Parents and friends are shocked. “He was always such a good kid. Never any trouble. It would be easier to accept if he had a terrible home life, had shown a rebellious nature, or was addicted to drugs, but such wasn’t the case.”
Son of a good home, he took for granted respectability, social status, economic security, family love. He set his heart on happiness, freedom, independence, adventure. He saw nothing wrong with these goals.
But as time passed, he sensed that he was losing the supreme values of his life. He had to face the fact that he could lose them, was losing them, had lost them. What he set out to do was not being done. Where he ended up wasn’t at all where he had really intended to go. His life was far different from what he had expected. Undisciplined and dissipated, he languished in self-induced misery. His money was gone—and his friends. In the midst of an economic downturn, the only work he could find was slopping hogs. He had hit bottom.
When you are hungry enough to eat with the hogs, you get a different perspective on things.
Finally, he came to himself. He saw that he had made a mess of his life, and in penitence decided to go back home. The candle of his great adventure had sputtered out in the rain. Gone were the hopes of sharing the blessings of a son. He would gladly settle for the wages of a hired hand. At least, he would be living in his father’s house.
Jesus knew it was possible to take the wrong road in life. He also knew the heartbreak ahead for those who took it. He describes it all in his story of the Prodigal Son. Furthermore, he lifts his voice in warning by saying, “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
But Jesus holds out hope even for those who have taken the wrong road. He knows the heart of the Father, and how anxious God is to welcome wayward children home (Luke 15:20-24). With a ring. And a robe. And a fattened calf. As sons. Not hired servants.