Claiming the Presence of God's Love

Continuing the exploration of The Prodigal Son

Sometimes we feel like we have to go, to depart from where we are, to take off on a plane, or a train or simply walk away from our life. In the prodigal son, the son leaves because he has to, not because he wants to, but because he has to. He leaves a loving father and an older brother to go out into the world. Does he leave the family? Does he leave God?

God tells us in the celebrated return that the son never actually left. He always belonged to the family and he always was a beloved child of God. God saw what happened to him. God saw the injustice and the suffering. God's love is above all of that. God brought the child home to safety, to embracing love, to acceptance, and to his true calling.

It is painful to leave. It is just as painful to come home again. To acknowledge failure, to admit your shortcomings, to face rejection, to work through the sufferings. Suffering is the part of the Christian life that those who follow Christ don't want to talk about or experience. This is why our churches are mostly empty on Good Friday yet full on Easter. Yet it is through suffering that we come to know Christ intimately. We are the beloved sons and daughters of God. Suffering brings us close to the One who suffered for us. We feel his pain.

We feel his sorrow. And we know that God knows and feels ours too.

I am grateful for being safely home again to the embracing love of God and family, to acceptance and to my true calling.

I hear my Beloved.

See how he comes leaping on the mountains,

Bounding over the hills,

My Beloved is like a gazelle, like a young stag.

See where he stands behind our wall.

He looks in the window,

He peers through the lattice.

My Beloved lifts up his voice, he says to me,

Come then , my love, my lovely one, come.

For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone.

Jerusalem Bible, Song of Songs, 2:8-11