(by Lorie Codispoti)
When’s the last time you took a good look at yourself in the mirror?
I’ll never forget the time I was talking to my grandmother about how much time women spend in front of a mirror. We were on our way to her weekly hair appointment. (In her generation & circle, the women went to the beauty parlor once a week for a wash & set.) She made the comment that she didn’t like spending too much time in front of a mirror, because it was a reminder of how old she was getting. It wasn’t that she minded getting older; it was that sometimes she felt like she was looking at a woman on the outside who wasn’t the same as the women she felt like on the inside.
I get it now!
The older I get the less time I want to spend looking at the reflection staring back at me. Perhaps if I don’t look then I don’t have to face the reality that things are not what they used to be. I can pretend I’m something I’m not, as long as I stay away from the very thing that presents the inescapable truth that I’m getting older.
I’ve been reading through the story of the prodigal son.
Even if you’re not a Christian, you’ve likely heard the story of this father & his two sons. The oldest son is obedient, trustworthy, & loyal, while the other has a bit of an identity shift & decides he wants to put as much distance between who he wants to be & who he is. So he runs away from everything he’s ever known to embrace a life that checks all his emotional boxes & makes him feel significant. Trouble is, he’s been lulled into thinking he can create his own image by avoiding the mirror of reality.
I heard a bible teacher recently say that we can’t know who we really are until we know who God is. We (Western Christians) read the Bible asking it to tell me things about ourselves. The teacher noted that our culture reflects more of the Greco Roman world (Aristotle, Socrates, Plato) than it does the culture that Jesus was addressing. The Bible is a book that we should approach the way it was written & intended to be interpreted. We need to read the text with a heart that wants to know more about our Father God.
While this story talks about two brothers - one of which decides to cut his familial ties & run away with his inheritance because he wants to redefine himself apart from them, and the other who has to deal with jealousy when the prodigal returns - the real story is about a father who loves both of his sons.
The text tells us that the father watched & waited.
He watches with great heartache as the younger one chooses a path that only leads to destruction. It’s the story of a father who searches for & is willing to go to extreme measures to forgive his wayward son, & assure him that his cries of desperation have been heard & he is always welcome to come back home.
While we may think that these two brothers deserve a stern rebuke from their father, that’s not the direction he chooses.
According to the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, whenever the Israelites were reduced to eating the pods that pigs (unclean animal) were fed it was due to a famine. It was not only a desperate measure to ward off starvation, but it was a shameful thing that forced them to face the reality of where they were & what they had become as they drifted away from God. It was a reality check that caused them to humble themselves & repent of their sin.
I submit to you that both of these sons have an identity problem. They both think they are something they are not, and this stems from the fact that neither one of them really knows their father.
Jesus is not telling this story to showcase the faults of two foolish brothers. The spotlight shines on the character of a loving father who watches, waits, & then runs to meet the wayward son. The father who later will assure the older one that his standing has not changed & neither has his love for him.
“But when he came to himself.” (Luke 15:17)
It's time for the prodigal to go home & face the mirror of reality.
This son gets to a place where he finally realizes that he’s been gazing into a warped mirror - one that was set in front of him to give him a twisted view of the man he was designed to be.
One of the things I never stopped to think about, until now, is that when the prodigal reaches his father & begins to confess his sin, he doesn’t even get to finish his confession.
He may not have known his father, but his father knew him. He knew that his son had been humbled by his poor choices & was now truly repentant. (Psalm 51:17 tells us that God will not despise a broken & contrite heart.) The father is moved with compassion & cuts the son off mid-confession. Overjoyed at his return, the father orders that he be given a robe, a ring, & sandals for his feet. Then he orders a party to welcome his son home.
Most of us can relate to one of these two sons. Maybe even both. We’ve either squandered the resources we’ve been given, or we look down from a place of presumed superiority on those who have.
Maybe it's time for us to turn & head back to the Father's house. Perhaps it’s time for us to come to ourselves & face the mirror of reality.
The beauty of this mirror is that the more time we spend gazing at the woman (or man) we were created to be, the more convinced we will become that the Image we see is a reflection of our Father in heaven. God the Son, willingly left His position in glory to show us what He looks like.
Our loving Father wants us to know that the Image we see on the outside was designed to match the One He created us to reflect on the inside.
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