There is a famous painting by Dutch painter Rembrandt called, “The Return of the Prodigal”. It currently resides in St. Petersburg Russia. In this famous painting the character of the younger son, who ran away from home after demanding his Fathers inheritance, is depicted as returning to the Father in a humbled state. He is dirty, ragged, physically unkept with no shoes. The older brother, depicted as responsible and who we know carried on the family business, is crossing his hands in quiet disgust and judgement of the younger brother. Rembrandt used colors to radiant light coming from the younger son and the father’s embrace. On the other hand, older brother seems dark and distant. In Luke 15 Jesus tells this parable to two groups, tax collectors and sinners and Pharisees and Scribes, along with two other parables of lost sheep and a lost coin. Jesus is trying to tell us something about how the Father defines what it means to be lost. A famous Dutch priest, Henri Nouwen, wrote of Rembrandt’s picture,

“Rembrandt is as much the elder son of the parable as he is the younger. When, during the last years of his life, he painted both sons in Return of the Prodigal Son, he had lived a life in which neither the lostness of the younger son nor the lostness of the elder son was alien to him. Both needed healing and forgiveness. Both needed to come home. Both needed the embrace of a forgiving father. But from the story itself, as well as from Rembrandt’s painting, it is clear that the hardest conversion to go through is the conversion of the one who stayed home.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son)

This Sunday we will let God’s Word show us how both those who destroy their life through self pleasure and expression (the younger son) and those who follow the rules out of self righteousness, (the older son) are lost. Jesus wants us to see what it will take to bring older and younger sons back home to the Fathers loving embrace. See you this Sunday.

Rev. Ben Melli