And Kissed Him

It's an experience with grace that changes the heart. And that happens when we are in worship with God's people. That could happen when we're in small groups with God's people. But it's something where we open ourselves up and say, God, I need more. I need to see more and experience more of you. I hope that we're starting out 2025 and you're here in a church, the beginning of this year. I hope you're hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry for more of God in our church. More of God in my life, more of God in your life, hungry for more and more of experiencing God's transforming power in us and through us as we embrace one another, embrace Jesus, embrace people outside our church. I wanna see what God can do with this.

This is Christ the King Sermons. Christ the King Sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church located in Raleigh, North Carolina. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to a sermon series entitled The Missionary Heart of God. In this series, we are looking at three parables told by Jesus in Luke chapter 15. In today's sermon, our senior pastor, Jeff Bradford, takes us deeper into the parable of the prodigal son.

Good morning to you. So glad to see you all who are here present in the room and also people who are joining us on our YouTube. We're now streaming again. So if you are out of town or sick, you can access through our CTK YouTube channel. So hope you'll join us and welcome those who are online.

Today, we are again in Luke chapter 15 and no, it's not deja vu. We are taking a lot of time these weeks starting out the New Year in going through some of the most famous of Jesus' parables in Luke chapter 15. So today, again, part three on the story of the prodigal son. If you join me, we're gonna read out loud Luke 15 verses one through two and then again 11 through 24. This is on page 908 in the pew bible or up on the screen. Let's join our voices together and read.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him and the pharisees and the scribes murmured saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. And he said, there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the property that falls to me and he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate and no one gave him anything. But when he had come to himself, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and they began to make merry. — Luke 15:1-2, 11-24

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Last year in the spring, a runaway in the United States made national news. It's because of who the runaway is, the son of Stewart Butterfield and Katerina Fake. Some of you who are in the tech world know those names. Stewart Butterfield is the founder of Slack. Katarina founded Flickr. And their son ran away from his suburban home in San Francisco. Just shows us that even amidst wealth and fame doesn't prevent heartache. The teenager ran away without leaving a note, without any explanation. He was gone over a week. There were tearful appeals on news by mom and dad for any information, for their son to come home. And finally, when he was found a week later, he was returned home unharmed. It was confirmed that he ran away voluntarily of his own free will.

Now just like the story that we read a moment ago, I'm betting that the most significant moment for Stewart and Katarina and their son is not what happened on national news. It is not what happened for what everybody saw. It's what happened when the boy was restored to his family. It was that conversation. What happened? Why did you go? What made you come back? That conversation was most important.

And that's exactly where we are in this story today. We are on the reunion and I think it's the most significant part. It's the new story. Man, we all need to hear this this morning. So I'm going to look at this under three headings really briefly. What the father did, what the father said, and what the son did. Let's jump into this together.

What Did the Father Do?

He does four things, really significant things. He runs. The father sees him while he was still far off. Now, that word there—far off—in this story has a double meaning and I hope you can get this. He sees him from far off because the boy had run far off distance-wise, but he had also run far off in this relationship. And he sees the son returning home and what does he do? He gathers up his robes, remember wearing robes, and he did what no Middle Eastern patriarch would ever do. He picks up his robes and he runs. He runs to his son.

Now this is shameful in that Middle Eastern patriarchs don't show their legs. Probably hadn't run publicly in thirty to forty years at this point, but he runs to his son. Runs like crazy—like I showed you a clip last week, Jim Balbano running onto the court—crazy after that win. Have you seen those videos of returning service personnel being reunited with their kids, with their families? That kind of running. That's the running that the father does here.

But he runs for two reasons, and I want you to really get this. The passage says he ran because of compassion. Now in Greek, the way the Greeks think about compassion—and this is very true of people in the Middle East even to this day—is it's down here in your gut. In fact, it means he ran from the gut. He was filled with emotion from his gut. And we use those kind of words actually in our language. You know, we say somebody's cutting you on the inside, which means you're overwhelmed with emotion or you feel something deeply in your gut. That's how God the Father feels about sinners. Filled with compassion, deep in his gut. That's the father to the son.

