He didn’t take a bath

a provision of my Momma’s cooking ( the best in the world), a probable nap and a possible football game! I love the thought of everyone being at home together. I even love the thought of my students being home from college, military and other places they find themselves.

I’m reminded of a story from Luke 15, about a son who asked his father for his inheritance. In a way, it didn’t seem right that the father should have given it to him while he was living, but he did. It says that soon after, the son took everything the father had given him, went away to a distant country and wasted it all. After the son had gone broke there was a famine in all of the land, and the son began to be hungry. So he went to work for a man, feeding and tending to his pigs. He was so hungry that he thought about eating the food that he was giving to the pigs.

Then one day, he really realized how he had ended up in a place that he had never dreams of being. He started thinking about home, and how even his father’s servants had leftovers from their tables. So he decided to go home and ask his father for a job, to keep from starving in the distant land. From a distance, the father saw his son, and ran out to meet him. He threw his arms around his son and kissed him. Then the son pleaded forgiveness from his father for wasting what had belonged to him, and said he was no longer worthy to be his son.

Then the father expressed the value he had placed on his son. He told servants to hurry and put the best robe he could find on the son. He also said to put a signet ring on him ( signifying which family he belonged to) and sandals on his feet. Not only that, but he told the servants to kill the best calf they had, and prepare the home for a party, because his son was dead and was alive again. He said that the son had been lost, and now was found. Ultimately, the son was away from the father, but now had come home.

I think all of us with any age at all, could look back and think of a time when we took the blessings of God and wasted them in ways that were displeasing to him. When we found ourselves in places which we never thought we’d be. Amazingly, our Father, instead of giving us what we deserve restores our life in him completely.

Perhaps the thing that resonates with me today about the story is that there is no mention of the son taking a bath. He wasn’t required to clean up before the robe ring and sandals were placed on him. Maybe it was because the son was too weak to to give himself one. Maybe the father wanted the son to wear the smell for a little while as a reminder of where he’d been and that it didn’t matter. Then again, maybe the father enjoyed the smell of the son. Go home for Thanksgiving. Someone who loves you has forgiven everything just to have you at their table. Be Blessed.