We anticipate Easter with hungry hearts, anxious to rejoice in that glorious triumph over our sin. But in the days before the empty tomb we might consider whether any vestige of unforgiveness lurks in the dark corners of our hearts. This point, too, was made by Jesus in one of the most powerful of His parables.
Debra
He stood near the doorway gazing out into the yard in the creeping gray light of dawn. The day would be warm and he must leave soon for the rolling fields faintly visible in the distance. Already sounds of preparation for the day’s work could be heard coming from the low sheds which stood a good distance from the house, ranging along the inside walls of the family compound. Workers hired for the long, hot harvest season were arriving through a side gate in the wall collecting scythes, rakes, and other assorted tools and tossing them onto the beds of waiting wagons. The low crooning of oxen being yoked arrived on the light breeze.
Here and there scraps of roasted lamb, fruit peelings, and pieces of bread littered the ground, evidence of the previous night’s celebration. Sounds of music and laughter and dancing had rolled in waves through the large house long into the warm summer night and kept him awake, tossing him sleeplessly, washing him again and again with a consuming fury.
His insides were aflame, as though banked embers had ignited. Bitterness etched his sunburned face and his eyes were shadowed. He stood with one hand resting on the rim of a stone well, shoulders hunched, very still, his back to the rising sun as he gazed westward.
There was a movement behind him. Turning, he looked into the face of a brother he had not seen in years. A small twitch of his head was the only evidence of the shock he felt at what he saw. His younger brother had aged. Lines fanned out from his intense brown eyes. His cheeks were sunken, adding years to the once-handsome features. His hair and beard had been trimmed, but looked dull and thin in the pale light.
He could not speak and inexplicably felt tears prick his eyelids. His brother acknowledged his shock with a small smile. He spoke first. “I did not deserve this, brother.” He looked past his elder sibling into the distance where stone fences were now visible. The words were barely audible. “I did not deserve this . . . welcome.”
There was a long pause and the silence hung heavy until the younger man spoke again. “I could blame it on youth, I suppose. Impulsiveness. Stupidity. But it wasn’t really. It was just . . .” He couldn’t seem to find the word. “Me. It was just me.” A terrible presence akin to deep mourning seemed to move between them and fill the quiet space. His eyes returned to his brother’s stricken face. “And to think he waited for me every day, standing on the road looking for me, wanting me. It multiplies my sorrow a thousand-fold.” There was a choking sound. “Especially knowing . . .”
A spasm of grief flared across his face as his eyes remained locked on his elder brother’s which now burned as though from the fire raging in his stomach. His next words were oil on the flames. “So I ask for your forgiveness. Here. Now.” The older man gripped the stone beneath his hand as though to wrest it loose.
“But know this, my brother. You cannot increase my guilt. That well,” he paused, “that well overflows.” Silence seared the space between them. “But because father forgives me,” his voice was stronger now, “because our father forgives me, what is left of my life will honor him. That is all I can do.”
His brother seemed to look through him as though his eyes were taking careful measure of the past. Scrolling before him were the years of his own faithful service at his father’s side, watching sorrow overwhelm him, laboring in the family business season after season, all the while knowing that the aging patriarch would stand in the road every evening, without fail, looking for a son unworthy of his devotion.
How could he meet this return? How could he bear it? There, in the new dawn, he struggled . . .
If this is your struggle, don’t waste any more time. Relinquish it now in this blessed season into the hands of the Savior whose sacrifice cleanses us from, yes, every hurtful thing.
An excellent series on the lost son titled, “Welcome Home”, is available at thrivehere.church/sermons.