But he probably runs for another reason. I mentioned this last week that even today in many parts of Israel and the Middle East, there is a ceremony performed when an adult child shames the family. It's called the Kezazah ceremony—k-e-z-a-z-a-h—and it's where the family would take a large pot. They would hold it up over their heads and break it on the ground, symbolizing the breaking of the relationship. And it told the whole community: if this child who shamed the family comes back, you have the right to mock him. You have the right to spit on him. You have, even in many cases, the right to stone him to death.

So what is the father running for? One commentator says he's running to beat the crowd so the crowd doesn't beat the son. He's running to protect. He's running to get there first because if the crowd in the village, who have experienced this and know the shame that he's brought on the family, sees what the father does, they won't beat the son.

He runs. Second, he kisses. He kisses in only a way that Middle Eastern men kiss each other. Men in our culture do not kiss like this. And the word actually here means to kiss over and over and over again. This is not one little peck on the cheek. This is like, I can't stop kissing you. That's the kind of kissing. There's no pause. There's no like, time out, can we have a speech for a moment? He just collapses on the son.

Third, he clothes him. He puts three things on his son. Did you notice this? He puts on a robe and we're told it's the best robe in the house. This is simple. Who probably owns the best robe in the house? Dad. He brings out the best robe and he puts it on the boy—his own robe. And then he puts a ring on his finger. And again, this isn't jewelry. A family would have a ring made for transactions, financial transactions—a signet ring, sealing in wax. "I have the authority to spend the family's money." It's being restored not to a slave or a servant in the household, but to sonship, to being a full son in the family—the right to spend the money. And then he says, shoes—gotta have shoes. See, slaves were barefoot. Only sons wore shoes.

This is what he clothes him in.

And then finally, he kills. The father kills. He kills the fatted calf. To kill the calf means you're expecting to throw down. You're expecting a party. This is expected that we will eat this all right here, all together. The whole town is invited into this. Everybody has gotta be there because this is a celebration of celebrations. This is crazy. This is an over-the-top demonstration of the love of the father.

He runs, he kisses, he clothes, he kills. This is what God is like. One writer says it this way: you know, we think sometimes that the love of God is like our loves. It's like an arrow that you shoot and, you know, an arrow goes up and then it loses energy and falls down.

Or it's like a runner who starts a race and starts off really fast but then slows down. God's love is not like that. God's love is like an avalanche. It builds as it goes. It builds in intensity, or like a wildfire. This is really visceral for us this week watching what's happening in LA. Like a wildfire that just catches speed. This is what the love of God is like. Can you let this sink in?

Who is Jesus telling the story to? To the Pharisees, to the religious leaders, to churchy people. He's telling them, "Look, this is what God is like. You don't get it." They've been complaining all this time. "Jesus loves to hang out with the bad people, with the people who watch all the wrong kind of movies, who don't save their money, who aren't nice to their neighbors." Jesus hangs out with those who are notorious sinners, notoriously bad people, the people that wouldn't be welcomed in our churches. This is who God is attracted to. This is who's attracted to him as a result.

Those over in the chapters leading up to this—we've been watching people be drawn to Jesus. It's like the moon to the earth with its gravity, like paper clips to a magnet, like ticks to a dog. They're drawn in because Jesus loves real sinners, not hypothetical sinners. I can come up with something if I really work hard at it that maybe I've done not so great, but real people, real sinners—which sinners?

This is what God does for any sinner who repents. Every sinner. This is not just what happens when someone comes to faith. Earlier in this chapter, Jesus says:

There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who think they have no need for repentance.

What does that mean? Every sinner who repents, every time. Not just the first time coming to faith, but every time that we say, "God, I'm sorry." Every time we're in this place and we read that confession of sin and we read the assurance of pardon, we're saying, "Yeah, this is how God is. This is what God is like." Every time you wave a flag, the Father comes running. Runs, kisses, clothes, kills. That's that kind of energy.

Do you think I'm overstating this? Is this just preacher hyperbole? I am feeling really great this morning. I love this passage. But is it possible to overstate the love of an infinite being? Is it possible to overstate the love of an infinite being? No. Heck no. We can't fathom the infinity of God, and that's what God is like—all compassion, moved in his deepest being to love.

There's a thing going around the church. We think that God is so moved to forgive us because of his anger over our sin. No. At the very bottom, at the very foundation of the heart of God, it's not anger. It is the deepest well of love for people. This is what God's like. That's what the Father does. That's what the Father says too.

