THE PRODIGALS

In my 40 odd years in the Church I have sat in many Sunday School lessons and heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son as found in Luke 15 rehashed many times. I have seen it looked at from the good son's perspective, from the Father's perspective and from the prodigal's perspective but all the views have missed the bigger picture which helps us to understand more fully what this parable is really about - Christ and His redemptive power. To me this parable highlights the intellectual genius of the Saviour more than any other because in it He covertly speaks about himself. The parable tells of a father who had two sons. The younger son grew restless and pleaded with the Father to grant him his inheritance so he could make his own way in the world away from his family. The father complied and gave him the monetary value that equaled his share of the assets he would have inherited upon his father's death. The son made some very unwise decisions and spent his inheritance on riotous living until he had nothing left and was reduced to living with swine and sharing their husks to assuage his hunger. Upon much reflection, he made a smart decision for once, to return to his father and beg a position as his servant knowing full well he could not receive another inheritance. However, his father welcomed him back into the family with compassion and joy and reinstated him as his son. When the older brother saw the celebration upon his brother's return he was outraged because he immediately assumed he would have to share his inheritance with his erring brother. The father however, assured him that his inheritance was intact and all that the father had belonged to him.

The father of this parable can in every way be symbolic of our Father in Heaven who respects our free agency and welcomes back anyone who returns to him with compassion, forgiveness and immense joy. The younger son represents us, the prodigals. We are on daily basis, bit by bit,  spending our inheritance through the sins of mortality and some of us will in the end, stubbornly, spend it all. The oldest and good son at first glance represents the penitent, covenant children who remain faithful and will inherit all the Father has.  However, the good son was also the first son so in a wider sense he represents the First Born of the Father, the Saviour himself, but with a huge difference. Whereas the parable's good son was reluctant and fearful he would have to share his inheritance with his brother, the Saviour, from the beginning, propagated and promoted His willingness to share the inheritance with his erring younger siblings. But the loving kindness did not end there. He offered His power to bring us back to the Father as well. The parable's good son never sought him who was lost, despite the kinship, despite the brotherhood, despite the Father's sorrow over his loss. What does this tell us about Christ and His willingness to lay down His life so He can bring us back through His atoning blood? Because of his perfect nature and the purity of His love, meaning there was no motive for self-advancement within Him, He was able to say: I will not only make it possible for them to come back, I will also share with them all that I have.

I have been spiritually faithful all my life, carefully guarding my inheritance, and whilst recognising that I, like everybody else am not free from sin, I had not fully resonated with the prodigal son until I realised that I, like him have made unwise decisions in my life, not exercising the power of foresight when I made them. Because every decision carries with it consequences and repercussions I have suffered much over the years because of them. For more years than I care to admit, these decisions had exhausted my feelings of self-respect and damaged my self-esteem perpetuating my lack of self-forgiveness. But the Atonement is infinite. It covers all sin and all foibles of mortality and its ensuing suffering, even that of bad decisions. And where there is repentance, there is forgiveness. Our sins have already been suffered for and forgiveness extended, in advance, so that we would not suffer beyond our repentance. Our repentance must include self-forgiveness because if it doesn't, we are in essence affirming that we do not fully believe what Christ can do and we do not fully accept the gifts of His Atonement. The Atonement is not only cleansing but also consoling (See "The Infinite Atonement" by Tad R Callister, p 205). Like a salve to a wound, it relieves the pain and heals the once broken, the once torn, the once damaged, the once suffering. To this I testify. Its' restorative power makes us whole and justifies us when we are judged according to our mortality. To be spiritually justified means to be once again aligned with God. It means all our sins, our bad choices and our unwise decisions can be swept away. It means the prodigals can return. It means they can once again be safe, be loved and never be lost again.

From the forgiving heart of Joseph Smith:
"At one point Oliver Cowdery had disassociated himself from the Church. Joseph was anxious that he repent and return. He instructed his clerk: 'I wish you would write to Oliver Cowdery and ask him if he hasn't eaten husks long enough'." (Smith, "Doctrines of Salvation", 1:227)