Episode 8: Welcome Home

Jesus told a story about a father and his two sons. The younger son asked his father for his inheritance. In first-century Hebrew culture, the son may as well have said, “I wish you were dead, so I can get what’s mine.” Those listening would have thought little of the son. I imagine the tension rippling through the crowd as Jesus spoke. 

When He tells of the father giving his hateful son his full share of the inheritance, I picture the crowd squirming, fists tightening, some spitting on the ground. “How could any son do such a thing to his father?” and “How could that man give his treasure that fool. He is no son.”

 A reasonable man would surely have sent him away with nothing and would have disowned him. But the gracious father gave his son half of all he had, then he watched him leave. 

 The young man left, but he not only left his family, he left his town and even his country. He spent his father’s wealth on pleasure, and when his money ran out, so did his friends. 

 I imagine a few smiles among those listening as Jesus told the story. “He got what he deserved.”

But life got worse for the young man and everyone around him. 

Famine. 

In Western culture, famine is a foreign concept. We’ve had moments when there were a few empty shelves, no toilet paper, our favorite restaurant was closed because one of the workers got COVID. But we’ve never experienced famine.

No food. Empty stores. Dried-up fields and wells. Everyone scrapes to survive. Everyone. Even the great depression did not match the gravity of a famine in the ancient world. They had no infrastructure to safely or effectively ship food across long distances. Even those who had prepared and stored grains and dried meats would only survive for so long. Famine meant desperation and a fight to survive.

The young man had nothing, no one, and nowhere to go. He found work feeding pigs. 

 As Jesus told the crowd about the young man tossing Carob pods to pigs, I expect there were knowing smiles and head nods. Feeding swine gave them one more reason to despise this wayward fool and one more thing to make him unclean and unworthy to enter the temple courts.

You could say he was unworthy to approach his father. He was even unworthy to approach his father’s house.

But his father waited, not for a wayward fool, but for his lost son. And as his son stared at the dried-out pods, he realized the pigs were eating while he was starving. Starvation brings the kind of delirium that makes dirt-covered, tasteless pods seem like food. The young man broke down. “These pigs eat better than me. My father’s servants eat better than me.” 

No money. No food. Nothing and no one to call his own. He left that far-off country wearing the stench of defeat and made the long journey home. Having wished his father dead, I can’t imagine he expected any sort of welcome. He may not have even expected eye contact or entrance into his father’s house, but he hoped for food and a place to sleep.

I picture the father waiting, climbing to the rooftop each evening, watching the distant hill. Hoping. Praying. Finally, after who knows how many years, a silhouette crests the hill. His pulse rises. “My son!” It’s him.  He hikes up his cloak and his robe and sprints toward him.

“Welcome home, my son.”

The lost son was found. The lost sheep was restored to the flock. And the lost coin was returned to the its set.  

But Jesus hadn’

Huge thanks to Mike Bridgewater our engineer, JD Miller our musical wizard, and Mt Gilead Church our home to record.
Thank YOU for listening. We pray our efforts help you focus on Jesus the author, editor, and publisher of everything worth believing in.
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