The Father's Summary Statements

The Father gives two summary statements about the son. He says something that makes sense and something that doesn't. He says, "Dead, alive, lost, found." Was dead, now alive, was lost, now found. Now that lost/found part makes sense. The son had run away. He was gone. But the Father says, "No, no, no, it's more than that. It's not just lost, it's dead."

One writer—a Catholic fellow, Father Capon—he writes this: "You know, this story is a festival of death." A festival of death. There are three deaths in the story. Let's look at these.

The first death is the one we talked about already. When the son goes to his dad and says, "Father, I want what's coming to me, my inheritance now." What he's saying is, in Middle Eastern terms, "Dad, I wish that you were dead." In his heart, he's killed the father. Jesus is showing us what sin really is. It's not doing bad things. It's not wasting money. It's not being ungrateful. It's a deeper heart motivation. It's trying to live in this world and use God's stuff with God dead. Nothing to do with him. I don't want you. Setting up life without him. The first death is the relationship with death.

The second death comes this way. It comes walking down the road. The Father looks out and sees a corpse walking toward him—his younger son. He sees him from a distance. Father Capon says it this way: "He says the Father simply sees the corpse of his son coming down the road and because raising dead sons to life and throwing fabulous parties for them is his favorite way of spending an afternoon, he proceeds straight to hugs and kisses and resurrection."

In the clarity of the resurrection, the boy suddenly understands: "I'm a dead son."

I've been a dead son and now only in the embrace of the father can he see, I'm a dead son who's alive again only because of dad, only because of what he's done. It's all because the father is willing to himself suffer, to himself take this on him.

You know, Jesus came to make dead things alive again. He didn't come to improve people. He didn't come to perfect the perfectible, to teach the teachable, to improve the provable, but to raise the dead. Corpses, when they were around Jesus, sat up. This is what happened around him. He never enters into our lives without bringing with it the joy of resurrection. This is what he's about.

And why and how can God forgive? By means of the third death. There's one more death in this story. Listen.

Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let's eat and be merry. — Luke 15:23

And here's the third, and it's the crucial death of the story. It's the fatted calf. The calf—Jesus himself—is the meat and drink of this feast, of this party. The fatted calf is actually the Christ symbol of this whole thing.

What was the fatted calf's job to do? Stand around in a stall and eat, and at the right point die so that others can celebrate, so that there can be forgiveness, reconciliation, and rejoicing. That's what the calf's job is. Isn't that what Jesus is?

Jesus comes and offers himself on the cross for sinners. And then says, "All of you, every time you come around and you come together, I want you to eat bread and remember that's my body and drink wine and remember that's my blood. I am the feast. I'm the way into the feast and I'm what's for dinner." This is what Jesus is offering us. He's the main course.

And so Jesus puts it really succinctly at the end:

They began to be merry. — Luke 15:24

Heck yes. They began to be merry. It was that good. This was good news for sinners. Three deaths, not just two. Three.

The Son's Response

So what does the son do? Really, not much. Kind of nothing here. He shows up, he stammers out some words and he just receives. That's key. You notice the son's speech?

For years, I sort of thought that maybe the father doesn't allow the son to finish his speech. He's talking and the father's like, "No, no, no, no. Let me just interrupt you right there." But there's no indication in the text that he does that. The son actually goes through his speech. He says, "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son." Is that true, by the way? Yeah. That is true. But that's where he stops. He never finishes the last line: "Make me like one of your hired servants."

Why didn't he finish that? I think it's because the father's actions steal the words out of his mouth. Notice what's missing. The son says, "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. That's true, but treat me like one of your hired servants?" No. No way. That's not what the father's going to be about.

See, what's happened is something's happening on the inside of the son. The father's love has finally awakened in him an understanding. In the first part of the story, the father's suffering is throughout. The father's sadness and estrangement is from the very beginning, and yet the son can't see it. He doesn't care. He's apathetic to it. He's not even aware of it.

But now the son sees this incredible demonstration of the father's suffering, how much it cost the father to forgive. It is critical to the son's transformation to see this in his father, to feel the embrace, to see the tears, to hear the commands. With his prior understanding, the younger son was calloused, but now in this moment, he suddenly realizes something. And I think it stops him short.

