Love Transcends the Pig Pen
The Father’s eyes were not tired as they peered down the road. This was not the first day he watched with vigilance the road stretched out before him. The road on which his son traveled away from him and home. His eyes longed to see; his arms ached to embrace his son. The one who left the comfort, security, and love of a good home. The father waited with a heart of hope, yet one filled with deep sorrow.
With difficulty and a broken heart, this child was released to go his way, to live the way he so desired. The oldest son remailed at home with the father, but it didn’t erase the pain of loss of the youngest son. The one who left without thought for his brother or father.
What pain the father’s heart felt when the youngest son demanded his inheritance due him. An inheritance which Jewish law stated would be received upon the father’s death. Was the soul of this young man callous? Did he wish for the death of his father? Did he have a legal right to the inheritance at the time? Yet the inheritance was given. Given with a broken heart.
Was the son cursed by his father when he demanded the inheritance? No. Was the son given instructions never to return home again? No.
With his inheritance the son departed, went into a far country. There he took on the nature of those with whom he associated and lived. There he began his riotous living. There he forsook what he was and all he was raised to be. Every lust, desire was not denied. Those who helped him squander his money were plenty. How great he must have felt being free from home living a life of reckless abandonment. Training, teaching, and knowledge of Father and home were thrown to the wind. — Then his substance ran out. So did those who helped him waste it. They were nowhere to be found.
Another substance ran out. His mental, physical, emotional, spiritual wellbeing. Gone were the days of free thinking, infidelity, disloyalty. Now a different day presented itself. A day of famine. His want became so great he joined himself to the citizens of the country. Did they care for him? No. To the fields he was sent to feed swine (pigs). This wasteful, dissipated, excessive, living beyond constraints son found himself with pigs of a different breed and nature. This prodigal son sunk to his lowest degradation. A Jewish child in a pig pen.
No one gave hm anything. Great hunger was now his constant companion. He would reluctantly, but willingly fill his empty stomach with food fed to the pigs. It was in the pig pen that the prodigal son came to himself. Broken, beaten, alone he realized servants in his father’s house were living in better condition than his existence. They had bread to eat while his stomach shriveled with emptiness. He would humble himself, go to his father, repent, beg forgiveness. If his father was willing, he could make him as a hired servant. Homeward his feet turned.
As before the father stood on the road, watched, waited, looked down the road. His eyes beheld a person who moved with slow steps toward him. As the person drew nearer the father saw it was a young man. A young man that trudged on the road hardly able to lift his feet from the ground. His body swayed with fatigue at every taken step. Some steps faltered with the difficulty of walking.
Joy flooded the father’s heart. He recognized those steps even though they showed weariness. As his son drew nearer his father, he saw the gaunt, thin body of his son. He saw the filth in which he was covered. Gone were the clothes in which he was dressed when he left home. Rags had replaced them. Before his son reached him, he smelled the stench of the pig pen. Onward came the prodigal son hopeless, beaten, then stood before his father. His father reached for him. Held him in his arms of love.
In his father’s arms the son felt the love which covered the filth of his body and clothes. A love that lifted from him from the exhaustion of living a sin filled life. Worn out and bankrupted of love was the son. Not the father. His love was never bankrupted. Restoration was given with great love because the father had more to give. Although the son had turned his back on his father, his father never turned his back on him. The prodigal son was welcomed and received home. Gone was hopelessness in the prodigal son’s heart. It was replaced with hope anchored in forgiveness and love from his father. The father’s love rose above all that the son did and was when he returned home. It rose above the pig pen.
As it is with God, our Father, and us when we have our pig pen experience then return to Him. Love transcends the pig pen.
Eyes On It 