The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Luke xy. 11 — 382.
YEARS ago, a traveler found himself in a fishing town, where he intended to pass the night. The sun had gone down on a sea of glass; but, as the night fell, the wind began to moan, and ere long a glaring flash and rattling peal announced the storm that broke out over sea and land with tremendous fury. By and bye, the voices of men and women were heard in the streets — mingling with the roar of the tempest. There was none to answer his call; and surprised to find himself the only tenant of the inn, he sallied forth to join the crowd, which, seized with a terrible alarm, and consisting chiefly of old men, women, mothers, and little children,» was hurrying to the shore. Their fathers, children, husbands, brothers, had gone off to the fishing; and must now be running for the haven through that black night and roaring sea. There, drenched with rain and the salt spray, clinging to wall, rock, and each other, a crowd was gathered, over which, as they stood, some looking seaward, and some in silent prayer to heaven, a blazing fire, kindled at the pier-end, threw fitful and ruddy gleams. Another light, gleaming like a star over the waves, with which it rose and sank, shone from a life-boat that gallant hands had rowed out to the tail of a reef, between which and the pier the boats must run to make the, harbor’s mouth. Could they live in such a sea? If they did, could they, guided by these lights, dash through between the shore on this side and the reef on that? Some hoping, some despairing, but all straining their eyes to pierce the gloom, two hours o” terrible suspense drag on; at length a faint cheer is raised, as, dimly seen, the headmost boat is descried running for the harbor. They hold their breath — prayers are on their lips, and lives are in that helmsman’s hand. lying on the rudder, he steers her aright. She clears the point of danger; and, as the forms of the boat’s crew flash by in the gleam of the pine-wood fire, there is a scream — a voice cries, ‘It is he! it is he! he’s safe!’’ — and a woman, who had caught sight of her husband in the boat, fell fainting, for very joy, into an old man’s ‘arms.
No wonder the stranger, careless of the tempest, mingled with that eager crowd; for, where such a scene was transacting, and men’s lives were in the greatest jeopardy, and human bosoms were agitated by as great a tumult as roared above in the stormy skies, and in the waves of that foaming sea, who could sit to enjoy the comforts of a bright fireside and curtained room? Where men’s lives, their souls, or great interests are in danger, nothing is so exciting as to watch the uncertain issue; or more gratifying than to see life saved — the dead alive, the lost found. To such stirring sights men and women crowd; to such tales old age, as well as childhood, turns with ear intent.
To this, in part, the parable of the Prodigal, with its strong lights and shadows, with the wickedness of the son, and the father’s kindness, forgiveness, and touching joy over one who had been lost and was found, owes the universal interest with which it is read; and the garland with which men have agreed to crown it as, both for the beauty of its story, and the importance of its truths, the finest of all the parables.
THE OCCASION OF THE PARABLE.
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come — so said the dying Jacob. In accordance with that old prophecy, the Jewish State, at Christ’s advent, merged into the Roman Empire; and was, in consequence, taxed to ‘maintain a foreign, and what was particularly offensive to the Jews, a heathen government. The parties employed in raising this public revenue, and who were therefore called publicans, were obnoxious to every pious and patriotic Jew. Some were heathens; and such as were not, being regarded as traitors, were held in double abhorrence — the very beggars refused their, charity. With few exceptions, no man of character would accept the office. Excluded from the ranks of respectable society, the publicans acquired the habits of the dregs amongst which they sank; and associated in fact, as well as in common speech, with fallen women, they became notorious for their vices.
