The Father Welcomes Us Home
After the younger son came to his senses, he got up and went home — But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion, and ran and threw his arms around him and kissed him … (Lk 15:20). The older son came to the house from the fields, learned what was going on, became angry, and refused to go in — So his father went out and pleaded with him (v. 28).
1. The Father's Love
This parable and the painting speak of God’s love for humanity, for all of us, love that existed from the beginning and ever will be. It shows unconditional love, infinite compassion, and everlasting forgiveness emanating, flowing from the Father, the Creator of the universe. Out of love, He created us and this world for us.
And here again, we face one of God’s mysteries. The all-powerful Creator God has chosen to be a Father for his children. As a Father, He does not impose His love on us. He does not force us to love Him. He wants his children to be free to love. He gives us the freedom to choose to receive His love and to love Him. He wants only to offer a love that can be freely received, and because it has been freely received it can be freely given to others.
But this freedom allows for the possibility that his children will leave home, go to a distant country, and lose everything. And this is what humanity, God’s children, did from the very beginning. They chose to leave home, and the Father’s love allowed that as the father allowed the younger son to leave home. And this breaks the Father’s heart. He understands our lostness. He knows with compassion all the pain and suffering that will come from this choice. He suffers when his children “honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules” (Mt 15:8-9; Is 29:13). He suffers because He knows their deceitful tongues and disloyal hearts (Ps 78:36-37). The sins of his children cause immense grief to the Father’s heart because his heart is so pure and holy. The Father’s love lets the sins of his children pierce his heart. Their sins pierced his hands and body on the cross.
Yet, the Father’s love keeps on looking out, searching for, and waiting for his children to come home. From the beginning of creation, still now, and until the end, He stretches out His arms in merciful blessing, always waiting. He does not drop down his arms in despair but is always hoping that his children will come home. He wants them to know that the love they have searched for in the world has been, is, and always will be there for them with Him. And there, in his home and in his welcoming arms, they are free to experience his love and to love. He is the Shepherd who “tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young”(Is 40:11).
2. The Father's Hands
The outstretched arms and hands, his pierced hands on the cross, express the Father’s love in action, and his love tells us: “You are my beloved, on you my favor rests.” The father’s hands are the center and focus of the painting. In the hands, mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing come together and are expressed. They represent God’s hands that welcome us and hold us safely in his loving embrace.
In the painting, the two hands are quite different. The father’s left hand is strong and muscular. The fingers are spread out and seem to hold onto the son’s shoulder. This strong, firm grip speaks of protection and safety. The father’s right hand is more refined and feminine. The fingers are closer together. It seems to stroke, to caress. This soft and tender touch offers consolation and gentle comfort. The father’s hands show us the comprehensive love of God. His love encompasses in its totality the love and care of both the father and the mother. The Father’s hands confirm his love, hold us safe, provide for us, comfort us, and console us. They tell us that He has never forgotten us. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands …” (Is 49:15-16).
The red cloak of the father with its warm color and arch-like shape offers a welcome place where it is good and safe to be. It looks like a tent that gives hospitality, rest, and safety to the weary traveler. It looks like the sheltering wings of a mother bird and reminds us of Jesus’ words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, … how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Mt 23:37).
In the Father’s hands and arms, we find safety, care, protection, a place to rest and experience the joy of his love. “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart” (Ps 91:1-4). All this, speaks of the quality, depth, and comprehensiveness of God’s love for us. And this brings us to the Father’s heart.
3. The Father's Heart
The Father’s heart desires to bring all his children home. He loves us all equally. His joy is complete when all his children have returned and sit at the table He has prepared for them. In the parable, the father goes out to both sons. He sees the younger son from afar. He feels compassion and runs out throwing all dignity to the wind. And before the son says anything, he embraces and kisses him. He accepts and welcomes him home. His compassion and love precede any confession or repentance. This shows the Father’s seeking and searching heart. He is looking out and waiting with longing in his heart for us to come home. The father goes out to the older son and pleads with him to come into the home. God doesn’t compare us with one another. We are all his children. We are all his favorites. He loves us all, even while we are still sinners. He wants us to come home, to come as we are, lost, broken, hurting, suffering, and there in his home, in his arms and hands, we will find love, be healed, and be restored as his children.
It is hard for to understand this love pouring out of the Father’s heart because we live in a broken world that constantly compares people with one another; a world of competition and judgment grading people into better or worse, superior or inferior, lovable and unlovable. It is a world in which the voice of my low self-esteem rejects myself and tells me I am not worth loving. It is a world in which my self-righteous pride thinks more of myself than I ought to, and so condemn and reject others. We are called to a radical conversion. We must not look at ourselves and others with our own eyes but look at the world with the eyes of God’s love, with God’s heart. Then we will see that the all-giving and forgiving Father loves us all equally and completely. He does not measure out his love for his children according to how well they behave, how strong their faith is, or how good they are as Christians. When we see his love, our only true response can be deep gratitude.
Here is one of the great mysteries of our faith. We did not choose God, but God first chose us. From all eternity we are hidden in the shadow of God’s hand and engraved on the palms of his hands (Is 49:2, 16). “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves” (Eph 1:4-6). Out of love and before any human being sees us or touches us, God creates our inmost being and knits us together in our mother’s womb. Before any human being knows us He made us in the secret place and wove us together in the depths of the earth (Ps 139). God loves us before any human person can show love to us.
4. First & Everlasting Love Welcomes Us Home
Therefore, God’s love is the first love and the everlasting love that calls us home and welcomes us home. His love is an unlimited, unconditional love that wants us to be His beloved children and calls us to love others as He loves us.
We struggle to find God, know God, and love God. And many times we fail. All this time God has been trying to find us, know us, and love us. This is what we must do. We must allow God to find us, know us, and love us. We must let go of the voices of self-righteous pride that cause us to not love others. We must let go of the voices of self-rejection that tell me I am not worth finding or being loved. We must stop running and hiding from God. We must let go of all our self-doubts, insecurities, envy, anxiety, fear, anger, pride, and self-dependence. We must stop doubting God’s love. To deny God’s love for us is a sin. We must surrender all of ourselves completely to God’s love. We must see ourselves through God’s eyes. We must look and see his hands, his heart, and his love. He is our Shepherd. He goes out and looks for us. He wants us to come home, be with Him and celebrate His joy with Him when His children come home.
God’s love is the first love that has been there from the very beginning, before sin, and before creation. His love will be there always. His love is steadfast and faithful. His love never fails. His love never gives up. Jesus Christ came to reveal to us this extraordinary, inexhaustible, unlimited love of God. On Palm Sunday He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to make a clear statement that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, who came to look for, find, and bring home his lost children.
We must surrender to his love and allow God’s love to guide every part of our lives every day and every moment. We must allow His love to guide our every word and every action all the time. As soon as you begin to reject yourself and tell yourself that you are not worth loving; as soon as your pride causes you to judge and reject others; as soon as you have a hard time loving yourself and loving others — remind yourself of the Father’s love. Trust his love. Allow Him to love you. And then give thanks and rejoice that He, our Shepherd Lord, brings us home. He welcomes us with outstretched arms and pierced hands. His arms embrace us and his hands hold us close to him. And now we can join Him at His table, share in His joy, and celebrate with Him because His children were lost but now are found. They were dead but are now alive again.
We come again to the Lord’s Table today. The Lord’s Supper is a visible reminder of God’s love that brings us home. It is a celebration because in Christ and because of his broken body and spilled blood, we have come home. The Lord’s Supper gives us also hope as we look forward with expectation to that day when we will join the heavenly feast and sit at the table prepared for us by our Lord because of his everlasting love.