Kiss of the Father
THE KISS OF THE FATHER
Luke 15:11-31
We all know the bible story of the prodigal son. That’s the story title of the parable that we know it by but let’s talk about that parable in a little more depth. Why? Because there is more there than you could ever have imagined. Some bibles call the parable the Prodigal Son or the Lost Son.
Let’s define prodigal.
Webster’s dictionary defines prodigal as:
1. spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant, wasteful, spendthrift,
2. having or giving something on a lavish scale, generous, lavish, liberal, unsparing, bounteous
3. one who is characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure, yielding abundantly
These are interesting. Keep this in mind as you remember the story and let’s see who was really “prodigal”.
One aspect of the story I think is very interesting, after I did a word study, is the word kiss. Its when the son comes back home from the far country and the father falls on the neck of his son and kisses him.
A lot of people have taught on this parable so I will not attempt to do that here. Maybe I will write a book about it one day and go into more depth. But for now, I just wanted to point out that the story is such a love story of how our God goes in search for you and me and he does not rest or give up until he finds us.
He will draw us, plead with us, urge us in any way possible to come back to him. He wants us to stop holding on to the power of death and destruction in our lives and come to him with willing hearts back to His love. Come back to His embrace and open arms where we rightfully belong. He wants us back with Him where your real life is.
I believe that the parable is more about the father as a type of Father God more than it is about the lost son. Remember our definition of prodigal. I believe that the Father was lavish in his love for the lost son that left just as our Father God is over us when we leave Him and go into our far country and that the real prodigal in the story is the father.
When the son came back home, the father was so lavish in his love towards him and in welcoming him back, I believe he forgot his sorrow over the son ever leaving in the first place. Wouldn’t God be that way about us? I think so.
The son that left had a hard life out on his own out in his choice to leave the comfort of the father’s love and protection. When you get out there away from love you being to wonder sometimes who do we really belong to. The world says some of us belong to it.
Do we belong to God or to the world?
The world is conditional. Yet, we keep running asking it and those in it do you love me? Do you accept me? Their response is yes, if you look right, yes if you do right. Yes, if you line up with what is politically correct? I love you if you are smart, funny, educated, etc. The “ifs” are endless and tiresome. These “ifs” will put you in a prison you can never get out and when you do you still will never know you are free. The world’s love is conditional and will always be that way.
When you leave the love of the father as this son did and when we leave God, the things of the world will cause you to become far from the fathers home and thus a prodigal too. You don’t need to go into the darkest of sin and pits to be a prodigal. You can be a prodigal son or daughter that leaves God everytime you cling to the world and leave the safety of the Fathers provision and protection. You become prodigal every time you leave His unconditional love and search for something, anything else in places where it cannot ever be found.
You say, what does all this have to do with that kiss you mentioned? Hang on I’m getting there. I want to show you first how far the son was from the father and when a father loses a child it hurts. If you have children think of your own kids.
Remember the comparison.
When we leave God and we chase other things that seem more intoxicating our Father has outstretched arms that never fold back up and say “no more, I am done with you” never! He never pulls back from us and withers in unforgiveness towards us. He never stops considering our state and where we are. But at the same time, God can’t make us stay with Him either. He won’t force His love on us. He will let us have our freedom even if it is to our own demise and pain it would cause us and Himself.
When the son said he was leaving and wanted his ‘stuff’ love wouldn’t allow the father to keep him there. Love let him go to find his own life he thought he needed to seek. But the father knew best. Just like our Father God knows best.
We are loved so much by God that we are free to leave Him at any time and seek whatever we are looking for. But, God will never not love us or remove his KISSES and outstretched hands from us. The blessings, provision and love is with the Father not with the world and its thinking. It is not even in your own thinking.
He will always be looking over the hill waiting for you to return with His outstretched arms.
When this son finally comes back he is a broken and defeated son. He has been far away from his father and his surroundings. He is broken with nothing. No money, no integrity, no honor, no self respect, no reputation. He squandered everything. Have you been there? Are you there now? It’s okay. Keep reading. Kisses are coming.
“People soon discover that the farther you run from the place that God truly dwells and all He has for you the less able you are to hearing God’s voice that calls you His own. The less you hear God’s voice the more entangled you become in the manipulation and power of the world.” – Henri J. Nouwen
I want to quote what Henri says here about the lost soul or person that leaves the loving Father’s care and goes your own way. It’s powerful and he says it best.