Orpheus is said to have drawn savage beasts around him by the charms of music; but our Lord so charmed the world by his preaching, that he drew to him, in publicans and sinners, multitudes more brutal than the beasts. Finding in him a Jew who did not hate but love them, despise but pity them, trample them beneath his feet but stooped to raise them, as if each were a diamond sparkling in the mud, they gathered in crowds to hear him, and listen to one who offered mercy, and held out the flag of hope even to publicans and sinners. The Pharisee, as he swept in full sail to the Temple to thank God that he was not as these, dreading their touch, said, Stand aside; I am holier than thou! Not so Jesus Christ — abhorrent to his holy nature as was their impiety and impurity! Passing like a sunbeam through the foulest atmosphere without pollution, touching pitch and not defiled, breathing infected air but proof against contagion, he rather sought than shunned the company of publicans and sinners. Where should he be found, who came to save, but in the thick of the lost? ‘The selfish, bigoted, narrow-minded Jew, who would have none saved but himself, took offence at this: This man, they said, ‘‘receiveth sinners and eateth with them;’’ and, by way of reproach, they called him ‘a friend of publicans and sinners.”’
We accept the picture. Hach time heaven’s gate is thrown open, he receiveth a sinner; and what keeps our hopes alive, and in the solemn prospect of death or judgment inspires us with any degree of fortitude, but that we shall fall into the hands of him who is “the friend of sinners?’ These Pharisees did not understand Jesus Christ any more than vice understands virtue, or blindness colors. Ignorant of his mission, they could not comprehend how one who was holy should rather seek than avoid the lost and reprobate. And it was to reveal the riches of gospel grace, God’s purpose of mercy, and the delight he has in converting and saving the greatest sinners, that, with the other parables of this chapter, Jesus told the story of the prodigal.
Regarding the son here as a type of man, and the father as a type of God, as he is seen in his Son and set forth in the gospel, let us now study these, the two prominent figures in this beautiful parable — beginning with the Prodigal.
HIS CONDUCT.
In the case of entailed estates, and in every case where a man in our country dies without leaving a will, the heritable property, according to what is called feudal law, belongs to the eldest son. By the udal law, as in Norway, the whole estate is divided equally among the members of the family. The Jewish law, as appears by the book of Deuteronomy, held a middle course between these two. Ifa man had two sons, as was the case here, his goods were divided into three parts — two of them falling to the eldest; but to his effects as thus divided, the children did not succeed till the father died.
Tired waiting in his father’s death for an event which some sons have hastened, and impatient to possess the means of indulging vices into which we have seen others leave a father’s grave to plunge, carelessly scattering what he had too carefully gathered, this youth requests, or rather demands, such share of the property as would by law fall to him at the father’s death. Fancy this father’s case yours; your feelings at such unnatural and insolent conduct! What a shock to him to find that in his son’s heart all home affections were dead, and that he himself was no longer regarded with love, or his gray hairs with respect! ‘The father’s presence, and the virtuous habits of a pious home, have become an irksome restraint. This youth would be his own master — rid of his father’s strict, pious, and old-fashioned ways of keeping God’s law and day; and so, type of man whose heart sin has estranged from God, so soon as his request is granted, he turns his back on home, and takes his departure to a far country.
The father did not compel his son to remain; nor does God us, or indeed any of his creatures. In Eden he left our first parents to the freedom of their own will. There man sought to be independent of God; and here, in the condition of the prodigal, we have a picture of the misery into which sin, having estranged us from our heavenly Father, has plunged its wretched votaries. Devoured by harlots, the portion was soon spent. Want followed on the heels of waste. Driven by hard necessity to become a swineherd, he accepted the meanest, and to a Jew the most degrading employment. A stranger in a strange land; cast away as an orange when men have sucked it; turned off, as I have seen a poor, ragged wretch, from the drinking-THE PARABLE*OF THE PRODIGAL SON. 5d
shop where he had wasted his means; neglected by old associates; laughed at as a fool by many, and pitied by none, he is reduced to the direst extremity. None offering him better fare, he tries to satisfy his hunger with swine-husks. Type of the sinner who departs from God, and a beacon to such as feel irksome under the restraints of a pious home, he seeks happiness to find only misery — ambitious of an unhallowed liberty, he sinks into the condition of the basest slave.
HIS CHANGE OF MIND.
The words, ‘“‘He came to himself,’ here employed to describe the change on the prodigal, imply that he had been beside himself — acting the part of a madman or a fool.
