A brother’s heart
“And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found’” (Luke 15:31-32)
In Luke 15:2 the Pharisees and the scribes were unhappy that the Lord Jesus reached out to the tax collectors and sinners to bring them into God’s blessing. They consistently viewed the failure of others as a background on which to reflect their own righteousness (Luke 18:11). The three parables of Luke 15 teach us about the heart of God and the joy the Godhead has in the salvation of the lost. The first two parables are about the value God places on us and the action He takes to redeem us. The final parable, that of the prodigal son, teaches us about our rejection of God and its consequences. We learn about turning to God in repentance. We also learn that redemption is about mercy and grace: we are not merely saved, but we become the children of God.
But the story of the prodigal son includes the story of an older brother. This brother never left his father’s house; he never wasted what the father gave him. But he was very similar to his younger brother because, although he lived with his father, he never understood his father’s heart. The story gives us a vivid insight into the dangers of self-righteousness. It is self-obsessed and self-glorifying. Its energy comes from our view of what we think we are, what we do, and our condemnation of failure in others. But self-righteousness distances us from God and blinds us to the need we have of His salvation. We also make the mistake of thinking it is a religious problem, but its influence is clearly evident throughout the whole of society and it is at the root of many of the world’s problems. It seeks to control others and makes people joyless and resentful of the joy others experience.
We see this so clearly in the older brother. He did not run into the room to embrace his brother. There were no kisses or tears; there was just anger, bitterness, resentment and separation. The father had to go out once more, this time to plead with his older son. It must have caused the father heartache of a different kind to hear what his older son felt: “I have served you…”; “I never transgressed…”; “You never gave me…” The older brother poured out such ill-feeling, not towards his brother, whom he discarded as an immoral man, but towards his own father. Despite all the years he spent in his father’s company, he had no sense of his father’s love for him.
That love was expressed in the gentle words which followed: “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” Christ loved the tax collectors, like Zacchaeus, and he also loved the Pharisees, like Saul of Tarsus. In whatever form it takes, God cuts through all our need to reveal his love for us. The father adds, “Your brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (NIV). God’s love not only deals with our distance from Him, it deals with our distance from each other. It brings us into a fellowship of life, where, whatever our background, we are one in Christ Jesus. Because we are loved, we are empowered to demonstrate the love of Christ to each other. The elder brother resented the father who loved him and despised the brother who needed his love. The father added, “It was right that we should make merry and be glad.” That day, mercy and truth had met together and righteousness and peace had kissed (Psalm 85:10). The self-righteousness of the elder brother had no place in the father’s house.
The Lord Jesus was challenging the hearts of the Pharisees and scribes, and he challenges our hearts. We are capable of building walls of separation and of destroying fellowship. God has put the best robe on us – the righteousness of Christ. It is for us to live in its dignity with our hearts full of mercy, truth and peace.
