We invite you to pause and ponder on your journey through Lent with Lisa tonight. Let us ponder the the words of Jesus in the Gospel text for the fourth Sunday of Lent: “His Father came out to plead with him.” Blessings
Again this week, in the Sunday Gospel the Lord offers us food for our pilgrim journey towards Easter as he tells the familiar parable story that we usually call “The Prodigal Son.”
Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal Son has become justly famous as a meditation on the story, not least through the late Henri Nouwen’s book about the impact this painting had in his own spiritual life, a book which has deeply inspired readers and preachers since it first appeared.
We thank God for the countless pilgrims over the years for whom Lough Derg has been part of the story of their own return to that Father who awaits us all so constantly, so faithfully. Many commentators, indeed, have suggested that a better name for the parable might be “The Prodigal Father ”, so boundless is he in his patient love for both his sons.
Most of us hope to us to recognise ourselves in the younger son, finding himself welcomed by his father beyond anything he could have hoped for. .
But Jesus is also challenging us to face up to anything of the older son we might find in our behaviour and attitudes: his stubbornness, perhaps, or his resentment? The mastery of Jesus as a storyteller is revealed above all by the unresolved way the story ends. Will the older son go in and join in the feast?
That loving Father is waiting for a response from us, from each of us, in this time of Lent.
We pause and we ponder the words of Jesus: “His Father came out to plead with him.”
Watch Josh’s video for Week Three of Lent here
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