Off the Deep End - He Descended Into Hell

"His father came out and began to plead with him."  Luke 15:28

The Parable of the Prodigal Son, as it is known, is the third of three "Lost and Found" parables Jesus tells in the 15th chapter of Luke.  First, it is the Shepherd who goes and looks for the one lost sheep; second, the woman who looks for the one lost coin; and third, the father who has two lost sons.  Unfortunately by labeling it as Prodigal Son we put all the focus on the prodigal, ignore the second son and miss the punch line at the end.  We will not make such a mistake today.

The story begins with the father having two sons and the youngest son comes to the father and says, "Give me my share of the inheritance now." What he’s in effect saying is, "Dear Dad, drop dead now, legally.  Put your will into effect now, while you are alive, and let us have what is coming to us."  So for whatever reason the father divides the property.  Obviously the youngest son liquidated his assets and the older brother apparently got the farm. 

What the younger brother, of course, does is blow it all on reckless living.  Finally when he hits bottom slopping hogs, he can't stand it any longer. He comes up with a plan. He says to himself, "I will go to my father and I will say, ‘Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you.'"   Now that part is true.  He got that right. "And I'm no longer worthy to be called your son." Score two for the boy--right on!  But the next thing he says is dead wrong. He says, "Make me one of your hired servants."  In other words his plan was to not go back not as a son, but as somebody who could earn his father's favor back again -- and unfortunately 20 centuries of gospel preaching has mistaken his plan for repentance.  It was not real repentance-not even close.  It was a plan.  It was a device.  It was a scheme.  He was trying to save face.  He was looking for something he could do to regain his father's favor. 

The father was sitting on the front porch of the farm house, that is, the farm house he did not own anymore, but now belonged to the oldest son.   He’s sitting there and he sees the younger boy coming down the road from far away. What does the father do? Does he wait for the boy to come all the way to him?  No way!  He rushes off the porch, runs a half mile down the road, throws his arms around the boy's neck and kisses him and makes a fuss all over him.

The fascinating thing is that in the whole parable the father never says one single word to the Prodigal Son.  Jesus makes the embrace and the kiss do all the talking that is necessary, "I have found my son."  The boy never even gets the chance to put his carefully conceived plan into effect until after is father's embrace, and when he does the father isn't listening but already planning a party.

My dear friends, what this says is that confession is not a pre-condition of forgiveness.  How many times have I heard someone say, "God will forgive you if you just repent."  Wrong!  God has already forgiven you. God is way ahead of us and our plans and schemes to win back his favor.  He loves you with a passion like you cannot even conceive or believe.  Confession is something that you do after you know you have been forgiven. Confession is not something you do in order to get forgiveness or to earn God's love. Confession is not a plan; it is not manipulating God into forgiving.  Confession and repentance is a celebration of the grace that's been there for you all along.  You cannot earn forgiveness, not even with confession.  Confession and repentance is coming home empty and receiving what God has to give.

The Prodigal tried to conceive a plan were he could regain his father's favor--a plan where he was still at the center. But, the father disenfranchised the prodigal's best plan by running down the road like a crazed fool and wrapping his arms around him in joyous, overflowing love. Surprise, surprise he is restored as son and didn't do anything but show up - it's pure gift!

And if all of that wasn't enough he throws a party!   And that's the end of the story, right?   Unfortunately that is as far as most people go.  But there is a whole second crucial part.

The focus shifts to the elder brother:  Mr. Responsibility; Mr. Scorekeeper; Mr. Bookkeeper. He hears the music and the dancing, and he probably sees the servants scurrying around with roast veal platters and all the trimmings, so he asks one of them, "What's all the fuss about? I didn't commission a party." The servant says, "No, no, your brother has come home and your father has killed the fatted calf because he received him safe and sound."