He had the best of fathers; and was not he a fool to leave him ? — as if among these vile women and boon companions there were any to love him as his father had done! Ina home where he had rings and robes, servants to attend and fatted calves to feed him, music and dancing, when he was sad, to cheer him, was not he a fool to leave it? — as if in a far country, and in the haunts of vice, he would find any place like home. When from the last height that commanded a view of home, he looked back, casting a lingering look behind, was not he a fool, as he suppressed the rising of old affections, and the fancy that he heard the voice of his dead mother calling him back, to dash.the tear from his eye, and rush, like a war-horse plunging into the battle, headlong on a course of dissipation — blind to the wretchedness which ever terminates a career of vice?
“The path of transgressors is hard”” — to this, God, using his sufferings for the purpose, was pleased to open his eyes. Saved beside the swine-troughs, his sorest misery, aS in other cases, proved his greatest mercy. Left to chew the cud of bitter reflection, sitting where all his bones through his rags did look and stare on him, the past, with its sin and folly, rose up before his eyes. O, what a fool he had been! He was convinced of that; and of this also, that to remain there was to die — that it were better to return, and cast himself on his father’s pity; better to be his servant than the drudge and slave he was; better to go and unburden his conscience, and acknowledge his wickedness, though he should die at his father’s feet. Feeling thus, humbled and penitent, prepared to accept thankfully the smallest favor, and if he is forgiven to be content even with a servant’s place, he is now like a@ maniac restored to reason; as is said, ‘‘ He came to himself.” Happy all of whom the same can be said!
Sin is represented here as a madness; and who acts so contrary to sound reason, his own interests, and the reality of things, as a sinner? ‘Transport yourself to such scenes as Hogarth painted. Here is a man in a damp, dark cell, seated on a heap of straw, and chained like a wild beast to the wall. Does he weep? Is he haunted by recollections of a happy home? Does he, as you look through the bars, entreat you to take pity on him, to loose his fetters, and let him go free? No. He smiles, sings, launghs — the straw is a throne; this bare cell, a palace; these rough keepers, obsequious courtiers; and he himself, a monarch, the happiest of mortals; an object of envy to crowned kings. Strange and sad delusion! Yet, is that man not more beside himself who, with a soul formed for the purest enjoyments, delights in the lowest pleasures; who, content with this poor world, rejects the heaven in his offer; who, surest sign of insanity, hates be in a heavenly Father and his Saviour, those who love him; who, in love with sin, hugs his chains; lying under the wrath of God, is merry; sings, and dances on the thin crust that, ever and anon breaking beneath the feet of others, is all that separates him from an abyss of fire? The spectacle recalls the words of Solomon: ‘I said of laughter, it is madness; of mirth, what doth it?’ Happy, such as, through the Spirit of God, working by whatever means, have come to themselves, like the prodigal; and are seated, like the maniac who dwelt among the tombs, at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind!
HIS DISTRESS.
I perish, he said, with hunger. Dreadful fate! — a death attended with pangs that have turned the softest hearts to stone, and even women into savage beasts. Maddened by hunger, the mother has forgot her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the &. fruit of her womb. But how much worse the condition of him of whom the wretched prodigal is a type! The pleasures of sin can never satisfy the cravings of an immortal soul — far less save it. The pangs of the body, besides, come to an end; in the grave, that poor, emaciated form hungers no more, and thirsts no more, and shivers no more — but the wrath of God abideth forever. ‘‘ Their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.’’ Awful words! — made more awful by the circumstance that they came from the lips of a tender and compassionate Redeemer; and were by him repeated thrice — hammered, if I may say so, into the mind, as a nail is driven to the head by successive blows. Besides, if a man is dying of hunger, he feels it, or of thirst, he feels it; but the misery of a sinner is not to know his misery. Here the type of the prodigal fails. I offer a man the bread of life, and he tells me he is not hungry; living water, and he puts aside the cup, saying, I am not thirsty; I find him stricken down with a mortal disease, but, on bringing a physician to his bed-side, he bids us go, and not disturb him, but leave him to sleep, for he feels no pain. Insensibility to pain is his worst symptom, fatal proof that mortification has begun, and that, unless it can be arrested, all is over — you may go, make his coffin, and dig him a grave. But let sensibility return, so that on pressure being applied to the seat of disease, he shrinks and shrieks out with pain; alarmed and ignorant, his attendants may imagine that now his last hour is come, but the man of skill knows better. There is life in that cry — it provés that the tide has turned, that he shall live. Sign as blessed, when brought to a sense of his sins, a man feels himself perishing; cries with Peter, sinking among the waves of Galilee, I perish; with the prodigal, sitting by the swine-troughs, I perish; with the jailer, at midnight in the prison, What shall I do to be saved? Have we
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THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. St
ever felt thus? A most important question! For unless we have felt ourselves lost, we have not yet been saved, and have yet to be converted. Happy such as are so! And as to those who are still far from God, let them arise, with the prodigal, and go to their Father. He waits for them. I promise them the kindest welecome — in his heart there is love, and in his house “bread enough, and to spare.” —