“I am not sure anymore that I have a safe home, and I observe other people who seem to be better off than I. I wonder how I can get to where they are. I try hard to please, to achieve success, to be recognized. When I fail, I feel jealous or resentful of these others. When I succeed, I worry that others will be jealous or resentful of me. I become suspicious or defensive and increasingly afraid that I won’t get what I so much desire or will lose what I already have. Caught in this tangle of needs and wants, I no longer know my own motivations. I feel victimized by my surroundings and distrustful of what others are doing or saying. Always on my guard, I lose my inner freedom and start dividing the world into those who are for me and those who are against me. (I have no real inner peace). I wonder if anyone really cares. I start looking for validations of my distrust. And wherever I go, I see them, and I say: “noone can be trusted’ and then I wonder whether anyone ever really loved me. The world around me becomes dark. My heart grows heavy. My body is filled with sorrow. My life loses meaning. I have become a lost soul.”
You see friend, loneliness in this world is horrible and a person is really lonely when they lost all sense of the things around them as being common to them. You can get so disconnected that you don’t even want to live and think you are human.
The lost son identified with pigs! You may even feel that you have no value to the people around you anymore. You mean nothing to them. You feel isolated from your life. This is truly the deepest loneliness a person can feel. Honestly, until you really feel that lost you can’t come to your senses as the son did.
No matter what he lost, money, friends, family, reputation, self respect he was still his father’s son and so are you! The son didn’t even feel he was worthy to be the son of his father. You see this realization and return happened at the very moment he reclaimed his sonship. He had to lose everything to see who he really was.
You will have to choose dear reader between being destroyed by your choice to leave the father’s love or trust that love. No human relationship, no friendship, no intimate relationship, will ever be able to give you that love you crave. If not you will stay in that pit of pain and your own lostness and lose all sense of reality of the love of the Father. You will say to yourself I have no value, no worth. I am no good, useless and powerless to change my life. I will just take what I have done and live with the pigs. I am not worthy of love. Yet alone KISSES.
The son decided to come back but he had a plan on the way back. Don’t we all sometimes. He already worked out a scenario in his mind of what he would tell the father and where he would position himself back in the family. We have imaginary conversations in our heads about what will happen and not happen. You see the son woke up to the fact that he was a son technically but not positionally. He didn’t see himself the way the father saw him. He lost all his dignity and said he was just worthy to be a hired servant. Basically he was going back to the father as a beggar. Don’t we do that too. Think about it?
Possibly one of the hardest challenges you will face is to receive the forgiveness of God. We like to stay tied to our sin behavior and wallow to keep God from really getting rid of our pasts. We like to try to prove our sin is just too much for God to forgive and we just have enough worth to be the hired man status. Give me what punishment I deserve.
But what if God doesn’t really want to give you that punishment but KISSES of love. Restore you to His side as His son and lavish on you His blessings.
Now here comes the son. A beaten man. Can’t you see him coming over the hill across the field. He is filled with pain and longing to be home but on conditions and there is the father. He sees him way off in the distance. Just like God. God sees you and I too. No matter how far off we get He sees us. Now the son can’t see his open arms. He is blinded by condemnation and loss of dignity. His head is probably lowered and he is not even looking at his father with love and open arms and gifts.
See when you leave the Father the fact is, it is a long way back. But not too far that our Father doesn’t see you coming. So here is the best part, to me, of the whole story and why I love bible school because you have to really see what words mean to get the meaning and heart of God sometimes.
The father is so overjoyed to see his son. His heart is thrilled. The verse says that he falls on the neck of his son and KISSES him. This word kiss here actually means a perpetual all the time action!!!!!
He didn’t just kiss his son one time and stand back from him. He didn’t just kiss him on the cheek and say welcome back son I missed you. NO! He fell on his neck and kept on kissing him and kissing him and probably moved to the other side and continued to kiss that side too! He didn’t stop not even to talk.
When you leave God the very nature and and character of God treats you and I the same way. The kiss of the Father is perpetual…. it never stops. He never stops kissing us. You never come back to Him and give your life and He stands there and just watches you live your life. No he keeps on kissing you continually. The Father is not just watching you to see if you are gonna live holy. He keeps on kissing you with the love of His presence. He gets involved with your life daily. He doesn’t stand off from you and wait for you to mess up. He kisses you with help and strength. He kisses you. Why? Because you are His son or daughter. This father was so in love with his son it didn’t really matter what he had done, lost or shame he carried. He gave him gifts, he gave him a robe, he gave him a ring… Who was more lavish? He just continued to kiss him as sign of intimacy and embrace that he was home and he was his.His running was over.
What kiss of the Father are you longing for? Selah.
