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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.
As you may know, the season of Lent is a solemn time of repentance, and yet today, Lent’s Fourth Sunday, nevertheless is traditionally characterized by joy. For hundreds of years, the appointed Gospel Reading was St. John’s account of the feeding of the five-thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish (John 6:1-15), and so the Fourth Sunday in Lent was sometimes called “Bread Sunday” or “Refreshment Sunday”. The more usual name for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, however, was “Laetare”, after the first Latin word of the appointed Introit for the day, meaning “Rejoice”. And, like the Third Sunday in Advent (named “Gaudete” for the first Latin word of its appointed Introit, also meaning “Rejoice”), the Fourth Sunday in Lent sometimes is observed with rose‑colored paraments, even as we here at Pilgrim use a rose‑colored or “pink” candle on the Third Sunday in Advent. (Confer Pfatteicher, Commentary, 231.) Although the appointed Introits and Readings changed in recent decades, the Fourth Sunday in Lent’s emphasis on joy continues still today, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading. What is usually called “the Parable of the Prodigal Son” four times mentions “rejoicing”, although the English Standard Version read translated those mentions as “celebrate”. This morning we reflect on today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “The Joy of Repentance” (Schniewind’s term, according to Marshall, 604).
The Parable of the Prodigal Son generally is much loved by Christians, and rightfully so. Before launching into what are its likely familiar details, however, today’s Gospel Reading gives us the three verses that introduce the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the two similar parables that precede it (Luke 15:4-10). Those introductory verses tell how tax collectors and sinners, whom the society of the day generally despised, were all drawing near with ears to hear Jesus (Luke 14:35) but how the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling about Jesus’s receiving and eating with sinners. So, perhaps reflecting a passage from Jeremiah (31:10-20), Jesus told them three parables about things’ being lost and then found—a sheep, a coin, and a son. All three parables illustrate “The Joy of Repentance”.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is itself almost two parables, one corresponding to each of the man’s two sons. While the younger son’s squandering his property in reckless living gives the parable its usual name, the older son’s refusal to “rejoice” at his younger brother’s “repentance” arguably makes him the more‑central character. Certainly the younger son is to be likened to the tax collectors and sinners who were all drawing near to hear Jesus, and the older son is to be likened to the Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling about Jesus’s receiving and eating with sinners. To which son you and I may be likened is perhaps another matter! With which son do you and I identify? By nature, we all are certainly like the younger son: we may squander what God gives us in reckless living; we maybe even immorally spend too much of our resources on physical pleasures; ultimately we may find ourselves without friends, honor, or good character; or we may be in physical, social, moral, and spiritual disaster and bankruptcy. And, even those of us who are repentant believers may be like the older son: we may get angry and refuse to join the celebration when sinners repent; we may be proud and self-righteous; we may think we never disobey our Father’s Commandments; or we may wish to celebrate with others than those whom our Father receives.
How do you and I respond to this parable? The Divinely‑inspired St. Luke does not tell us how the Pharisees and scribes responded, nor does Jesus say whether or not the older son ever went in to the celebration. The younger son at least appears to have repented, confessing his sin against both God and his father and trusting both God and his father mercifully to receive him back in at least some capacity. In fact, the younger son did not even get to say all he planned to say, before he was overwhelmed with his father’s compassion and forgiveness. His father took the initiative in going out not only to the younger son but also to the older son, just as God takes the initiative with us: calling and enabling us to repent, confessing our sin against Him and one another and trusting Him and one another both mercifully to forgive us. As today’s Collect said, we deserve only punishment, now and for eternity, but we are overwhelmed with our Father’s compassion and forgiveness for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son seems to be told as law, in order to show the grumbling Pharisees and scribes their sin and so to help lead them both to repent and to rejoice in others’ repentance, but we who do repent and rejoice in others’ repentance also find in the parable a great deal of Gospel that grants us peace and joy. The father in the parable’s compassion and forgiveness illustrates God the Father’s compassion and forgiveness. God the Father did not kill the fattened calf but sacrificed His own Son, the God-man Jesus Christ, on the cross, in order to forgive you and me. As today’s Epistle Reading put it, for our sake God made Jesus, Who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). By grace for Jesus’s sake, we through faith receive God the Father’s forgiveness of our sin—sin like that the younger son committed and sin like that the older son committed—whatever our sin might be, God the Father forgives it all for His Son Jesus’s sake. And, God the Father forgives our sin through His means of grace, His Word and Sacraments.
The tax collectors and sinners were forgiven through God’s Word and Sacraments. Today’s Gospel Reading tells us that they were all drawing near to hear Jesus’s Word, and, earlier in his account, St. Luke tells us that, unlike the Jewish leaders, they were baptized (Luke 7:29-30). In the words of today’s Epistle Reading, they were in Christ and so new creations. Like the younger son in the parable, they repented: they confessed their sin and trusted God to forgive them. And, as the father in the parable received and ate with the younger son, Jesus received them and ate with the tax collectors and sinners, just as Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar receives and eats with us, who are baptized and live in repentance and faith. Jesus is the One hosting the meal, and He is the meal’s food and drink: His own Body with bread and His own Blood with wine—given and shed for us, for the forgiveness of our sin, and so also for life and salvation. The Prayer of Thanksgiving in our liturgy speaks of our here receiving the salvation Jesus accomplished for us with repentant joy. We not only are joyful amid our own repentance, but we also are joyful that others are repenting.
“The Joy of Repentance” is ours not only on this Fourth Sunday of Lent but always. By nature we are prodigal children and reluctant to rejoice at sinners who repent, but, out of His overwhelming compassion, God makes us otherwise. We were dead but are alive. We were lost but are found. God the Father’s joy and gratitude over repentant sinners is ours. God the Father’s wondrous love mediated through Christ to us, in turn, is given by us to our fellow human beings. As prophesied in today’s Old Testament Reading through Isaiah (12:1-6), with joy we draw water from the wells of salvation, and we say: “Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +