Read something interesting about this once that goes to show that Christ lowered himself in order,to forgive all,of,us “abusers of his grace”, we,too went our own way, with no regsrd for the one who gave us life, and spent all that we had until one day we reached the “end of ourselves”, and reached out for help efen though we knew we didnt deserve it because of how we treated our father, our creator...
The son, an abuser of grace, had disgraced the father, and according to Jewish law, and the townspeople would usually get involved and stone the disgracer to death if the person were found guilty of gross disgrace, because the disgracer would have brought shame not,j7st to his family, but to the whole village, according to Kenneth Bailey, a scholar of Luke’s parables.
The father knew this, and before the townspeople got to the son, he ran (something that was considered undignified and shameful in jewis h culture evidently) out to meet his son with open arms of forgiveness, in order to shield his son from the mob. the father lowered himself by running “shamefully” out to protect the very son who had abused his grace. He did so willingly because he loved the son so much, just as christ loves us so much .
Interesting. Thank you, Bob, for adding that perspective.
Bob, greatly appreciate your post; very interesting ideas.