“We HAD to celebrate and be glad…” (Lk 15:32).
Lord Jesus, you are the one who told this story of an exuberant father and his excessive delight, and we know you aren’t given to exaggeration and that we can always trust everything you say. So when you described our heavenly Father’s joy as impossible for him to contain and a necessary response to his prodigal son’s return—it thrills us, boggles our minds, sabotages wrong thinking, mocks bad theology, and invites us too to get on the dance floor of God’s mercy and grace. Free us and help us to do so.
Jesus, you are no stranger to our Father’s lovingkindness and joy, and neither is the Holy Spirit. Indeed, you speak first handedly about the measureless wonder of the one true living God. Life within the Trinity –which you have forever enjoyed, is wondrous state of perfect intimacy, perpetual delight, unimaginable beauty, and “love divine, all loves excelling.”
You gave us a tantalizing glimpse and taste of these things in John 17—as you prayed for your disciples and us. The relationship you have forever enjoyed with Abba is the relationship into which you are calling us, and have secured for us by your life, death, and resurrection. The same unity, intimacy, feast of glory, and state of joy you have always experienced you intend for us in “full measure.”
To quote your own prayer Jesus, you said to our Father, “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” (John 17:3). Astonishing, stunning, heart-expanding, disbelief-exposing … we believe, Jesus, free us to believe this more fully. Hallelujah, thank you, and So Very Amen.
