A Son is along way from home, homeless, treated as an outcaste, on the brink of death. This could in fact describe two sons. In the story that Jesus has been telling, the younger son has left home for a far off country. There, he has wasted everything and at that point, famine hits. Penniless and hungry, he takes up work looking after pigs. That it is pigs he looks after is significant because to Jesus Jewish audience, pigs were regarded as unclean. For them, the world was divided into clean and unclean things and people. If you were clean then you were recognised as part of the community and in relationship with God. If you became unclean through contact wit bodily fluids, dead bodies, illness like leprosy and a range of animals and foods then that cut you off from God’s people and prevented you from worshipping him. The lads’ willingness to look after pigs showed how desperate he was.
However, there is another Son. Jesus is frequently identified in the Bible as “The Son”. The Christmas story is about a son, Jesus who leaves his Father and his home in heaven to come and live among us. However, he does not seek to seize his share of an inheritance, he is not rebelling or running away. It is The Father’s Will. Nor does he waste everything or end up among the unclean out of desperation. Rather, he actively seeks out those labelled unclean and called sinners: lepers, tax collectors and prostitutes.
The lad in the parable comes to his senses at the ppint when he is so hungry that he is tempted to eat the pigs’ food. He resolves to g back home and plead with his dad to take him back but not as a son. He thinks that this is impossible. Instead, he rehearses a speech where he will say:
“I’m not worthy to be called your son. Please take my back as one of your hired workers.”
He moves from considering himself to be worthy to recognising that he is unworthy. He has got himself into this mess and he deserves all the consequences coming. There has to come a point in my life and yours where we realise that we are unworthy too. We are not entitled to the good things we think we deserve. In fact, the Bible says that we deserve the penalty of death which is about more than just the physical event when we stop breathing. Rather, I is about being exiled from God’s loving presence forever.
The good news of Christmas is that Jesus came specifically to identify with those who are unworthy and to take their unworthiness upon himself. Jesus died on the cross, not receing what he was truly worth but receiving the punishment we deserve. If Jesus came for thre unworthy, then the first step for you and me is to identify with the unworthy too, to recognise that we carry shame and guilt for the wrong things we have though said and done.
1 Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown,
When Thou camest to earth for me;
But in Bethlehem’s home was there found no room
For Thy holy nativity.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for Thee.
2 Heaven’s arches rang when the angels sang,
Proclaiming Thy royal degree;
But of lowly birth didst Thou come to earth,
And in great humility.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for Thee.
3 The foxes found rest, and the birds their nest
In the shade of the forest tree;
But Thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God,
In the deserts of Galilee.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for Thee.
4 Thou camest, O Lord, with the living word
That should set Thy people free;
But with mocking scorn, and with crown of thorn,
They bore Thee to Calvary.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for Thee.
5 When the heavens shall ring, and the angels sing,
At Thy coming to victory,
Let Thy voice call me home, saying “Yet there is room,
There is room at My side for thee.”
My heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus,
When Thou comest and callest for me.
Baptist Hymnal, 1991
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