For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry. Luke 15:24
On November 25, 1965, Zella Jackson Price gave birth to a baby girl at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Because she had earlier lost a baby boy in childbirth, and because the baby girl was premature and weighed less than four pounds, Zella was saddened but not surprised when nurses came to her and told her that the baby had died. Zella went home and eventually had three other children, all of whom lived and did well. But she would never forget the loss of her newborn baby girl. In April of 2015, almost 50 years after hearing that her daughter was dead, Zella Price saw a car enter her driveway. The woman who got out, with two children of her own, was Melanie Diane Gilmore. DNA testing proved that Melanie was Zella’s daughter. Nurses at the hospital had lied to Zella; her daughter had not died but had eventually been adopted by another family. Can you imagine the reunion between Zella and Melanie? As far as Zella was concerned, her daughter was dead and is now alive, was lost, and is found.
The words of the father concerning his prodigal son are touching. They express much of the attitude of our Heavenly Father when His lost children come home, when the souls for whom His Son died enter into appreciation of God’s salvation. Just as Zella and Melanie would celebrate Melanie’s return, just as the father and his son in Luke 15 would celebrate the son’s return, so we celebrate with our Heavenly Father our return to Him. Our text says they began to be merry. The joy of our salvation had a beginning when we first trusted Christ. But it has no ending. Eternity will not be long enough for the excitement of our return to wear off, for the thrill of the Father’s welcome to fade.
Much as we appreciate our salvation, we know it is much greater than we can understand. The death that we were in before was so much worse than we realize. And we were far more lost than we understood. By the same token, we are far more alive now than we can grasp, and our being found is so much more glorious. What a salvation we have entered into! – Jim MacIntosh