“It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:32 KJV)
“It was meet…” Used again at the end of Romans 1:27. ESV, “fitting”. You might also think of “due” or “proper”. The meme that comes to my mind is “It ain’t fittin” “It just ain’t fittin” from Gone with the Wind. What was it that the father in this story was trying to get across to the older son that is fitting? Why is a reception and a celebration like this a genuine proper fit? Even more telling, why is the reception that the older brother actually provided not fitting? I mean it seemed justified to the older brother. After all, if the world revolved around him, and justice was measured by years of faithful service, then the older brother’s response was spot on!
As christians, we may have noticed that things are not always in place for our immediate betterment. At least not as we perceive them in the present. As the Lord works on us and shapes us, we notice a trend to seek outward to be concerned with the needs around us. As we reach out and seek the Lord on behalf of those in need, the characteristics that God wants to see in us take shape. We actually need to love the “other”. We need to be able to recognize life and signs of growth when they are present. Then we begin to be able to see what is “meet” or “fitting”. Then “due” and “proper” are terms with real meaning. Serving all those years with only our own betterment in mind misses all that. The father in this story was giving his older son a chance to see what life looked like, because if the son never saw that; all his labors would be at least as dead and fruitless as those that his brother had chosen prior to now.
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12 KJV)