While away I was able to to read this book by Henri Nouwen as the Parable of the Prodigal Son has got to be my all time favorite story from the Bible. This parable speaks to me on a different level than any other and reassures me over and over again that I can always return to my father. In fact I have a blank key on my key ring which was given to me a while ago at a YFC event. It symbolically reminds me that when I return I do not have to knock – I can come straight in!

I have reflected a lot from this book over this past week – I have indulged in God’s presence as I have tried to get inside this parable and think through what it means to me, but more importantly what God is saying through it to me. I found myself asking the question ‘What are you really calling me to, Lord?’

The book is written really from a kind of meditation over years. Nouwen was struck by Rembrandts painting of the Return of The Prodigal and spent years looking at it after he fell in love with it. In particular he was drawn, initially, to Rembrandt’s painting of the fathers hands. If you look carefully one is clearly masculine and one clearly feminine, alluding to the mother and father aspects of our God. I wish to write more about that in future posts.

I have always thought of myself in this story as the wayward son returning with no real right too. In many ways I still view myself as the son who ran away and came back. The son who was lost but has now been found.

Nouwen fascinates me by looking at this returning son as Jesus himself. Jesus did the same in many ways, but out of obedience and without sin. This son, went wild with disobedience and was sinful. He did, however, give up all his rights as the heir and disappear off in the distance although to satisfy his own selfish desires. Jesus gave up his rights as the heir and came to earth, but to satisfy his fathers great love for each of us.

Jesus became the prodigal for our sake. Nouwen suggests that the broken young man kneeling at the feet of the father is no other than ‘the lamb who takes away the sin of the world’. He then goes on to suggest that this young man is then, not just one young repentant on returning to his father, but in fact the whole of humanity returning to God through what Jesus has done.

Obviously this goes way beyond the traditional interpretations of this parable. But, as I consider this, I believe there is something here of the secret of sonship. It says a lot about the oneness of my sonship and that of Jesus explains to me more of the meaning of my home and the home of Jesus being the same. IT makes me realise even more that there is no journey that I can possibly take that Jesus himself has not taken first.

Maybe this is not orthodox or traditional but it is an amazing parallel which I have loved delving into.

There is loads more in this book on the characters and significance of the elder son and the father which I will try to articulate – but in a way that you will wish to go get the book for yourself.