Isaiah 43:3b “I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.”

This is a humbling expression of God’s grace. Let me give you a little history behind Isaiah’s words. The people of Judah were taken into captivity by the Empire of Babylon. They were exported from their homeland and forced to live in a foreign country for seventy years. In order to bring them home, a couple of things had to happen. The Babylonian Empire had to be fall to a stronger empire with different policies for the people it ruled, one that would let the Jews go home to Jerusalem.

That was the Persian Empire. And the nations that filled the vacuum when the Jews were taken away had to be defeated and subjugated by the Persians so that they wouldn’t stand in the way of the Jews going home. That was Egypt, Cush, and Seba.

So, in order to take care of his people, the Lord brought defeat on these other countries. He let them lose their freedom. Wars were fought. People died. In a sense, he traded their welfare for that of his people Israel. He preserved Israel as his distinct people at the expense of these other nations.

That was not because the Jews were better people. The Lord was constantly struggling with them and trying to get them to behave. It was because the Lord chose to show them grace. “Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you,” he says through Isaiah here. That’s how he deals with the people he has redeemed.

You are his redeemed today. And the Lord himself hasn’t changed. It is inevitable in our world that not everyone is going to be a friend of the Lord and his redeemed. What serves your best interests, especially your spiritual needs, may not serve the interests of other nations, institutions, or even individuals. It’s not that we are better people. We sin like everyone else.

But if there is a conflict between what serves the faith and salvation of the people he has redeemed for himself, and what serves the welfare of those who have no particular interest in him, no relationship with him in faith, then he knows what he will do. “I will give…people in exchange for your life.” God will intervene for us and against them.

So don’t be troubled by what you see happening on the international stage, or in the halls of political power, or in the movements that seem to oppose Christianity and its beliefs. They can’t hurt you, even if they should kill you. The redeemed don’t have to be afraid. The Lord will preserve them, even at other’s expense.

Isaiah 43:1-3 “But now, this is what the Lord says–he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…’”

Notice that the Lord doesn’t say you aren’t going to have any crisis. Even people who follow him faithfully live in a fallen world. It is broken beyond anyone’s ability to repair. That’s why utopian schemes to create a perfect society will always fail. About the best we can do is try to keep the evil in check. Racism, injustice, violent crime, war, corrupt government and institutions, exploitation: these things are all like the poor. Remember what Jesus said about them? “They will always be with you.”

We are broken people, too. We don’t just suffer crisis. We cause it. Pastor Curtis believed the gospel he preached. He really did. But he got into a compromising position with a woman he wasn’t married to. He had ordinary male desires. He stumbled into an affair. It blew his ministry and his family apart. He had to resign. His wife left him. His children resented him.

Gerry was a genuine Christian woman, and it showed in her generosity and her service to others. But the stress of a large family and certain childhood demons led her to drink too much. Then she didn’t handle relationships so well. Her marriage survived, but some of her children were scarred. They fought with each other and struggled in their own marriages.

So whether the crisis comes from the world around us or is the product of our own sinful stupidity, we are going to “pass through the waters.” We will “walk through the fire.” It is not a matter of “if” but “when.” Sometimes we find ourselves waiting for it to happen. We are afraid, because we have had it too good for too long.

Then comes God’s promise. When the crisis comes, “I will be with you.” The rivers “will not sweep over you.” The flames “will not set you ablaze.” That doesn’t mean you won’t be gasping for air, coughing and sputtering and convinced that you are about to drown in it. The Lord is not suggesting that you will feel cool and comfortable in that fire, ready to pull out a bag of marshmallows and make some s’mores.

But he is going to jump into the water with you. He walks through the fire right beside you. You may not perceive him. A lot of flotsam and jetsom bump into a person swirling around in a flooded river. You may not perceive his hand pulling you toward shore. Smoke and heat make it hard to see in the fire. You may be passed out when he carries you to safety. But the Redeemed don’t have to be afraid, because the Lord sees them through the crisis.

Did you notice why he does it? He bookends his promise with expressions of his value and regard. He “created you” and “formed you.” You take pride in the things you have made, don’t you? When you were in school, did you ever have something you made in school, maybe a picture you drew, that had an honored place on a shelf in your room or on your bedroom wall for years to come? You are that thing God made, that picture he drew, in his own image no less, that he wants to keep and display and show off.

Even more “I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” Even though he made us, the Lord paid a second time for us to belong to him. Who buys what is already his? But that is what he does. In Old Testament history he had redeemed Israel out of Egypt. They were already his, but he bought them out of their slavery to Pharaoh with the power he poured into the miraculous plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.

All of that foreshadowed our Redemption, when he bought us out of our slavery to sin and death by pouring out the blood of his Son, and traded the life of Jesus for our own. So doubly he can say, “You are mine.” This is what you are to me.

Then he turns that around. He concludes, “This is what I am to you:” “I am the Lord, your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Savior.” He is not ashamed to be the God associated with us. He is proud to be the God who rescues and saves us. Don’t be afraid. The Lord will see you through every crisis.

1 Corinthians 15:53-56 “For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”

People often ask me what we will look like in our new imperishable, immortal bodies when Jesus raises us from the dead. If someone dies as a child are they raised as a child, with a little body? Will we all look like supermodels? Will we shed those unwanted extra pounds we have been carrying around? We are obsessed with the cosmetics, the externals of immortality.

Friends, look deeper. We will be imperishable. Imagine running around like a little child sometimes does, running for the sheer joy of it, and never getting winded, never feeling a burn in your lungs because they can’t keep up with your body’s need for oxygen.

Imagine pushing your body hard at work or play for long hours, and never getting fatigued today, and feeling no soreness tomorrow.

Imagine never wondering what this ache or pain might mean, because there never is an ache or pain, and because there are no unhealthy conditions or dread diseases to fear.

Imagine your soul so saturated with love that all you know is peace, and joy, all the time.

Imagine your memory filled with experiences many times the sum total of all events of all human history, and none of them ever boring or disappointing. Every one of them is only pleasant and fulfilling, because your life has gone on for the equivalent of many millions of human ages, and yet you don’t slow down, you show no signs of wear, the thought never crosses your mind that you might like something else, or just an end.

And though we might still die before we attain this future (“might,” I say, because Jesus might also return and give it to us while we are alive), even death is no longer what it looks like. It is not a defeat. It has been defeated.

Some victories have a partial or temporary feel. Japan won the battle of Pearl Harbor. They destroyed 19 American ships, but they missed our aircraft carriers, which were not in port that day. The United States had some key pieces for rebuilding our navy in the Pacific. Less than four years later Japan was the nation signing an unconditional surrender, somewhat ironically on the battleship Missouri.

Jesus isn’t giving death any such second chances to come back and win. Death has been “swallowed up,” the Apostle says. It hasn’t just been nipped at, or nibbled around the edges. It hasn’t just had a big bite taken out of it, like the survivor of some shark attack who is missing a hand or a leg. It has been swallowed whole, chugged down till nothing is left.

Picture the college drinking game, and some rowdy student has just downed his whole mug of beer in a few seconds. Even the foam is gone. The glass is empty. There is nothing left. Picture some poor fellow in one of the Jurassic Park movies, practically swallowed whole by one of the dinosaurs. He isn’t coming back. For the child of God, the believer in Jesus, death has been completely taken out of the picture. It gets no second chance at us once it has given us up.

So complete, so utter is this victory, that Paul, quoting the Old Testament prophets, trash talks the enemy. Maybe we miss the tone of his questions because of the formal style of the language, “Where, O death, is your victory?” In 21^st Century America, we might say it more like this: “Hey death, where is your victory? Hey death, where is your sting?” It’s taunting. It’s rubbing the loser’s face in it. It is that confident the victory belongs to us.

For a moment Paul even offers the answer to his taunts. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” Death needs our sin to win. It needs the penalties of God’s law to win. But you know what Jesus did to those. He erased every sin at the cross. He paid everything the law demanded by his sacrifice. He stripped death of all its weapons. In the end, he destroys death itself.

“Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 15:51 “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed–in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

How long would you like to live? When I was a little boy, there was something attractive about the idea of living to be 100. I think it was a combination of the fact that 100 of anything seems like a big number to a four year old. I also had a sense that it was a relatively rare achievement because I didn’t personally know anyone that old, and people who did reach that milestone sometimes made the news. As a little boy I wanted to be stronger, and faster, and smarter and taller than anybody else. Why not older, too?

Then you meet some people who have lived so long that they have outlived their good health. They may be far from 100, but they live in constant pain, or they are too weak to take care of themselves. You meet others who have outlived their mind, their memory, their reason. At best they have entered second childhood. At worst they are practically comatose. All of a sudden living so many years loses its appeal.

Jesus promises those who believe in him eternal life–not 100 years, but forever. This wasn’t an obscure idea he once floated, a side comment he made while preaching about something else. It was a major theme of his ministry. Read John’s gospel again. Almost every chapter deals with immortality. In light of the unpleasant consequences of old age, we might ask, “Is this really a good idea?”

Paul settles our concerns with the mystery he unveils in this part of his letter to the Corinthians. Among other things, that mystery involves a profound change.

The things we fear about long life aren’t really features of living. They are symptoms of dying. They are evidence that we are infected with death, and we have reached advanced stages of that infection. But everyone reading these words is suffering symptoms already.

When I was still in grade school it got harder and harder to see the blackboard from the back of the room. I needed glasses because my eyes were dying. I went through puberty and my skin didn’t function right anymore. Blemishes started to appear. It mostly recovered when puberty ended, but now it gets too dry and chapped, especially in the winter. I have already reached the age of back pain, and occasional insomnia, and monthly contributions to my local pharmacy. I used to laugh at the old people who didn’t need to talk about the weather to keep a conversation going. They could talk about their ailments for hours. I am quickly becoming one of them.

More than symptoms of death, these are symptoms of our sin. Not everyone I meet is convinced they have much to repent of. “I am a good person,” they object. Really? I may not know enough details of their lives to know the specifics of their sins. It’s not my job to play private investigator and try to point them out. But their symptoms still betray the sickness is present, just like mine do. “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” There is no mystery about what is wrong with us. We are dying because of our sin.

But Jesus promises us change. That change first dealt with the sin-sickness underneath. On Good Friday he created the cure. At the cross he produced the medicine of immortality. His blood cleanses us from every sin. His death redeems us from them. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the entire world.

Between Friday evening and Sunday morning, however, Jesus himself went through an astounding change. His body came back to life. But it wasn’t raised the broken and battered body that hung on the cross. His wounds no longer ran with blood. His bones were no longer out of joint. This body was glorified. It passed through sealed stone and locked doors. It materialized, and then disappeared, in a moment, instantly traveling between locations to show himself to his own. It could still be touched and embraced. It could still eat and drink. But now it was elevated, perfected. The only things Jesus kept from his cross were the scars on his hands and feet and side, but those were like badges of honor, the most meaningful and beautiful things ever “tattooed” on human skin.

Earlier in this same chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul assures us Jesus’ new life is a promise and foretaste of our own: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” And later: “Just as we have born the likeness of the earthly man (Adam), so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven (Jesus).” Jesus is both promise and picture of the change waiting for us.

John 19:28-29 “Later, knowing that all was now complete, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.”

Do you know what Scriptures weighed on Jesus’ mind just moments before his death, what words he needed to fulfill? Buried deep within the psalms, Psalm 69 to be specific, are these seemingly incidental words, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” They are hardly the most important detail of the great mission he accomplished this day. They are not directly a part of the price he paid. They simply describe a moment in the misery of the cross. Would anyone have noticed if Jesus never addressed this, or if the gospel writers had left it out of the historical record? Would you?

Didn’t Jesus have more urgent things to be thinking about? He can no longer draw a satisfying breath. His heart is beating like a drum, overworked to the point of failure by the cruel torture he is suffering. His muscles cramp from exhaustion and dehydration, and there is no way to stretch or relax them. Who can even say what the greatest source of pain is for him as he hangs there: these cramps and the struggle to breath? The spikes tearing at his hands and feet? The flesh torn from his back? The wounds from his crown of thorns, now invaded by the burning salt of his own sweat? In literally seconds, he will be dead. Let the obscure prophecy from the psalm go. What does it matter?

