Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
March 30, 2025
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
Lent 4
Who Is Your Father?
But the Father said to his servants, “Hurry! Bring out the best robe and dress him in it; and put a ring on his hand, and sandals on his feet; and bring the fatted calf! Slaughter it and let us eat and be joyful! For this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost and now is found; and they began to celebrate! (Luke 15:22-24 DKV)
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Lent is a season dedicated to repentance. We perceive it in our readings, hymns and prayers. The summary of the last three weeks is this: Jesus’ own words that, “Unless you repent of your sins you will likewise perish.”
You too will suffer Babylonian Captivity, and your bodies will the scattered across the desert like the 23,000 Israelites with whom God was not pleased. Not pleased because they lived self-directed lives instead of God-directed lives. The kind of life everyone boasts about today, thinking they are O so brilliant and unique – but such claims are as ordinary and uninteresting as they come.
But what all men must know is that they are under God’s judgment because of their sins. You can fight it. Deny it. Contemn it. Put lipstick on it … but a pig is a pig.
However in the Lenten scheme of things the 4th Sunday in Lent changes key from minor to major and converts from dirge to dance. It is hard for us to comprehend because we don’t take Lent as seriously as people did for many centuries; where they engaged in rigorous self-discipline, and by the 4th week needed to be reminded that the joy of the Lord’s resurrection lay ahead.
Hear and rejoice in today’s readings from Scripture beginning with Psalm 32.
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”
Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.
Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
Consider further today’s Old Testament lesson:
“I will give thanks to you, O LORD,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
that you might comfort me.
“Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.”
And today’s epistle reading where Saint Paul teaches us that:
“God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself not counting men’s transgressions against them … and so we implore you be reconciled to God who made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us; so that we should become righteousness of God in Him.”
And to confirm and re-affirm God’s unrelenting love for us today’s gospel is the famous parable often called: the Parable of the Prodigal Son, of which we will speak further in a moment.
In this legendary parable we are confronted with two sons and two sins: unrighteousness and self-righteousness, one as fatal as the other.
We know how the story goes. The younger son wants his inheritance from his father now, and the father gives it to him without delay. Pay close attention fathers, there is something here to learn.
Having secured a princely sum the son immediately goes to a faraway country and lives like there is no tomorrow; and so he continued day after day until suddenly tomorrow arrived, and he slammed smack into a wall.
He suffered such a reversal that he ended up taking a less than minimum wage job feeding pigs. He was so hungry he was wanted to eat some of the pig slop but was not permitted; and that is when he hit bottom. Not man’s bottom which is still far too high. But God’s bottom – and there is nothing lower than that.
But he was not without hope! Finding himself 35,000 feet below sea level at that the bottom of the Mariana Trench, as it were, he swallowed his pride. And in so doing he miraculously recovered his power to reason.
May we do the same.
It was then that he realized that his father’s servants lived better than he was living; and then and there he determined to return home and ask his father for a job as a servant. But that is not what he got!
Instead he received a warm and loving welcome from his dear Father who eagerly awaited his return – even as he does yours. And though the boy had squandered his substance as each of us also has – his father receives him back with tears of joy. He joyously hugs him and kisses him, and orders the servants to dress him in the finest robes, give him new sandals, and to put a gold ring on his hand. He then orders the fatted calf to be slaughtered (which is Christ on the cross – fat with the sins of the world), and that a grand celebration to begin immediately.
In the meantime the older son who heard the merry-making and found out what it is all about, gets angry. His unrighteous brother gets welcomed back but he who had faithfully worked for his father all these years gets no party, no special attention – and he is most put out!
And so the father speaks to this son tenderly as well. He says, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”
Now this parable has for the longest time been called: the parable of the Prodigal Son. But some years ago people started to call it: the Parable of the Older Son highlighting his self-righteousness. But perhaps the best name for it is: the Parable of the Prodigal Father.
Because neither of the sons is the hero of the parable but rather the Father is. Because prodigal does not mean one who returns after a long absence. But it means one who spends prodigiously, prolifically, extravagantly and excessively – just like the younger son did in a bad way. But, however over the top he spent, he does not hold a candle to his father. Who in love untold donated Himself to lost mankind in the Person of His Son, our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ. “Who though He was rich,” says Saint Paul, “for our sakes became poor (by the poverty on the cross,) so that we might be made rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9) And so we are because of our True Father.
And who is He?
He is the Living God who reveals Himself in Scripture.
He is the Savior of the unrighteous and self-righteous alike.
He is the One of whom St. John says in 1 John 4:19, “God is Love.”
He is the One to whom we pray “Our Father who art in heaven.”
He is the One who, in Christ, receives us back from the faraway country of sin and death and devil. Who covers us with divine hugs and kisses. Who dresses us in Christ’s own righteousness. Who shods our feet with gospel of peace. Who puts his gold signet ring on our fingers. And gives the greatest celebration that has ever been. A celebration we are about to take part in today as we approach the altar to Commune our Holy Father and His blessed Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.