Today reading through the story I approached the end and came to the bit about the older brother. Why does this wonderful story of redemption end on such a bitter note? Verse 29 and 30 hit me hard as I read:
"So he answered and said to his father, "Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I have never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him."
"Who has devoured your livelihood with harlots" - yeah, that's me. I have wasted God's good gifts on my own ends. My hands have shaped idols. But I am also the older brother. "I have never transgressed your commandment at any time" - I try to earn the forgiveness and love of God by my works, as if they are anything but filthy rags. Why this flurry of activity, when God calls me to rest?
What gets me about this story is that the older and younger brother both wanted their father's things, but tried to achieve them in different ways. Was there any real love for the father in the older brother's heart, even though he stayed? I don't think so, and that scares me. I am more likely to be the older brother in this story, than the younger. Trying so desperately to earn God's favor by my works, instead of looking to the finished work of Christ.
I am clothed in His righteousness, but I still try to pull on those filthy rags. Enough striving, it only produces frustration. Instead, let me fall on the grace that is in Christ Jesus and rest, "dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne".
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