[AI translation] This touching story of Jesus' prodigal son is in fact the story of the life of every single person, and indeed of the life of all humanity. And especially now, on the last night of this year, when I look back over the past year, I feel how much it is our story here! If only everything were truly our story - not just the sad part, but the joyful part too! If only we could be truly like the prodigal son, not only in where we have been, where we have wandered in the weeks and months of our lives, but also in where we are now! Yes, it's good to see both very clearly now, where we have been and where we might be going.For a long time I could not identify myself with the prodigal son, I felt that I had never drifted as far from God as he had from his father. But I later realised that it is not the distance that counts, but the separation: not how deeply one throws oneself into the arms of sensual pleasures like the prodigal son, and how deeply one is physically and spiritually crushed, but how one lives one's world with one's back turned to the love of the Father. I realised that this sad story was about me and about believers like me, about us who are sitting here in church, so beautifully and so decently. Because, sad and incomprehensible though it is, we all have the same instinct that drove this boy to that far-off foreign land. We cannot truly appreciate the blessing of having a Father who cares for us, who loves us, who warns us, guides us, protects us... We don't need that, we are pregnant, we always need something else than what He wants. We are oppressed by His guardianship, paralysed by His law, we want to be free from it. Isn't that how it works in practice?! Isn't it always the force that attracts us more, the force that visibly leads us to peril? Is it not the case that we often almost consciously rush to our own doom? That we cannot endure the peace of being at peace with God, and that we yearn more for the restlessness of a life away from Him? Is it not that there is some terrible flight instinct at work in us, always driving us away again from home, out into the foreign land?- What mysterious law of heaviness is it that always pulls us downwards more strongly than upwards? Well, is it something unnatural, this constant wanting to get away from the Father? Or perhaps you have not yet recognized this instinct of flight in yourself?
How did the prodigal son say: 'Father, give me my share of the wealth'? Because what does it mean? A distrust of the Father: this son does not tell his Father what he wants to do, does not discuss his plans with his Father, does not pour out his heart before him with the confidence of a child, but demands: 'Father, give me all that is due to me in life. Give me good health, and then what I do with it is my business! Give me happiness, deliver me from trouble, give me strength, family joys, bread - preferably a big piece of bread - always what I need. Give me, give me, give me... - then I will live my life as I please! God should only give me what I need, but not what I do with what he gives me! That's my business!
Look: all that this boy in the story has is all from his father - and he lives with it all without his father, he uses it all without his father. His body, which so many have fallen in love with, which he has adorned, which he has immersed in pleasures: this too is from his father. His money, his clothes, his shoes, his food, his drink, all this too is from his father, for he has bought it from the inheritance his father gave him... Do we not all live from our Father's goods at every moment? Is not all our spiritual strength, our extraordinarily developed intellect, our technical ability, our whole culture, what we have achieved, is it not all from the ancient inheritance which the Father has given to his children? Did not God give him the opportunity?! We can already do everything! We can break out into space, we can hold the energy of the atoms of matter in our hands, we have power over everything, but we have lost power over our own power! And that is why what we have done with the paternal inheritance is so threatening: to end up where the prodigal son who wanted to eat of the swill that the pigs ate, "and no one gave him any!"... Yes, that's what we humans are like! And that is why the world has come to the edge of a threatening, fearful precipice, because we have taken our inheritance out of our Father's hands and gone far, far away from Him!
We read of the prodigal son, "He shall go far into the country!" This far country is not a physical distance, but a spiritual one! Observe: the spirit with which we relate to work, to people in the everyday world: how far away it is from the spirit with which we sit here before God in the church! The spiritual "country" we walk in out in the world is so far from the country of the kingdom of God! In fact, our whole lives are spent in that "far country": far from God, detached from the Father! I can imagine that when that boy in the story, laden with the abundant paternal inheritance, set off with great confident strides towards the yoke of the far country, how sadly his father must have looked after him! Have you ever wondered how often the Father looked after you with such sadness, when you were there, in that far country, pursuing forbidden fruit with secret desires, or looking at someone with anger and hateful passions, or living irresponsibly, not caring what the consequences of this prodigal life would be? How sadly your Father looked after you! Was home not so good? Do you really think it's better to be in a far-off land, orphaned, stateless?! You're a child of God even apart from God! You can't rest, anyway, because you're subconsciously homesick! Perhaps this sad look of the father's, which penetrates all physical and spiritual distances: this is what the prodigal son felt, for thus the story continues: he is invaded! He realised the reality: I have left my father! I forgot him! I have lost God! That's why I lost myself!
