Reflections on the Prodigal Son

As I was preparing this parable for Scripture, I noticed something I haven’t grasped before. Often when we look at this story, the ‘take home’ message is simply: be like the Samaritan – which is a good thing to be.

But if that is all we take away, I think we miss much of what this parable is teaching us – because Jesus’ parable is perfectly crafted so that we can draw something from every person in this parable. In a nutshell it teaches us who we shouldn’t be like, who we should be like, and who we are like.

1. Who we shouldn’t be like – the Pharisee or the Levite. These guys are religious, but don’t help their brother, in fact they pass by on the other side. If anyone should have helped this guy, it should have one of these two.

2. Who we should be like – The Samaritan. Despite being the cultural, social, theological and political enemy of the man lying on the road. He takes pity on the man, helps his immediate needs with bandages and oil, goes out of his way to make sure the man will be ok for the future, and covers the whole cost from his own pocket. No wonder that Jesus tells us to “Go and do likewise”.

3. Who we are like – the beaten up man. This parable not only shows us the manner in which we are to love as followers of Jesus, it also is allegorical as it shows us how Christ loves us. We are, on our own merits before God, equivalent to a man lying dead on the side of the road – Ephesians describes us as “dead in our transgressions and sins.” We are helpless, until the one we regarded as our enemy comes to save us.
Romans 5 puts it like this: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jesus is like the Samaritan, he saves his enemy: and he saves his enemy at great personal cost. 2 Corinthians 8 talks of the cost: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

Our saviour is the ultimate good Samaritan, thus he can say to us “Go and do likewise”.