It matters deeply to the perfect Son of God. This is his word, after all, and every word of God is true. We don’t take his word so seriously, I am afraid. We don’t see the problem with fudging on it here or there. Sometimes it makes my life harder, or so we think. Why should I give up my pleasure, or my freedom, for something written thousands of years ago? It’s probably just Paul’s, or Peter’s, or a prophet’s opinion anyway. Sometimes it seems so hard to understand. All these details about trinities, and virgin births, and complicated systems of redemption from sin, and distinctions between justification and sanctification–being saved or living saved: all this theology makes my head spin! Isn’t it enough just to be good to other people? Isn’t the Bible just words on a page? Shouldn’t we avoid putting too much trust in a book?

Such casual attitudes about God’s carefully crafted record of his saving love may be popular. But there is nothing Christian about them. In his ministry Jesus preached, “The Scriptures cannot be broken” (John 10:35). “Blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).

And so Jesus could not let this one go, either. He called for a drink. He took the bitter combination of wine vinegar and gall, one last insult to his abused system. There are 419,687 words in the Hebrew Old Testament. This prophecy of Psalm 69 is just six of them. But Jesus took the drink so that every detail of God’s word and our salvation would be fulfilled.

Matthew 26:26-27 “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Let’s not pass over the context in which this happens. “While they were eating,” Matthew writes. They were eating the Passover meal. That meal commemorated Israel’s deliverance from Egypt 1400 years earlier. It wasn’t like your anniversary dinner or birthday lunch–random food choices that change every year, because they are really incidental, secondary, to what you are celebrating. This was the marriage of feast and worship. Every item on the menu was ripe with meaning, chosen by God for the message it delivered. The conversation at the meal was scripted. Even the guests were carefully chosen.

You see, citizens of Cairo, Athens, or Rome didn’t observe the Passover, not unless they were also Jews. They could come, but only if they would be circumcised if they were males. In other words, they first had to join the Jewish people and embrace the Jewish faith. This table fellowship was more than a casual meal. It meant something. At the very first Passover, God was saying to Israel, “You are my special, my chosen people. I have redeemed you from Egypt as my very own.” At every Passover afterward he was making the same claim. These were the people he desired as his very own.

Meals and tables have a way of saying that sort of thing, don’t they? If you are sitting at the diner, then who knows who might take the stool next to you at the lunch counter. But if you are at a table with family or friends, you enjoy a special relationship with each other. It would be odd, wouldn’t it, if a stranger came and took a seat with you, at least in most settings? Nothing against the person, but there is something about breaking bread together that says, “We already share something.” It is intimate. It reflects and it nurtures a relationship. Those who eat together have sought out each other’s presence.

Jesus integrated this same intimacy, this same personal claim, into his own supper. At the beginning of the meal, Luke tells us, he said to the disciples, “ I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” And when it came time to create his own new rite of eating and drinking out of the elements of the Passover, it was this intimate circle of his disciples with whom he shared it. “Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples…” It wasn’t the five thousand seated on the hillside to whom he fed the loaves and fishes. It wasn’t the masses of people who welcomed him into Jerusalem. It wasn’t the crowds to whom he preached. It was these twelve men who understood and knew him best, the ones he called “friends” and “brothers.” Others would be invited later, too, after they came to know Jesus better. But on this night, this was the family whose presence he desired.

When we commune, Jesus eagerly desires to share this meal with us as well. You are his disciples by faith, not casual acquaintances but the men and women he has called by name and now claims as brothers and sisters in his family. He gives you a seat at his table. Take what he is offering: his own body and blood “for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Luke 19:36 “As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.”

I have never seen or heard anything quite like this Palm Sunday scene in my lifetime. Perhaps the closest thing I can compare are pictures of chivalrous men from a century or two ago laying their coats over a puddle or muddy spot so that a lady could walk across without getting her shoes dirty. But I think we understand the sentiment behind the actions of those who carpeted the road with their own clothing.

This gesture was more than bowing or kneeling as the king went by. It confessed that Jesus was so exalted, so high above those celebrating his arrival, that not just Jesus, but the animal on which he was riding should not have to come into contact with the same ground, the same pavement, on which the common sinners who followed him stood. It was better that their own clothing get trampled, soiled, maybe even torn by a lowly beast of burden than that the animal carrying the King be soiled by the road. And remember, this was at a time when people didn’t have huge closets full of clothes like we do, or easy ways to clean them. Most of these people were travelers without Samsonite luggage full of fashionable choices to wear tomorrow.