2. HIS BELIEF.
I perish! cried the poor prodigal. Why should I? Behind yonder blue hills, away in the dim distance, lies my father’s house — a house of many mansions and such full supplies that the servants, even the hired servants, have bread enough, and to spare.
Is there in Jesus Christ a provision as ample for our wants — for the wants of every humble, returning, believing penitent? I might reply by asking, who ever sat at God’s table without finding not only bread enough, but to spare? Go back to the days when Israel was in the wilderness. ‘The camp is astir with early dawn. Men, women, and little children troop forth, in the gray morning, to gather the manna that, type of the blessings of salvation, has dropped from ‘bountiful skies on the desert sands. And, when these millions are supplied, there is bread to spare, more meat than mouths — the sun, shooting up, shines on the gleanings of the harvest, as on the hoar-frost of a grassy lawn. Or look at another feast, where five thousand guests are met on a mountain-side, with its green sward for their carpet, the azure sky for a canopy, the twelve apostles for attendants, and Jesus
Christ for their host, and master of the feast! In
three loaves and some small fishes, the provision does
not look Godlike — the counterpart of the desert’s daily banquet. ‘The disciples are ashamed; the guests as-y tonished. But our Lord stands up unabasbed, and calm
in conscious power, up to the blue heavens he turns
his eyes; and, his voice sounding clear over silent
thousands, he asks a blessing on the scanty meal.
Again there is bread enough, and to spare — and these
few loaves and fishes, after feeding five thousand
hungry guests, fill twelve baskets with their fragments.:
In their divine fullness, the desert manna, the mountain fare, were substantial symbols of the mercy, pardon, peace, holiness, and happiness stored up in Christ. Yes. We also can say, there is enough and to spare — for my needs, grace enough; for my sorrows, comfort enough; for my nakedness, raiment enough, and to spare; in that fountain filled from Immanuel’s veins, blood enough to wash away my sins, and the sins of the whole world, would the world come to Jesus — but listen to the voice of babes, as they sweetly sing —
‘Come to Jesus, come to Jesus;
He will save you, he will save you
Just now.
““O believe him, O believe him,
O believe him, O believe him,
Just now.”
HIS RESOLUTION.
J will arise, said the prodigal, and go to my father, and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee! He might well say so. I can detect in him no redeeming trait but one. When he had brought himself to poverty, he had — the fruit of early training — too much honor to beg, and too much honesty to steal, and independence enough to be willing to earn his own bread by stooping to the humblest employment. Better a hard bed, humble fare, and rags that are our own, than to live preying on others, or shining with borrowed splendor!
View it, however, in what light you may, his conduct had been atrociously bad. He preferred the company of harlots to his father’s society, and songs of lewd revelry to the melody of his father’s worship; a thorn in the old man’s side, he had well nigh broken his loving heart, and brought down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. There are more dreadful sights than that which filled Jacob with horror when, spreading out the blood-stained garment, Joseph’s brothers said, Is this thy son’s coat, or no? A dissipated son is a greater trial than a dead one; and more bitter the tears shed over the wreck of such an one’s character than those which bedew the coffin where his dead brother lies. Such were the tears this father shed, as with many a bitter thought and agonizing prayer he followed the wanderer, whose name he never mentioned but im secret to his God.
