on Select Parables in Light of Law and Gospel). Understanding all of the parable’s details is helpful, but we want to be careful not to press those details too far and instead stay focused on the parable’s main point of comparison in the context in which Jesus told it, the context of people not celebrating and being glad that someone who was lost is found.
To be sure, at one point or another in the parable both the younger and the older son are lost to the father—lost not due to anything the father did, but due to their own action or inaction. The younger son shamefully mistreated his father and left him, while the older son, who appears to stay with the father the whole time, in the end is lost from the celebrating and being glad that the younger son who had been lost was found. The younger son left his father with no expectation of his returning, and the father may well have imagined that the son was dead. Whether or not the son’s being dead would have been worse than what was happening may be a matter of debate, but, in describing himself as “perishing with hunger”, the son uses a form of the same Greek word that the father uses in describing the son as “lost”.
That same Greek word—meaning “perishing”, “lost”, and “destroyed”—can describe your and my eternal situation on account of our sin. Whether we sin like the younger son in squandering his property in immoral living or like the older son in not celebrating the finding of the lost, we all sin. We all are sinful to our core. Before conversion to the Christian faith, we are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). Because of our sinful nature and our actual sins, we deserve to be lost to eternal misery in hell.
In the Third Reading’s parable, the younger son “comes to himself” and decides to go to his father, confess his sin, and strike a bargain with him to be treated as a hired servant (perhaps not quite yet the kind of “repentance” that produces joy in heaven). Even if, having grown up in his father’s house, the younger son had some idea of his father’s mercy and grace, he really does not seem to have the full idea. While the younger son was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion—the kind of compassion the Bible generally ascribes only to God or, as in this case, to people in parables who represent God. The father ran to his younger son (which was below the father’s dignity), and the father embraced him and kissed him (indicating the father’s forgiveness). The father called for his servants to bring quickly the best robe, a ring, and shoes (all, at a minimum, restoring the son to his original place in his father’s house and, as a result, in the community). In the parable, the younger son may have lost himself from the father, but the father found him. The younger son had been dead, but was alive again; he had been lost but was found.
The same is true for us. On account of our sin, we lose ourselves from God our heavenly Father, but He finds us again in Jesus Christ. As Jesus Himself says later in St. Luke’s account, He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). For us who were dead and lost, Jesus Himself was dead and was made alive again. With His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave He makes possible our salvation. The great love God the Father has for us, of which we sang in the Office Hymn, resulted in His sending Jesus for us and so making possible mercy’s call to repentance and faith, of which we sang in the Opening Hymn, and that salvation produces the praise of which the First Reading speaks (Isaiah 12:1-6) and of which praise we will sing in the Closing Hymn. As St. Paul writes, because of God’s great love for us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ, saving us by grace and forgiving us, who repent, all of our trespasses, whatever they might be (Ephesians 2:4-5; Colossians 2:13).
God first kills our sinful nature and makes us alive together with Christ in Holy Baptism. At the Baptismal Font, we are baptized into Christ Jesus’s death so that, just as He was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4). The Bible indicates such dying and being made alive as the experience of saints such as Noah, Isaac, Joseph, and Jonah—and, notably, several of those “deaths” and “resurrections” involved water. In Holy Baptism, we are in Christ and so new creations, as today’s Second Reading describes (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). When we who are baptized know and feel in our hearts a particular sin that troubles us, we confess it privately to what that same Second Reading called a minister of the reconciliation God accomplished in Christ; from him we receive absolution individually. Instructed, examined, and so absolved, we, with our fellow-believing friends and neighbors, come inside to the feast that is the Sacrament of the Altar. At this rail Jesus Himself receives and eats with sinners, He feeds them bread that is His body and wine that is His blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins, and so for our life and salvation. This feast is where true celebrating and being glad are found. As the father did with the older son in the parable, our Heavenly Father earnestly invites you to come here, to celebrate and be glad.
In a recent interview, the head of Southwest Airlines’ Central Baggage Services described a warehouse full of items that people “lost” but employees “found” on Southwest’s airplanes. Some of the more unusual items include Mardi‑Gras beads, Mexican sombreros, and Obama bobble-heads. But, most are what they call low-value items (glasses, wallets, stuffed animals, or shopping bags), or high-value items (cell phones, iPads, iPods, or laptops). Some items, like heirloom jewelry, are irreplaceable and therefore priceless, and the manager told several heart‑warming stories about reuniting people with their previously “lost” items. He even said they are blessed to help people “find” what was lost. We, who once were lost are blessed to be found, and, at our Father’s feast, we rejoice with God over His restoring to Himself, in Christ Jesus our Lord, wretched sinners like us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +