Joel M Bradshaw

18“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, 19then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, 20and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.–Deuteronomy 21

Think of the famous Prodigal Son parable in Luke 15. The son demands of the father that he wants his inheritance. This was essentially saying to Dad, “I wish you were dead, so I could get what is coming to me.” The people in the crowd listening to Jesus’ story were no doubt wondering if the father would indeed give that rebellious son something. Maybe involving a stick and not a money purse. Shockingly, the father gave the son his inheritance.

The son of course wasted the inheritance on wild living. This is the original meaning of the word ‘prodigal’. spending money recklessly or wastefully. We don’t even have to imagine what that looked like.

The turning point for me in the parable is when the son repents first in his heart and then with his footsteps. He returns humbly home to the Dad. And HERE is where our text today comes into play. Jesus’ audience would have expected Deuteronomy 21 to unfold.

Read the above text again. This is what the prodigal son deserved. But the father gave the son MERCY. The son didn’t get what he deserved. The father also gave the son GRACE. He got restored to the family as a son, and with an expensive party at that!

Jesus was expecting his crowd to know their Deuteronomy in order to fully understand the point of the story. That God gives mercy to the repentant and grace to the undeserving. The Prodigal deserved death. So do you and I. We are each sinners and the paycheck we earn for that sin is death. Romans 6…

23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Prodigal Son earned death according to Deuteronomy 21. Our sins have also earned that wage. But instead of a wage, God gives a gift that is his grace. In our case, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To truly appreciate the good news of the Gospel it is essential to grasp the bad. Before we can celebrate with the Prodigal, for we are each that son, we must remember what he had coming to him. We celebrate the grace of the Father because we know what Prodigals deserve.–JMB