Remove the prodigal, and setting Conscience on the bench, let us take his place! As sinners against our heavenly Father, who is not as bad as he? Be not offended, or mistake my meaning! We may never have proved thorns in a father’s flesh, cost his eye one tear, or a mother’s heart a groan — giving them occasion to wish that, lifted from a cradle to a coffin, we had been buried in an early grave. Still, no prodigal ever sinned against an earthly, as we have done against our heavenly Father.
I can measure parental love — how broad, and long, and strong, and deep it is. It is a sea — a deep sea, which mothers and fathers only can fathom. But the love displayed on yonder hill and bloody cross where God’s own Son is perishing for us, nor man nor angel has a line to measure. The circumference of the earth, the altitude of the sun, the distance of the planets — these have been determined; but the height, depth, breadth, and length of the love of God passeth knowledge. Such is the Father against whom all of us have sinned, a thousand and a thousand times! Walk the shore when ocean sleeps in the summer calm, or, lashed into fury by the winter tempest, is thundering on her sands; and when you have numbered the drops of her waves, the sands on her sounding beach, you have numbered God’s mercies and your own sins. Well, therefore, may we go to him with the contrition of the prodigal in our hearts, and his confession on our lips — Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. The Spirit of God helping us thus to go to God, be assured that the father, who, seeing his son afar off, ran to meet him, fell on his neck, and kissed him, was but an image of Him, who, not sparing his own Son, but giving him up to death, that we might live, invites and now waits your coming.
THE FATHER.
The representations of God the Father in the most splendid paintings of the ancient masters are worse than in bad taste. His Son assumed the human form; and far short as the highest art comes of expressing the love and mildness and majesty that beamed in the face of Jesus, we are not offended by its efforts. Though they may not satisfy, they do not shock us. But to set forth the invisible God, in the character of the ‘ Ancient of Days’’ as an old man, or even in the noblest aspects of humanity, is an irreverence — offensive and revolting. 7
Yet there have been representations of our heavenly Father more revolting. He has suffered less injustice from painters than from preachers. Thundering out the terrors of the law, armed with bolts of vengeance, and scowling down from pulpits, they have stood there as unlike as possible to him who wept over Jerusalem, and when he saw the multitudes had compassion on them. By representing God in dark and gloomy colors, with an expression on his countenance of stern severity, and as more prone to punish than to pardon, the preacher’s offence is greater than the painter’s. He may quench a sinner’s hopes, extinguish the light that is dawning on a darkened soul, and repel a poor prodigal whose steps are turning homeward to his father’s house. A physician who kills the patient he should have cured, such a man is practically the enemy of souls; to use Paul’s words, he destroys him for whom Christ died.
To such false and forbidding representations of the Father, what a contrast is the beautiful, most touching, affecting, winning portrait which we have here, from one who knows him well — from the hand of his own Son. ‘This picture might kindle hope in the bosom of despair. Some have been afraid to present God in such a gracious light, lest men, taking encouragement to plunge headlong into sin, should, like this prodigal,
depart from the living God. Depart from the living
God? Ah, that is not to do! Like lost sheep we have all gone astray — all departed from him. But for one person who, abusing the grace of God, takes occasion from this parable to go on in sin, with the intention, when the worst comes to the worst, of returning to the arms of an indulgent Father, thousands have been saved by it from sinking into despair, and plunging into deeper guilt. Inspiring them with hope, it has raised many a poor wretch from the swine-troughs, and brought them home. Followers of the prodigal, they have gone in to sit down in the kingdom of heaven — the angels who rejoiced over them, now rejoicing with them. In contemplating this picture, see
HOW THE FATHER RECEIVED HIS SON.
