“Hey you! You’re a Christian – can you lead the Bible study today?
ME?!
I glanced around the table at the aged, wrinkled faces of homeless men looking at me expectantly. Every morning there is an optional Bible study at the homeless shelter we help at. It's normally led by a pastor, but I guess today he couldn't make it. Still wanting to hear a message, the men looked to me simply because I happened to be sitting at that table. Most of them were Buddhist so I was surprised by their eagerness to hear a story from the Bible.
Uhhh sure, I'll lead…
Pulling my Bible from my pack, I turned to the story in Luke that I love best: the story of the Prodigal Son. Though to me, it’s actually a story of a Father’s heart.
Verse by verse, with a Chinese man translating, I read the words I love so dearly. The story starts with the son of a rich man demanding his portion of his father’s wealth. He essentially says “Hey Dad, hurry up and die already so I can have my inheritance.” Regardless his Father gave him half his wealth because he loved his son. The son left home and quickly started spending his inheritance on extravagant parties. One day he finds himself with nothing left, scrounging for food in a pig pen. Friendless, starving, and covered in pig grime, it hits him that even his father’s servants have a better life than his. Hoping that his father might give him a servant job, he heads home.
As I glanced around the ragged crew, every eye was locked on me, waiting to hear how the father receives his foolish son. Does he turn him away as he should? Or is he kind enough to give him a job after a good beating and an 'I told you so'?
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
With every word that came from my mouth, the excitement of the Indian man sitting across from me grew. As I described the Father wrapping his best robe around his son covering his filth and shame, putting his ring on his finger, and summoning the servants to prepare a massive celebration, the Indian man literaly jumped out of his chair shouting, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”
His joy was contagious. Some of the men started clapping, other’s seemed confused by such a radical display of grace, but all of them were clearly affected by this parable of our Father in Heaven’s heart towards us.
The Indian man couldn't contain his excitement. “That was me last Saturday!” he exclaimed. In his broken English, he tried to articulate how after 66 years of running away from God he was baptized a few days ago. As he went under the water he felt the weight of his shameful life washed away. When he came up, “I was a new man. I was lost, but God found me!" His eyes alight with joy, he said "that night the sky around me uproared with thunder and lightening like I have never seen before!” God was throwing fireworks from the heaven, celebrating that his son who was lost had come home.
I love hanging out with new believers because they GET the heart of the Gospel. Even if they don’t understand anything else, they understand grace. They realize that you can’t earn forgiveness, that you can’t earn the Father’s love. They recognize how absurdly extravagant God’s grace is, but they believe it. They soak in the freedom they just received and they celebrate. They dance and shout "hallelujah!" Because God wrapped his arms around them and clothed them in grace while they were still covered in pig slime.
Their joy is infectious. You can't be around new believers for long without catching it. Because the truth is, we were all Prodigal Sons. Whether a blonde girl from California or a homeless Indian man from Malaysia, we all rejected God. We all demanded good things from him but turned our backs on him. We ran away from his heart when all he wanted was to love us. And even if it’s been 50 years since that initial party the Father threw when you returned home, always remember the Father’s grace. Remember how he received you. Jump up and down and shout “hallelujah!” because you were lost and now are found.
Luke 15:11-32- the unabridged version: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015:11-32&version=NIV