It was a little like Moses at the burning bush in reverse. You remember that God told Moses to take his shoes off in his presence at Mount Sinai. God’s presence made the ground holy, and it was not appropriate for Moses to be dragging whatever his sandals had picked up chasing the sheep across that holy ground. That would dishonor God’s presence. Here the ground was polluted, desecrated by the many people traipsing on it, and it shouldn’t be allowed to contaminate the Holy Champion arriving in Jerusalem to fight for their salvation.

We don’t have the opportunity to do what they did. Jesus has returned to heaven. Even if he were here, we have no command obligating us to honor him in exactly this way. So what can we take from the actions of those praising Jesus like this?

In a broader way, it demonstrates a deep and sincere humility and submission, doesn’t it? It acknowledges, “Jesus is better than me. Jesus is more important than me.” That is not a lesson we learn easily. Since the founding of our nation, we have had the idea “All men are created equal” pounded into our brains. We don’t have nobility. We don’t like aristocrats. You watch the movie Titanic, and you hate all the rich snobs teaming up against poor Jack the underdog, thinking they are better than he is.

Though Jesus came and made himself our servant, we have never been even his equals. He has always been our superior. He is better than we are. He is more important, infinitely so. Do our lives reflect that kind of humility?

Jesus has made our bodies his home. In a mystical and spiritual way he lives in our hearts. Do we lay down a barrier between his presence in there, and the dirt, pollution, and corruption of the world in which we live? Or do we let the filth and corruption stream through our ears and our eyes–vulgar language, vulgar humor, vulgar entertainment, vulgar lifestyles?

Will we let him be King over us, and conduct our lives his way? Sometimes people have come to me for counsel. Something is making their lives miserable. Listening to their complaint, it becomes clear that a big source of the problem is a sinful pattern or lifestyle they have adopted. I don’t mean to suggest I am better than they are, because I have my own sinful hangups. But before I can start to give them any help, I have to ask, “Are you ready to stop doing things your way and start doing things Jesus’ way? Because if you are not, I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer. I’m a pastor, and my counsel comes from Jesus’ word, and I don’t have ways to make sin work better for you.”

The people welcoming Jesus were welcoming him as a king, but they weren’t really cheering for more law enforcement. “Yay! Now we can pay more fines and penalties!” No, they are cheering for a protector, a deliverer, a liberator. Few if any on the first Palm Sunday were thinking beyond a King to fight for Jewish independence and a free Israel.

But Jesus comes for a spiritual battle. He fights for our freedom from death and hell. He liberates us from our slavery to sin. He protects us from the consequences of our own foolishness. This king was worth praising. He still is.

Luke 15:17ff “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.” 

This wayward son gives us a beautiful picture of repentance. He is no longer the arrogant, demanding, rebellious son who left home. He starts by confessing that his sin is first an offense to God. He comes knowing that he is not worthy of anything for which he asks, that he has nothing to offer his father, but that he is entirely at his father’s mercy. “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He comes turning away from his past life, the wicked freedom to sin that he wanted, and willing to serve his father. “Make me like one of your hired men.” In all of this, he comes in trust, in faith, knowing and believing his father can save him. “So he got up and went to his father.”

And how did his father react? We find that all the time his son had been living in this self-indulgence, he still loved him. “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. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”

Do you get the picture here of a father who so loves his son that he never stopped hoping for his return, never stopped watching the road to see if maybe today his son would be back again? This is the image our God wants us to keep in mind when he calls himself our Father. This is the kind of Father that he is to us all. Everything about the father’s actions tell us how eagerly, how freely he forgives you and me. He was filled with compassion. That is the deep caring for someone that is so emotional, so moving, that one can physically feel it. It so fills the father that he can’t hold himself back. Before the son gets all the way home, the father has run to him, and thrown himself upon him with a big bear hug and kissed him. No sin stands between father and son any more. He doesn’t make his son prove himself. It’s as if none of the sinful past had ever happened.

The father doesn’t even let his son completely finish his confession of sin. He immediately starts making sure that there is no doubt of his grace. So he removes the rags and dresses his son in the finest robe. Our own heavenly Father removes the rags of our sin, and he dresses us in the purity of Jesus’ own life. This is not the cold, heartless purity of something like pure gold or pure silver. This is the warm, living, loving, compassionate, giving purity of Jesus’ own perfect life.