When he was yet a great way off, it is said, his father saw him. How did that happen? I knew a sailor’s widow who had parted with her husband after some brief, bright days of marriage. He went to sea
re and never came back; his ship, probably foundering with all her crew, was never more heard of. When the time expired for her return, but no ship came, this woman would repair to a rocky headland, and, looking out, watch every sail on the wide ocean in the hope, as some ever and anon made for the harbor, that each was his — bringing the lost one home. And at night, on her lone bed, she used to lie awake, listening to the footsteps of belated travellers, fancying that she recognized his step — but only, as the sound passed her door, to weep over her disappointment; and long after hope had died in the breasts of others, on rocky cliff or lonely bed she waited his coming who never, never came home.
Such love, I can fancy, often led this father’s steps to some rising ground, where others knowing his purpose but appearing not to notice him, he repaired; and, with a heart yearning for his son, turned his eyes in the direction the prodigal went off, hoping to see him return. One day when on his watch-post, he descries a new object in the distance. He watches it. It moves; it advances; it is not a beast, prowling lion, or hungry wolf; it is a man; it may be his son. His heart beats quick. One long, earnest, steadfast gaze, and, joy of joys, happy hour, often prayed for and come at last, the keen eye of love recognizes it — it is. the prodigal come back! Painfully, for he was foot- sore and weary; slowly, for he bent under a load of guilt; sadly, for the scene around reminded him of departed joys and blighted innocence, his mother mouldering in her grave, and his father with gray hairs, he had almost, perhaps, brought down to his; tremblingly, for he was in doubt of his reception — with head hung down, and slow, halting, hesitating step, the prodigal comes on. Like one agitated by contending emotions, uncertain how to act, with what measure of indulgence to temper severity, does the father wait his son’s approach? No. He does not stand on his dignity; nor say, Let him make the first advances, and ask forgiveness. His one thought is, This is my son, my poor son; his one feeling a gush of love; his only impulse to throw his arms around his child, and clasp him to a bosom that has never ceased to love and hope for his return. As soon, therefore, as the wanderer is recognized, on flying feet the old man runs to meet him; and ere the son has time to speak a word, the father has him in his arms, presses him to his bosom, and, covering his cheek with passionate kisses, lifts up his voice and weeps for joy.
And this is God! the God whom we preach, as he is drawn by the hand and seen in the face of Him whom he sent to seek and save us, to bring us back, to open a way of reconciliation — the God whose Spirit inspires us with our first feeble desires to return — the God who, unwilling that any should perish, invites and waits our coming. “Therefore,” like that father, often looking
; out for his son, ‘‘will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore,’ as was fulfilled by Jesus on his cross, ‘‘ will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you. Blessed are all they that wait for him: The people shall dwell in Zion; thou shalt weep no more. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry: when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.”
HOW HIS FATHER TREATED THE PRODIGAL.
“The king kissed Absalom’ — an act that here as there expressed more than mere affection. As in David’s palace, where Absalom was brought back after years of banishment, and his crimes were forgiven by a father who, all the time his face was turned from his wicked son, had, as Joab perceived and the Bible says, his heart toward him, the kiss here is a sign of reconciliation — a pledge that the past is all forgiven. Forgiven, but deeply penitent; sorrowful, yet rejoicing; happy with his father, but more than ever vexed with himself that he should have wronged and injured him, the prodigal is conducted home. ‘The tidings spread like wild-fire; the house is moved; the servants hurry to the scene; and the joyful father issues orders that teach them, and reassure his son, that the long-lost one is to be reinstated in all the privileges which his crimes had forfeited.
