Once again, as the born and bred Christian that I am, when I realized what passage I was reading in Luke, I felt my eyes glaze over and knew that if I didn’t actively search for a new meaning or perspective on this passage, any learning would be completely lost on me. Because yes, yes, Jesus goes and finds the one lost sheep/coins/person/whatever and isn’t that so great.
Sometimes I hate that I’ve known these stories all my life.
So, I tried to think of it in a different light – what is something that I’ve personally lost and missed and found?
The first thing that came to my mind was, obviously, the luxury of towels.
Let me explain myself: freshman year, when I went on Messiah’s Wilderness Encounter backpacking trip to Hawaii, we were only allowed to bring certain things because of the experience our instructors were trying to create but also because whatever you brought you personally had to carry around on your back for an entire month. And thus, I didn’t bring a towel. It seems so silly, bringing a towel didn’t even cross my mind and when I saw that someone else had brought one it seemed so extra. However, in Hawaii we go wet a lot, whether from swimming or sweat or “showering” and I quickly realized that, as Hawaii is a muggy, sub-tropical environment, once something gets wet, it doesn’t really dry. So I was wet. Basically 100% of the time. And after three weeks, that really starts to drag.
I remember my first shower back in the ‘front country’ when I got wet and then got to be dry immediately after. It was straight up magical; I couldn’t get over it. After an experience like that, most people talk about how great it is to eat real food again or have technology or be able to boil water in under an hour, but one of the things that I most vividly remember and genuinely appreciate – to this day, even – is having a towel, whether I’m drying myself or my hands or my dishes.
When I’ve thought about the thoughts presented in Luke 15 in the past, I think a lot of times it ends when he gets the lost sheep back. He goes, he finds it, he rejoices, then he tosses it back in with the others, and that’s that. It’s easier to imagine an ongoing impact with the return of the prodigal son, but honestly, that’s never something I’ve really considered either. He throws the party and the story ends.
But no, that father probably woke up every single morning and swelled with joy that his son had returned. Every single time he saw him his heart must have ached with thankfulness that his waiting had not been in vain. That’s not something that you forget.
And thus, just like me and my intense appreciation of the simple luxury of being able to dry what has been made wet, I imagine that every single day God is reminded of how much he loves us and how overjoyed he is that we returned to him.
Caroline's Encounters 