Constant Laundry

 

But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate!

—Luke 15:22-24

Each young mother knows a thing or two about constant laundry. No sooner has she taken the last load from the dryer, when her baby makes a mess of the peas on a nice clean onesie.

God must feel that way about us. No sooner does He get us cleaned up from our most recent sin, than here we come with another misdeed to confess. The process seems endless.

Hopefully, like a baby, the older we grow in our relationship with God, the less messes we make. Of course, as long as we live on this earth, we will always continue to sin because of the sin nature we inherited from Adam. So, that rule doesn’t always apply with our sinful selves—though we can listen to, and learn from, the leading of the Holy Spirit, in order to put away as many of our sins as possible.

The Prodigal Son in the parable from Luke 15 had eventually ended up living in filth in a foreign land. In fact, the Bible says the unwise decision he made to leave home and follow his own rebellious will saw him ending up feeding pigs, wallowing with them, and wishing for their slop to fill his own stomach.

Yet each day, the father of the Prodigal looked longingly in the distance, hoping to see his son. He waited for his son’s return and his son’s repentance.

When his son finally came to his senses and came home, his father took off his son’s rags and brought out the best robe. I like the way a Puritan writer expressed this: ¹

I am always going into the far country,

and always returning home as a prodigal,

always saying, Father, forgive me,

and thou art always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning let me wear it,

every evening return in it,

go out to the day’s work in it,

be married in it,

be wound in death in it,

stand before the great white throne in it,

enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

During this Season of Lent, when our minds are brought back to our all-too-natural propensity to sin, let us run to the Father and confess our rebellious misdeeds, knowing the experience the Prodigal had of being welcomed and celebrated with the best robe—the robe of Christ’s righteousness!

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1 Bennett, Arthur, Ed. The Valley of Vision. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975. p. 76.