Bring forth the fairest robe and put it on him, says the father. It is done; and, the rags of the swine-herd stript off, the best robe in the house is thrown over his naked shoulders, and flows in rich beauty to his bleeding feet; and there now he stands — a beautiful type of the investiture of a sinner in the righteousness and imputed merits of the Saviour — that best robe in God’s own house, a garment
‘“Fairer than ever angel wore,”
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Put a ring, says the father next, on his finger. And what to him was an unexpected honor, is to us, since rings were used of old as seals, a type of those graces whereby the Holy Spirit seals believers unto the day of redemption. That ring, as the diamond on its golden hoop flashes with many colors, may have other meanings; signifying here the espousals between Christ and his Church, it may be the token of her marriage, the passport of those who are blessed to go in to the marriage-supper of the Lamb. Put shoes on his feet, says the father next, — a command that indicates more than a tender regard for him, whose bare, bleeding feet touch his father’s heart. In these days, the servants and slaves wore no shoes, and were thus distinguished from the members of the family. The naked foot was a sign of servitude. This order, meant for more than his son’s comfort and a covering to those wayworn feet, was therefore tantamount to a declaration from the father’s lips that the prodigal was not to be regarded as a servant, but as a son; that to him belonged all the privileges. and possessions of sonship; that he who had never lost his place in the father’s heart, was now to resume it at his table and in his house.
Nor is this all — ‘‘ Kill the fatted calf, and let us eat and be merry: for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” He shall be feasted. As these hollow eyes and sunken cheeks and wasted form bear witness, he has starved long; but he shall be filled now. So the board is spread, the wine-cup circles, joy abounds, pleasure beams
THE. PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. — «66T
from every face, music shakes the air, and dancers’ feet the floor; and there is more joy in that house over the lost one than over the one that was never lost. Poor prodigal! he needed it — ‘‘ Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.’”’ Thus some of the greatest sinners, on being converted, have experienced a joy and peace and sense of divine love with which others were never blessed — even as a poor child, that has been brought down to the gates of death, receives the richest food, the sweetest cordials, and the tenderest nursing; hence the prayer which God delights to answer — “According as the days have been Wherein we grief have had,
And years wherein we ill have seen,
So do thou make us glad.”
And this is God, Christ’s Father and ours! Who, says David, shall not fear thee, O Lord! How may we, as we contemplate this picture, alter the words, saying, Who will not love thee, O Lord ? — all the more when we remember, that while it cost that father nothing to save and receive his son, we were bought with a price. With what a price! The story of redemption is written in blood; God having sent his only begotten and beloved Son to the far country, to become a bondsman to set us free — to suffer and te die for us. Ring and robe, feast and fatted calf, the sound of music, and the sight of dancers, as the scene swims before the prodigal’s eyes, convey to him the happy assurance of a father’s love; yet how far inferior that evidence to the bleeding form that hung and groaned and died on Calvary! Love beyond parables and all images to express! God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life! 7
HOW HIS FATHER REJOICED OVER THE PRODIGAL.
In Iceland are some springs called Geysers. Hot, and rising from basin-shaped fountains, they present very remarkable appearances. Like the tides of ocean, they have their ebb and flow. The water now flies from the spectator; and shunning the light, leaves its basin to bury itself in the bowels of the earth — nor gives any intimation of its existence but an occasional groan, a low, deep moaning. At the flow, which alternates with the ebb, it rises in its funnel, overflows its margin, and, with noises like salvos of artillery, sends up, amid clouds of snow-white vapor, a flashing, liquid column as high as a hundred feet.
So act the passions of joy and sorrow. Grief retires from observation. Hiding herself, she conceals rather than proclaims the sorrows that she feeds on; and as the stricken deer leaves the herd, the bereaved court retirement that they may weep in secret over their bleeding wounds. It is otherwise with joy. The Greek on making a discovery, of which he had long been in pursuit, was so transported, as to rush naked into the street, and, leading the people to believe him mad, cry, Hureka, Eureka — I have found it, I have found it! Joy must have vent. A fountain which not only flows but overflows, it bursts up and out, seeking to communicate its own happiness to others.
‘Thus some have been moved to proclaim their conversion, and tell others of the peace which they enjoyed in believing. Come all ye that fear the Lord, says the Psalmist, and I will tell what he hath done for my soul; and it is just as natural for a heart full of happiness and God’s love to do that, as for a thrush, perched in a summer evening on the top of a cherry-tree, to pour out the joy that fills its little breast in strains of melody. It is the great President Edwards, I think, who relates how, on one occasion, he had such a sense of God’s love, that he could hardly resist telling it to the woods, the flowers beneath his feet, and the skies above his head. No wonder, therefore, that when the pure and powerful joys of salvation are poured into a heart which sin had weakened, and neversatisfied, the new wine should burst the old bottle, — flowing forth in what seems to those who know no better, but ostentation and parade. It is not so. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh.
