A Modern Prodigal Son

Rise, fall and redemption

In the biblical story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the younger of two sons of a wealthy landowner decides that he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life working for his father.

So, he asks his father to give him his share of the inheritance so he can set out into the world and enjoy the high life and the good times. But rather than dissuade the young man from leaving, the father obliges and gives the kid his inheritance.

You can probably figure out the rest of the story. The young man traveled to a distant country where he proceeded to blow the inheritance on those good times before he finally ran out of cash. 

After the inheritance was gone, the young man desperately needed money, so he took a lowly job with a farmer who hired him to take care of his pigs. The job was so menial that even the pigs ate better food than the young man.

In the end, the young man realized the error of his ways and returned home meekly with hat in hand. The young man probably expected his father to throw a fit and tell him to get lost for squandering his inheritance on foolish living. 

Instead, the father welcomed him home with open arms and threw a banquet to celebrate his return. That didn't go over well with his older son who had remained faithful to the old man while his younger brother was off in a distant country living it up. Finally, the father told his older son this: "My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." (Luke 15:31-32)

After I read Derek Sanderson's autobiography: Crossing The Line, I recognized some similarities between Sanderson and the prodigal son. Like the prodigal son, Sanderson enjoyed the high life as a young professional athlete, partying and throwing around his cash like confetti. 

Like the prodigal son, Sanderson squandered his wealth until he became penniless, living on the streets and eating out of dumpsters. And like the prodigal son, Sanderson finally came to the realization that he had ruined his life chasing after the elusive ghost of pleasure.

Who was Sanderson? He was a professional hockey player who played in the NHL and briefly in the WHA. And he was blessed to play on the great Boston Bruins teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s that won two Stanley Cups. 

Sanderson was a better than average player, but certainly not a star. However, he got the star treatment because he wore flashy clothes, dated beautiful women, drove a Rolls Royce and said outrageous things to the media to get their attention.

Sanderson's colorful personality and decent hockey skills earned him one of the most lucrative contracts in professional sports in 1972 when the Philadelphia Blazers of the fledgling WHA offered him $2.6 million to leave the Bruins.

After Sanderson signed with the Blazers, he got injured and proceeded to bomb, playing in just eight games before the Blazers realized they had made a huge mistake in overpaying a pedestrian player who failed to make the team successful and attract the fans to the arena. The Blazers finally cut their losses by giving Sanderson one million dollars to go away.

From there, Sanderson returned to the NHL where his career became a series of ups and downs with several different teams before he was out of hockey by the late 1970s. Along the way, he became a hardcore alcoholic and squandered his money on booze, drugs and some terrible investments.

After Sanderson hit rock bottom, living on the streets as an alcoholic, he met an old friend from his boyhood days growing up in Canada. The old friend also happened to be a born-again Christian who convinced Sanderson to clean up his act, get off the booze and turn his life over to the Lord.

And he did just that. Slowly, Sanderson climbed out of the gutter, taking some modest paying jobs until he eventually became a successful financial adviser to many professional athletes and other wealthy people. Today, he is currently Managing Director of The Sports Group with Baystate Wealth Management in Boston.

That's quite a climb from the lowly pit he fell into. But he climbed out of it because he repented of his wayward ways and turned his life over to Christ.

Indeed, Sanderson was dead and now he is alive again. He was lost and he found his way back through Christ.

The moral of the Derek Sanderson story is this: No matter how terrible your circumstances may seem or how hopeless; if you repent and turn your life over to Jesus Christ, he will rescue and restore you. You can take that to the bank.