The woman in our story hints at, or suggests, a parallel which, though
inadequate, is deeply true. David was Absalom's father and Absalom's
king; and the two relationships fought against each other in his heart.
The king had to think of law and justice; the father cried out for his
son. The young man's offence had neither altered his relationship nor
affected the father's heart.
All that is true, far more deeply, blessedly true, in regard to our
relation, the wandering exiles' relation, to God. For, whilst I believe
that the highest form of sonship is only realised in the hearts of men
who have been made partakers of a new life through Jesus Christ, I
believe, just as firmly and earnestly, that every man and woman on the
face of the earth, by virtue of physical life derived from God, by
virtue of a spiritual being, which, in a very real and deep sense,
still bears the image of God, and by reason of His continued love and
care over them, is a child of His. The banished son is still a son, and
is '_His_ banished one.' If there is love--wonderful as the thought is,
and heart-melting as it ought to be--there must be loss when the child
goes away. Human love would not have the same name as God's unless
there were some analogy between the two. And though we walk in dark
places, and had better acknowledge that the less we speak upon such
profound subjects the less likely we are to err, yet it seems to me
that the whole preciousness of the revelation of God in Scripture is
imperilled unless we frankly recognise this--that His love is like
ours, delights in being returned like ours, and is like ours in that it
rejoices in presence and knows a sense of loss in absence. If you think
that that is too bold a thing to say, remember who it was that taught
us that the father fell on the neck of the returning prodigal, and
kissed him; and that the rapture of his joy was the token and measure
of the reality of his regret, and that it was the father to whom the
prodigal son was 'lost.' Deep as is the mystery, let nothing, dear
brethren, rob us of the plain fact that God's love moves all around the
worst, the unworthiest, the most rebellious in the far-off land, and
'desires not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from
his iniquity and live.'
And it is you, _you_, whom He wants back; you whom He would fain rescue
from your aversion to good and your carelessness of Him. It is you whom
He seeks, according to the great saying of the Master, 'the Father
seeketh' for worshippers in spirit and in truth.