Mr. Responsibility; Mr. Scorekeeper; Mr. Bookkeeper begins to do a slow burn.  There is a party going on, but there's no way he will join in.  He is enraged. He will not go in. He is jealous.  He will not go in.  He too is a part of the party but he will not join the party. He would just as soon simmer in his own private little hell.

"His father goes out to him and begins to plead with him" to come in.  But Mr. Scorekeeper says, "Look, all these years I served you and I never broke one of your commandments, and you never given me even a goat that I could make merry with my friends. But when this your son of yours (notice he doesn't say, "my brother") has wasted your hard earned resources with riotous living and harlots and then comes home, you literally go goofy off the deep end."

The father's response can be boiled down to this. "Look junior, what are you complaining about? Everything that is mine is already yours, or have you forgotten that minor little fact.  Let go of your score-pad on everybody else in the universe and just come in and join the party because your brother was dead and now is alive; lost and now is found." - the parable ends right there!  But what an ending!  What a whopper of an ending!  It's not even an ending.  It's a non-ending.

The incredible thing about it is it's not a clean ending.  If Jesus were an ordinary story-teller he would have given it a cleaner ending to it like the elder brother, who we thought was a good boy, turned out to be an ungrateful, arrogant, self-righteous bad boy slob is forever lost, and the father walks away and that is it.  But he doesn’t do that!   He gives the older brother no ending at all. The parable ends with a freeze frame of the father pleading with his elder son to let go of his score pad and just come join the party -- and then everything freezes.   But you see that is the punch line.  The punch line is no real punch line at all… because the parable has not ended yet. It is still going on!

 I believe Jesus did not end it cleanly on purpose. The end of this parable extends indefinitely.  When the father goes out into the courtyard, he is nothing less than a picture of Jesus Christ "descending into hell" as the Apostles' Creed declares.  The parable's freeze frame ending is like Psalm 139 where the psalmist declares, "O God, where can I go to escape your presence?  If I go down to hell, you are there also." 

In other words, there is no point at which the Shepherd who followed the one lost sheep will ever stop following and pursuing the lost sheep; all of those who are sequestered in whatever private little hell they have put or find themselves in.  Jesus will always seek the lost.  He will always seek to raise the dead. 

Even if the elder brother refused forever to go in and kiss his other brother, the Father would still be out there pleading with him. Christ never gives up on anybody. Jesus Christ is not the enemy of the lost and damned, even when the lost and damned are you and me.  He is the finder of the damned.  He is the lover of the lost and damned.  "Father, forgive them" he pleaded from the cross.  Now, if we don't want to be found, there is no imagery of hell too strong for that kind of stupidity.  But the point is that you can never get away from the love that will not let you go, and the elder brother standing there doing a burn in the courtyard in his own self-righteous hell is never going to get away from the Jesus who seeks him and wills to raise him from the dead too. 

This is a powerful and dangerous parable.

It's about you and me.  It's about you and me when we try to "plan" our way into God's favor with our rationalizations, explanations and schemes.  "Compared to so-in-so I'm a good person; or I go to church; or I read my Bible; or I am decent, honest person; or I've done penance to make up for my sins; or I've tried hard."  My dear friends, before the words ever roll off your tongue Jesus has run down the driveway to meet you and he thrown his arms around you and commissioned a party -- a party of love and grace.  The party is a pure gift.  You have not done anything to earn it and never can, so don't delude yourself about this any more!  The party is not the result of your plan, or even your repentance.  The party is about who God who is a little crazy -- who's gone off the deep end in love for you.

It's about you and me when we are locked up in whatever self-imposed hell we find ourselves in - our hells of self-righteousness, anger, rage, jealousy, hate, prejudice, or whatever.  Jesus never stops descending into that dark place where you and I are reside, pleading with us to let it go and come join the party.

In the end the parable is really all about God and His beloved Son who are a little crazy and go off the deep end of the cross to forgive your sins and to welcome you to the party of grace.

So just let go and come.  The party is on!  "The body of Christ give for you"  "The blood of Christ, shed for you."