It seems many times that our view of Father God is one of serious, somber, and even that He is disappointed. I remember talking to a family member and their comment about the world was, "God must be so disappointed in us." Yet Jesus in the story known as the "Prodigal Son" reveals a very different picture of the Father, at first their is the sorrowful and longing father looking for his son's return but then as the story comes to an end we see a portrait of party-throwing dad celebrating his son's return. His joy must not be connected to his son's behavior but the reconciliation of a broken relationship. Jesus is telling this story to a group of ultra-serious religious pharisees who wander what He is doing with hanging out with "sinners". I believe that Jesus who came to show us the Father, wanted to bring then into an encounter with the Father through a story that reveals who He is. Honestly, this image of the rejoicing father is one of the most difficult for me to accept since I never had this image given to me through parents. I know others who had a fun-loving dad, who always had great jokes on the tip of his tongue, was deeply spiritual, and loved others well. For Him a party-throwing dad as an image of the Heavenly Father is not a stretch but for me it is a big stretch. Jesus didn't seem very interested in fitting in with the Pharisees or even making them feel comfortable, He was much more interested in them encountering His Father even if it was offensive. I believe much of life is wasted on seriousness and trying to appear competent and have it together, I know because I have been there. Since life is full of challenges that go beyond our ability to handle them, then seriously looking to address problems is important. The Pharisees saw serious sin problems all around them, so they set out to deal with this by taking what they knew (the Law) and the laws added to seriously deal with all this sin breaking. Yet, their results stunk, Jesus would even later point out that they themselves were the biggest hypocrites. I can relate to the poor Pharisees, they were doing their best to clean up all this sin mess and clean up their own lives. At their best efforts to be clean, Jesus calls them "white-washed tombs" not exactly a complimentary picture for guys who are really trying hard to be clean and have it together. Jesus might as well have called them clean-shaven, dressed for a formal dead guys. Though they looked good on the outside (law keepers, religious, in control, and serious) they were dead on the inside. I believe part of what Jesus is saying in the story of the Prodigal Son is the Grace of God is so powerful to transform people, cleanse them, and bring them into right relationship that it's time to party. The father is not throwing a party because of his great achievements to lift himself up but he is celebrating the extravagance of his love to restore a very broken relationship. The way Jesus describes the father's actions of killing a fatted calf, which would feed several hundred people, is of a father who throws an all out party yet there is no hint of purely selfish hedonism only the extravagant love of a father for his returned son. A party-throwing Heavenly Father is an affront to our image of a serious, distant, and disapproving father. One of the images must go, I choose the Father that is party-throwing and goes all out in abandonment. Yet this means death to the overly serious, distant, and reserved father-image I have known and also the mirror image of myself as the serious, reserved, in-control/calm, and withholding person. Our image of God, will reflect the way we see ourselves and thus the way we live. I embrace this joyful, party-throwing, extravagant loving, and unreserved Father.
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