As Lutherans we sometimes get bogged down in the first bit of God’s salvation plan of sinfulness and repentance. We forget to hear the message which takes us several more amazing steps along the way in which God is leading us. We hear this profoundly in the parable of the repentant son who returns to his father’s home. The father knows that he has returned and is repentant. He doesn’t need him to go through 40 days of self-examination and reflection to make sure that he is ‘truly’ repentant. His son has done more than enough of that in the pigsty, living below the pig-poverty line with the pigs, in the middle of a severe national famine. The father is just so excited to see him and hug and kiss him and welcome him home. And, of course, how could he simply leave his son at the front gate or out in the fields as one of his servants? This is his own flesh and blood who belongs inside the house in his own bedroom, with his wardrobe of clothes, jewellery and Gucci shoes. The father wants him to have the best again, even though his son has blown a considerable portion of the family estate on reckless living. This calls for a massively happy celebration of the best that the father has on hand.
St Paul has another way of describing this transition from sin and repentance to being a treasured child of God. He puts it all down to the ‘sweet swap’ that occurs between Jesus and me. Jesus takes my rap and I get all the privileges, as if I was Jesus Christ himself. This is totally unfair, but totally loving and compassionate on God’s behalf. He deeply wants to reconnect with you and me and has literally done everything possible to re-secure and re-cement our relationship. So now in Christ you are a new creation. Not you WILL be a new creation, but you ARE one, NOW.
‘The old has gone, the new has come’ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Paul says this to you and me so simply but definitively. And we are not now in ‘waiting mode’, but we have already been called into this ministry as Christ’s representatives. We have become the mouthpiece of God himself as through our lives he calls other people to put on this new life that Jesus so feely offers to all people. So here is the next step in this exciting process. While we celebrate our home-coming party, we also invite others to the party as well.
