Welcome home!

Last week a new exhibition opened at the National Gallery in London of some of the works painted by the Dutch artist Rembrandt (1606-1669) during the last 19 years of his life. On the wall beside my desk at work, I have a print of one of Rembrandt’s finest paintings from this period which isn’t on show at the Gallery, The return of the prodigal Son completed shortly before his death.

It’s based on Jesus’ famous story about the son who demanded his inheritance from his still-living father, and went off to the far country where he squandered the money and ended up in abject poverty. His thoughts and his heart are drawn homewards, and he returns to the father’s farm, penitent. He is welcomed not grudgingly, but with open arms.

Rembrandt’s painting depicts the tenderness and love of the father’s welcome. The son kneels, resting his head against the father’s abdomen, and returns the embrace. The elder brother looks on, disapproving, unforgiving.

Rembrandt struggled financially in the final years of his life. He chose to paint works which showed reality as he saw it rather than adopting the currently fashionable style which would have restored his fortune.

Throughout his life the artist painted many pictures of biblical scenes, sometimes including self-portraits of himself as a figure in the crowd. But he was particularly drawn to the story of the wayward son. In 1635 as a young man he painted The prodigal son in the tavern, a self-portrait of himself and his wife Saskia.

In the picture the son is drunk and lecherous, and Saskia is depicted as a prostitute. It’s almost as though the fashionable Rembrandt, careless of morality, reckless with money, rejoices in identifying himself with the wayward son.

In the following three decades. The artist’s life was overshadowed by tragedy – the death of his wife and three of their children – but also by greed, arrogance, and a collapse into bankruptcy. He cruelly conspired to have a woman who had raised a law case against him certified of unsound mind and committed to an asylum.

The deep truth we see in the painting from the 1660s as the son is welcomed back lovingly by the father is so profound it must surely reflect a revolution in Rembrandt’s own life and thought.

When, sitting in the office I feel perplexed or disheartened, I only have to glance at the picture on my left to be reminded that I am loved by God unconditionally and for ever.

I am convinced that the fundamental truth about God is that God is love. No matter how far we feel we are from God, no matter how much we have messed up our lives, God loves us, God is willing to forgive us even if everyone else considers us unforgivable. God waits for us to remember our identity as the Father’s children and come home – for the first or the 1000th time, and when we come we find ourselves embraced by the Father’s welcoming arms.

But what about those of us for whom the very word ‘father’ has been impossibly damaged because of our experience of bad, destructive fathering? We can think of the person who has loved us most perfectly – an aunt or uncle, a grandparent, a brother or sister, a friend. In loving us as they did, their love, despite its imperfections, reflected God’s greater love for us.

We can identify with others in the painting too. With the elder brother, unforgiving, suspicious, offended that despite his faithful work on the farm over the years the father hasn’t ever thrown a party for him like the one planned in honour of his brother’s return.

We can understand his feelings. But his reaction reminds us it’s possible for our religion to become a task to accomplish, an empty ritual, a way of shoring up our sense of identity so that we don’t experience the wonder of the Father’s love for ourselves and others, the love in which our true identity is found.

And ultimately Rembrandt’s painting challenges us to become like the Father. To be a symbol of, and more than that, a channel for God’s boundless love, offering grace, unconditional acceptance, forgiveness and healing to God’s broken people. Saying little, with no personal agendas, simply expressing the Father’s love.

There are other figures in the background of Rembrandt’s painting whom we can hardly make out. They represent all of us who don’t believe, or aren’t sure, or feel we’re unforgivable, all of us who feel wounded and broken and in darkness. They challenge us to step in to the light which radiates from the Father and so experience the embrace which healed Rembrandt and set him free to speak truth in his final great works.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highand News dated 23rd October 2014)