Then a ring is placed on the son’s finger, the kind of official ring used for a seal or signature. It is a sign that his son has all the rights and privileges that come with being a member of the family. Even though he has misused and squandered his father’s wealth, he is an heir again. And we are God’s own sons, full-fledged members of his family. All his promises for life belong to us right now. All his promises for heaven belong to us right now, too.

Finally, slaves go barefoot, but a son wears shoes. No detail of his return to sonship is forgotten. He must be sure. And we must be sure as well. Each week, in the celebration of our Father’s presence and feast of his blessings we call worship, we find assurance again and again that he loves us as his own children. The hymns, the absolution, the preaching, the Lord’s supper all say the same thing: Our father welcomes us home, embraces us for himself, and claims us as his own.

Never be afraid to come home. Only love is waiting.

Luke 15:11ff “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided the property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.”

Did you notice how thanklessly this son takes his share of the estate? He comes to his father and positively lays this down as a command. “Give it to me.” There is no polite request. There is no recognition that he really has no right to any of this before his father passes away.

And how many people don’t take God’s good gifts in exactly the same way? It doesn’t matter what the gift is. It may be money or possessions, but it doesn’t have to be. Whatever God has given–health, talent, family, position–is taken with a sort of “life owes it to me” attitude. And when people can’t have what they want, they sulk around, and the “life owes it to me” attitude becomes even worse.

Then this son takes his undeserved wealth and his thankless attitude, and he travels far from home where he can abuse it all freely. He doesn’t want his father looking over his shoulder telling him what to do with what is now his own stuff. He wants the freedom to do as he pleases. He squanders it all in wild living.

It’s just like the people who want to be free from the shackles of God and religion, and tell the church to mind its own business. After all, it’s my money, and it’s no one else’s business if I want to blow huge sums of it on lottery tickets. It’s my body, and it’s a free country, and I have every right to share my bed with whomever I please. It’s my time, and if I want to sacrifice most or all of it on the altar of career, or prestige, or recreation, that’s up to me. Let the other fools waste it in church or Bible study.

And even if we haven’t wandered completely away from the faith, it’s just like us when we have our own secret sins, the ones we freely indulge ourselves in when no one else is looking, and we feel like we have escaped far away from our Father’s watchful eye, if only for the time being.

When I have been self-indulgent in sin, my Father’s love often comes in the shape of pain or trouble, as it does here. “After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything” (Luke 15:14-16).

Was this a good thing or a bad thing that happened to this young man? So often we fight just to have a “comfortable” life. We don’t want to be too rich or have too much. Life can be fairly simple if only we don’t have too much trouble.

But often we find God’s goodness in the hard life. What if this man had settled down into a comfortable life after his wild living? Sometimes the world’s solutions for problems can put a big enough band-aid on life’s wounds, they can take away the pain of the symptoms well enough, to make a person think they are alright. What if that had happened to this man? What if one of the citizens of this foreign country, away from his father, had really befriended him, had given him a nice job so that he could enjoy a simple but comfortable life? Maybe he wouldn’t have starved, but he might have been eternally separated from his father. Were the humiliation and the hunger really this young man’s problems?

Sometimes life is hard, and we find ourselves grasping at anything to make us feel better. As Christians, we find ourselves begging God, “Take it away! Take it away!”

But what is the Lord doing for us at such times? This young man could have died in unrepentance, died full of himself and full of his sin, eternally separated from God without the famine and the hunger. Maybe we haven’t wandered so far away, or maybe we are already fairly close to our heavenly Father when trouble comes, but still God uses these things to bring us closer to himself.

One of my own sons had cancer and two years of chemo. Another had to have his jaw and skull broken in multiple places and his jaw wired shut to correct a severe issue with his bite. These situations created plenty of misery. I wouldn’t wish this on my sons again, and I wouldn’t wish the worry on our family again. But I know that we found ourselves much closer to our heavenly Father in prayer during those times. Even if sin were the reason my life has become hard, I can be sure that our Father loves me as his own dear child, and only wants to pull me closer.