Undergarments & the Village Gauntlet

Have you ever observed someone making a fool of himself? Even if you are a detached bystander, such a scene can be excruciatingly hard to watch. When I see a person embarrassing himself on television – such as a singer singing the national anthem off key or an actor forgetting a line in a live performance – I find myself flipping the channel, as if that will somehow help end the awkward situation. Clearly, we all have a keen sensitivity to “shame” and “humiliation”, making it truly painful to observe, let alone experience.

We commonly hear the word “humility” associated with our walk with Christ, but how often in the church do we talk of “humiliation”? It is really a foreign concept. But the more you read through the New Testament and discover what God actually did for us on the Cross, you begin to realize that our all-knowing and all-powerful God willingly humiliated and shamed Himself for us. One of the best examples in the Bible demonstrating this is found in Luke 15 in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

In this story, remember the moment when the younger son reaches the absolute “lowest of the low” in the pig pen, craving to “pig out” on hog pods. When he decides that his only choice is to return to his father, the younger son surely realizes that one of the conditions of going home is suffering disgrace, both from his family and his village. He will need to walk through a village very much aware of his situation and then sit outside his father’s gate, pleading for forgiveness.

With that inevitability in mind, I suspect a terrible knot was in the younger son’s stomach on the road home, anticipating the ruthless village gauntlet he would have to endure and hope to somehow get past to reach his father’s gate.

But instead, perhaps one of the most serendipitous events in all of Scripture occurs next. Rather than the younger son facing this ordeal, look carefully at what his father does to prevent this. Luke 15:20 says, “…But when [the younger son] was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”

In an ancient Middle Eastern culture in which “honor” and “saving face” were every bit as important as life itself, the father does a very un-Middle Eastern thing: he takes the first step. But he does far more than just meander toward his son, he runs. The specific Greek word Luke uses in this context is dramon, which is a technical term used for describing athletes running races. So, in Jesus’ story, the father is literally racing toward his son!

In our culture, it is perhaps impossible to fully comprehend how unheard of it would be for the father to do this. You see, a man of that age and standing in the community would never run; instead, he would walk in a dignified, measured manner. Kenneth Bailey adds in The Cross and the Prodigal:

No villager over the age of thirty ever runs. But now the father races down the road. To do so, he must take the front edge of his robes in his hand like a teenager. When he does this, his undergarments show. All of this is frightfully shameful for him. The gang in the street will be distracted from tormenting the prodigal. Instead they will run after the father, amazed at seeing this old man shaming himself publicly…[The father] knows what his son will face in the village. He takes upon himself the shame and humiliation due the prodigal.

What a picture Kenneth Bailey paints for us, helping us grasp the scandalous nature of the Gospel. Our Father had a comfortable home in heaven. But God knew we – his prodigal children – would never be able to make it “past the village” through our own efforts. Therefore, because of His love for us, God stepped out of His heavenly home and became a man in Jesus Christ and ran towards us with open arms, arms that were spread wide on the Cross. The humiliation of the father in the Prodigal Son story provides a striking parallel to the humiliation that God took on for us on the Cross. How often do we think that when we stray from God that He will scold and shame us before allowing our return to Him? How often do we think we need to sit outside of his gate, begging for his love and forgiveness? Next time you are tempted to think that way, think instead of the father in the Prodigal Son parable, running down the road, showing his undergarments to the village, and demonstrating his undying love for his child. God has that same love for you.

Originally posted 2001