God accepts what is lost
Sometimes I stand there and want to turn back time: My hurtful word, my wrong decision, my carelessness … “If only it could be undone!” It is painful when that does not succeed.
What is often no longer possible with people, it is possible with God – that is the message of the 3rd Sunday after Trinity. God does not want people to be lost. He lets them seek their ways and make their mistakes: the sheep that goes astray, the son who can no longer stand it at home, the people of the city of Nineveh. But like the good father, God does not let them fall: waits, goes to meet, celebrates a feast for the son who has been found again. And he spares the city, whose ruin he has decided, because it repents of its deeds. The warning of the prophets sounds urgent: “Dare to turn back! You can go back if you only want to.”