He Ran

The son in the story had a speech prepared, a careful confession about being unworthy to be called a son, ready to negotiate his way into a servant's position. He had lowered his expectations to survival. Jesus tells us what the father did while the boy was still far off. While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. The father was watching the road. He had been watching it, clearly, or he would not have seen a distant figure and known his own boy.

What undoes me is the running. A father of that age did not run; it was undignified, it meant gathering up his robes and abandoning his composure in front of the whole town. He did it anyway, and he did it while the son still smelled of the pigpen, before a word of the apology was spoken. The embrace came before the confession, not after it.

That is the God you are dealing with when you finally turn toward home after a fall. He is not standing at the door with arms crossed, waiting to hear you grovel. He sees you coming, and he runs.

Father, I am on the road back again, rehearsing my apology. Thank you that you are already running toward me. I let you reach me before I have made myself presentable.