A night like this, on the last day of the old year, is a particularly good time to really take stock of oneself: to take stock of where one has been, how one has lived, and where one will end up if one goes on like this! After all, this is how a whole life, like this year 1964, will pass, perhaps not so long from now! And then what? Where will I go? How will I stand at that great final judgment? The great reckoning of what I have done to those who were entrusted to me - and what harm I have done, how much harm, to those who were not entrusted to me, but perhaps to another man, another woman? What have I done with my earnings, my time, my talents, my body? What have I done with the inheritance that God has sent me on the road of life?! The prodigal son, when he came to himself, came to a very bitter realization, he said to himself, "I have sinned! I am not worthy!" - A bitter realization! It is so difficult that sometimes one commits suicide before admitting one's own sin to oneself. But here the journey begins - home! It is there that I feel, know and tell God with sincere shame and repentance: I have sinned! I am to blame! It is not my circumstances, not my age, not the people who hurt me, not my family who did not understand me, not my friends who led me astray, not my nature that I inherited - I, I have sinned, I have sinned against heaven and against men! I am not worthy, I deserve no more good, no more good than I have! I have lost God, and therefore I have lost myself. I am lost!
NO! - Says Jesus! Not anymore! Now you are not lost! Now, right now what the father said to the prodigal son, "This son of mine is dead and risen, lost and found!" - Look what happens when a prodigal son or a prodigal daughter gets up, turns around, weary, ragged, sighing heavily, stopping and going home: "And while he was still afar off, his father saw him, and his heart was moved, and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him." After all that has happened, no one can really expect such a welcome! Is this how they love us?! Is that how much they expect? Has the one we have so forgotten not forgotten us? To whom we are lost, is he not so lost to us? Has our Father stood at the gate all the time we have been wandering in far-off lands, spying the way, whether he is coming whom he awaits, and not only stands there, but runs before him, greets the comer with kisses and embraces - me, you, the bad boy - and now is happy that a debauched beggar has returned with empty pockets and an empty heart?
It is hard to understand this, to love so one who does not deserve it! And yet the very parable is that he loves you and me - and waits! The God whom we have abandoned comes to us - as concrete, as bloody real, as visible and tangible in the crucified and risen Christ! And if the impulse to escape from the nearness of God is strong in man, the Father's welcoming love is even stronger! all this is a beautiful series of images illustrating what the Bible calls: forgiveness of sins! This is how God forgives! For all who, right now, right here, at this moment, are turning inward and turning home in spirit. God acts as if nothing had ever disturbed the peace of the family, as if nothing had ever happened, as if nothing had ever happened to his prodigal son, as if he had never fallen out of it... Yes, with such a full and forgiving embrace our Father is waiting for you and me to come home!
And so the story ends: they began to rejoice! In fact, the story does not end here, but begins here! Yes, the truly joyful life begins with the return home: the life whose most ordinary days are enlightened by the solemnity and joy of being at home; the life in which others notice that you solve old problems more serenely, carry old crosses with consolation, are able to forgive more quickly, love more tenderly, serve more willingly! With the return home, life begins that is now useful and blessed for God and for people!
I once heard a little story about a mother who suffered a lot because of her debauched daughter. For many years she called and waited for her daughter to come home, but in vain! One day, the mother, who had cried a lot, had a photo taken of herself and signed it: my daughter, I still love you! And she put the picture in the newspapers. The fallen daughter once saw the picture and the inscription underneath, cried out, started sobbing and returned home that very night...
Our Father who suffers for us has such an image: Jesus crucified! It also proclaims: you, man, who see this, know that I still love you! On the last night of this year, God will show you this image again, see the image of your Father, Jesus, who suffered for you - and believe what He has written on it, that He still loves you! So come home! The door is open! Our Father is waiting! Do not be afraid, do not be reluctant, do not delay - come home!
Amen!
Date: 31 December 1964, New Year's Eve