In this parable, so true in all its parts to nature, this feature of joy stands beautifully out. To these servants the father had never told his grief; but now the prodigal is come back, and his heart is bursting with joy, he tells them of it. He cannot conceal it. He does not seek to conceal it. He says, let us eat and be merry — I am so happy myself, I wish all others to be happy. SBanish all care; drop your toils; let ‘the shepherd come from the hill, the plowman from the furrow, the herd from the pastures, the meanest servant come; and all wearing smiles and joining in the song, hold holiday with my heart. My son that was dead is alive again; that was lost, is found. And this happiest of fathers, rejoicing over the returned prodigal, blotting out of memory all his offences, doating on him, drawing him to his side, clasping him in his arms, ever and anon bending on him looks of deepest love, pleading his cause with his unamiable brother, saying, It was meet that we should be merry, — is Christ’s picture of his Father! — so he rejoices over every repenting, returning sinner.
Who that elder brother stands for, it is not so easy to settle — whether for Jews jealous of the Gentiles receiving an equal share with them of the blessings of grace; or, still more likely, for the Pharisees, who, proud of their ceremonial righteousness, regarded themselves as injured by the favor shown to publicans and sinners. Proud and boastful, heartless, selfish and sulky, he makes an excellent background to the picture — bringing out into striking prominence the kindness of the father’s heart. That is man’s heart — turned by sin and: selfishness into a stone; this is God’s. Is there no kind Christian father or mother, did they, on a wild winter night, when the heavens were black with drift, and flocks were perishing on the hill, and ships were sinking in the sea, and travellers were lost on the pathless moor, hear a prodigal child knocking at their door, and with wailing, sinking, dying voice, crying, Open and let me in! but would rise — ay, would spring to the call? They know how ready God is to receive every poor sinner. to his mercy, and poor penitent to his bosom. He rejoices in his ransomed; let them rejoice in him! Rejoice in the Lord, says Paul, alway, and again I say, rejoice. The sun that shines on you shall set, and summer streams shall freeze, and deepest wells go dry — but not his love. His love is a stream that never freezes, a fountain that never fails, a sun that never sets in night, a shield that never breaks in fight; whom he loveth, he loveth to the end.
Are any alarmed lest such a picture of God as we have attempted to draw from this parable, should lead penitents to think lightly of sin? There is no ground for alarm. God forgives offences; but the forgiven never forget them. Does the prodigal forget his sins so soon as they are forgiven — freely, readily, kindly forgiven? No. On the contrary, though now assured of his father’s love, he drops out all mention of a servant’s place, he confesses and deplores his sins — does that when he knows them to be forgiven. A sense of God’s kindness is the spring of deepest sorrow; and the repentance that succeeds forgiveness is truer and deeper than any which precedes it. Therefore when God says, “‘I will establish with thee an everlasting covenant,”’ he adds, ‘ then shalt thou remember thy ways, and be ashamed.” It was when Jesus, whom Peter had denied, turned a look of love and pity on him, that Simon, pierced to the heart, went out to weep bitterly. The repentance that needeth not to be repented of, has its truest emblem in the rivers that, lending flowers and emerald verdure to their banks, wind through the valleys of the Alps. It is not when stern winter howls, but in spring, and the sweet summer-time, when birds are singing, and flowers are
breathing odors, and the sun, from azure skies, pours
down his beams on the icy bosoms of the mountains,
that the rivers, fed by melted snows, rising and over-, flowing all their banks, roll their mightiest torrents to
the lakes. And so it is when a sense of God’s love,
and peace, and forgiveness is poured into our hearts,
that they thaw, and soften, and melt into streams of fullest sorrow. ‘They shall look on him whom thes
have pierced; and mourn as one mourneth for an only
son, and be in bitterness, as one is in bitterness for a
first-born.”