Seeing more and more and understanding more and more as a Christian of what God has done for you in Christ—this is what takes us from shallow repentance to deeper repentance. This is why I can say God runs at any white flag. But what happens in us over time is, if we're growing in the gospel, if we're understanding Jesus more and more, we move from regret—"I kind of messed up my life"—to remorse—"I've really messed up my life and it's costing, and there's lots of consequences to repentance. I haven't just broken some rules. I've broken my father's heart. I've broken this relationship."

And he was like this, and the son can't resist the father in this moment in the same way that the father couldn't resist the son. This is what happens in Christians. If we are people whose hearts are open to the Spirit working in us, as we understand more and more what Jesus has done for us—the beating, the crown of thorns, the tears, the blows, the mocking, the spitting, the blood loss, the nails, the excruciating pain, the slow death by asphyxiation on the cross—these things work on us if we let them.

And they move us to a place from being like, "I just want God to make my wife good," to "I want that. I want him." I had no idea what it cost him for me to be close, but now I can't look away. I can't resist. Experiencing the embrace is what changes the heart.

The Story of Ken Parker

Let me say this by way of conclusion. I recently read a story of a man named Ken Parker. Ken Parker was known for many years for his involvement with the KKK. He's a neo-Nazi white supremacist. He wore the robes, he had swastika tattoos, he marched in Charlottesville a couple of years ago. His hero in life was Dylann Roof.

Now, if you don't recognize that name, Dylann Roof was the young man who went into Mother Emmanuel Church in 2016 during a prayer meeting and killed nine people. And Ken was like, "That's who I want to be like."

They did a documentary on the white power movement in this country following Charlottesville with lots of interviews. Ken Parker was interviewed for this and he's watching the movie and he realizes he sounds really foolish. He's like, "What am I saying? What have I been about?" And he begins to ask questions.

His neighbor next door—they begin to talk and develop a friendship. It turns out his neighbor is a pastor, Pastor McKinnon, of a church very similar actually to Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston. And he invites Ken to church. So Ken Parker and his fiancée at the time start going to this African American congregation.

One Sunday, they allow Ken to have the microphone. I don't know what kind of crazy pastor would do this. I wouldn't do this. But he says, "Do you want to tell us what you believe?" And Ken starts saying all of his hatred, all the ways that he has looked down on and belittled and persecuted people of color in this country.

And the congregation responds to him with an embrace. They say, "We don't agree with you. We think some of what you talk about here is evil. But it took some courage for you to share this with us, and we're so glad you're here. You're safe, and you're welcome here."

And in the interview, he says, "Everything changed for me after that. Everything changed. He looked to people that he had hated and now were embracing him and understood something is different about these people and I want it." Grace began to melt his heart.

A year after seeing himself in that video, after that interview about marching in Charlottesville, he walked hand in hand with his pastor into the Atlantic Ocean. He's from Jacksonville, Florida. I have a picture of it. He was baptized.

What Changed Him

What I love about that story—it's a heartwarming story, but what's incredible is what he needed. He had to experience the embrace to understand the depth of love. He had to experience the depth of this embrace from this congregation, people who loved God and were like, "This is what God's like." And that's what helped him, woke him up to the reality of, "This is real. God is real. I'm not okay."

It's an experience with grace that changes the heart, and that happens when we are in worship with God's people. That could happen when we're in small groups with God's people. But it's something where we open ourselves up and say, "God, I need more. I need to see more and experience more of you."

I hope that as we're starting out 2025 and you're here in a church at the beginning of this year, I hope you're hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry for more of God in our church. More of God in my life, more of God in your life. Hungry for more and more of experiencing God's transforming power in us and through us as we embrace one another, embrace Jesus, embrace people outside our church. I want to see what God can do with this.

Christ died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for their sake and was raised. — 2 Corinthians 5

Here's my prayer for us, that we would so rediscover gospel grace, the incredible embrace and kissing and clothing and killing of the Father for us, that our hearts would melt and we'd be changed. Through that, God would change us and change other people too.

Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word. There is nothing like your word. Father, would you have your way in our church? We don't want to be people who are doing religious activities. We don't want to go through the motions. We don't want to just mouth the prayers or the songs. We want a deep and transforming experience of gospel grace in us. We want to move from regret to remorse to repentance. We want to understand how much Jesus did for us in his running, his kissing, his clothing, and his dying. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to today's sermon.

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This has been Christ the King Sermons, a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church located in Raleigh, North Carolina. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh.