Like as a Father…Father’s Day 2019

Departing

As soon as he would have the opportunity, he wanted to leave, to go out into the wide world which has such an attraction. First, he made his demands. “Father, where is my inheritance? I do have a right to that, for I am your child.” You must have some nerve to demand everything from your father with whom you share a common bloodline and then to have the firm intention to spend it all—to live only for yourself and your own pleasure. He does not feel that he is stepping on the heart of his father, for he sees things differently. He is busy taking care of himself, to establish a healthy self-dependence, that is, a healthy self-reliance. It is noticeable that the father is silent, gives him what he wants, and lets him go. A quiet, observing father remains behind with a wounded heart.

Forgetting

A quiet time follows in the house of the father, a time of…what do you think? His boy has traveled to a far away country, far from the heart and home of the father. Daily, the son spends his time in complete estrangement of everything which he has received at home. There, far away, there are no limits. There, one does what one feels like doing. It is like paradise upon earth. What a difference from that fault-finding, narrow-mindedness of the past. It is wonderful to be able to enlarge one’s young heart. This is the life, for ultimately, we only live once.

Contrary to a long period of quiet in the house of the father, there is an awesome time in that far away land. After demanding the goods, there follows the going away, and after the squandering of his goods, there follows the staying away. For even when his goods become less and he has to do with less, he will never go back, no matter what happens. He has slammed the door of the house of his father shut with the firm intention never to return even when things become more difficult, when he comes to be alone and begins to suffer want. Friends and girlfriends in that far away land are happy to help him squander his goods, but then they leave him over to himself, for they are not faithful friends. They only want to be part of the fun but not anything else.

The word “father” no longer passes over his lips. It is only at the swine’s trough when he is miserable and perishing from hunger, not even allowed to eat the swine’s food, that a certain end comes to that glorious free life of enjoyment without a father. What is it that his father had said? “My boy, that life of sin is to dig your own grave.” The words spoken in the house of the father do appear to be true.

Forgiveness

So far away, so immersed in misery, so much sin and guilt—all that makes going back impossible. How would that be possible when one is so malnourished and so weak, and that long journey on foot? To go back is impossible; yet he goes. To go back is such an incomprehensible wonder— he goes back and even reaches the house of his father, that swine herder in his weakness and stinking rags, his totally dreadful condition. What awaits him at the house of his father? A high fence with barbed wire? Dogs which are sent out to chase him? Servants who tell him to go to the neighbors? A father who first wishes to have an extensive conversation about what has happened in the past? A father who demands that he must first…?

What awaits him he could never have imagined—a father who has been on the lookout for a long time already; a father who has never dismissed his son from his heart, no matter how severely he has stepped upon it; a father who quickly leaves his home and property to go and meet his boy; a father who embraces him and kisses him; a father who does not let him finish confessing how greatly he has sinned. He is no longer allowed to say, “Make me as one of thy hired servants.”

The Father’s Son and good pleasure

The words of man are too poor to describe this Father’s love, but God’s only-begotten Son knows the heart of the Father as no one else does. With this parable, Christ is saying in Luke 15, starting with verse 11: That is now My Father. I know Him perfectly. Those of you who have run away have completely wrong thoughts of Him. I am showing you the way back to the house of the Father. I prepare the way, I even am the Way, so that the Father’s good pleasure may be accomplished in and through Me; so that the true conversion may be accomplished in and through My Spirit, also in the lives of lost fathers (and sons) who have sinned it all away. When fathers and mothers may learn this Father’s love experientially, then lost sons and daughters caught up in the rebellious routines of every day shall recognize it. The blessing of this Father’s love appears to be forgiving and renewing. It can be seen in the fruits. p

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