Henri Nouwen was a bestselling author and pastor of a L’Arche community in Toronto, a community of people with learning difficulties. One of his best loved books is The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. The book reflects on the parable of the Prodigal Son by way of a painting; Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son.
In the book Nouwen describes his thoughts as he first saw that image as a large poster pinned to a colleague’s door: “I saw a man in a great red cloak tenderly touching the shoulders of a dishevelled boy kneeling before him. I could not take my eyes away. I felt drawn by the intimacy between the two figures, the warm red of the man’s cloak, the golden yellow of the boy’s tunic, and the mysterious light engulfing them both. But, most of all, it was the hands – the old man’s hands as they touched the boy’s shoulders that reached me in a place where I had never been reached before.”
Through reflection on the painting and through L’Arche, Nouwen became familiar with the home of God within him. That place where, “I am held safe in the embrace of an all-loving Father who calls me by name and says, ‘You are my beloved son, on you my favour rests.’ Looking back he sees that his intense response to the father’s embrace of his son told that he was desperately searching for that inner place where he too could be held as safely as the young man in the painting. It maybe that we are each one searching for that place and embrace.
For Nouwen it all began with the father’s hands: “The two are quite different. The father’s left hand touching the son’s shoulder is strong and muscular … That hand seems not only to touch, but, with its strength, also to hold. Even though there is a gentleness in the way the father’s left hand touches his, it is not without a firm grip. How different is the father’s right hand! This hand does not hold or grasp. It is refined, soft, and very tender … It lies gently upon the son’s shoulder. It wants to caress, to stroke, and to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother’s hand …As soon as I recognised the difference between the two hands of the father, a new world of meaning opened up for me. The Father is not simply a great patriarch. He is mother as well as father. He touches … with a masculine hand and a feminine hand. He is, indeed God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present.
Then there is the great red cloak. With its warm colour and its arch-like shape, it offers a welcome place where it is good to be. At first, the cloak … looked to be like a tent inviting the tired traveller to find some rest. But as I went on gazing at the red cloak, another image came to me: the sheltering wings of the mother bird. They reminded me of Jesus’ words about God’s maternal love: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” Day and night God holds me safe, as a hen holds her chicks secure under her wings. Even more than … a tent, the image of a vigilant mother bird’s wings expresses the safety that God offers her children. They express care, protection, a place to rest and feel safe …
For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life … and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when … close to despair. Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realised that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The … question is not “How am I to love God? But “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home … God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home. It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more than, I want to find God …
Many people live their lives never fully sure that they are loved as they are. Many have horrendous stories that offer plausible reasons for their low self-esteem. The parable of the prodigal son is a story that speaks about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all rejections have taken place. It is the first and everlasting love of a God who is Father as well as Mother. It is the foundation of all true human love, even the most limited. Jesus’ whole life and preaching had only one aim: to reveal this inexhaustible, unlimited motherly and fatherly love of his God and to show the way to let that love guide every part of our daily lives. In his painting of the father, Rembrandt offers us a glimpse of that love. It is the love that always welcomes home and always wants to celebrate.”
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Keith Green - The Prodigal Son Suite.
