Coming Home

Today we conclude our series with an overview of the Lord’s Prayer. I would like to do so by using the parable of the lost son (Lk 15:11-31) and Rembrandt’s painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” This is also a good transition into our Lent season which begins this Wednesday. This Lent we will do a deep dive into this parable and spend the whole season on it.

Story of my encounter with this painting — teaching doctoral students in Malaysia, one of the students a medical doctor — waiting room, full-size canvas copy of the painting, 8 x 6 feet. Overwhelmed, stood staring at it — he explained to me some of the spiritual meaning. Of course, this small copy and any other copy cannot do justice to the original — The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Many who have seen the original — one of the best paintings in the world. Since that time I have always been drawn to this painting. Then I read Henri Nouwen’s book, his meditations using the painting to explain the parable of the lost son and our own spiritual journeys. This Lent I would like to explore with you the deep and rich meanings of the Parable of the Lost Son using the painting and Nouwen’s book.

But for today, back to the Lord’s Prayer. Like the parable of the lost son, the Lord’s Prayer demonstrates the three movements happening in our spiritual journeys — Home, Leaving Home, and Coming Home. We all have left our Father’s home. We leave his home in our daily lives. We all need to come home to our Father. Jesus taught us this prayer to help us remember our Father’s home, acknowledge that we have left His home, and come home in repentance where our Father waits to welcome us with the embrace of his love, grace, and forgiveness, and there to enjoy the joyous feast of God’s glorious presence. The Lord’s Prayer helps us to come home to our Father every day.

1. Home

When the religious leaders complained and criticized Jesus for welcoming and eating with sinners, he told three parables. After the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons … (Lk 15:11). A home, a father, and two sons.

Home is where our Father’s heart is. Home is where God reigns, his kingdom comes, and his will is done. Home is where we live in close intimacy with God, and experience his love and care. Home is where we rejoice, worship, and glorify Him making and keeping his Name holy all the time. From all eternity, He loved us and chose us to be his children, to be in his house. And so in his eternal love, He created us and a home for us. He created the earth and the heavens and everything in it. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen 1:31). It was an excellent home filled with abundance, love, joy, and peace; a home where God provided all that we needed. In this home, He dwelled with us and we dwelled with Him. It was a home where He walked with his children in the garden on the cool of the day.

However, something happened. This very good home has become broken and our intimacy with the Father was destroyed. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we acknowledge that this is our home, and this is what, where, and how our home should be like but it is not. And so we pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We are praying for the Father’s home to be restored and for his children to return to the Father’s heart. We pray that our loving, forgiving, welcoming Father will be known more widely. That his children will see Him for the compassionate Father that He is, and worship Him as the Giver of extravagant mercy. We pray that more lost sons and daughters will find their way home and kneel into the gracious embrace of the Father.

2. Leaving Home

So, what happened? In the original home, in the garden, Adam and Eve, and through them humanity, decided to leave the Father’s home. And until today, there are many children of God, who like the younger son, have rejected the Father and left home. “The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living” (Lk 15:12-13). Many are still wayward and lost in faraway and foreign lands.

Once upon a time, all of us were like the younger son. Yes, like him, we have come to our senses and returned home. However, we fight daily against the lures and false promises of this world. They tempt us daily to leave our Father’s home. And many times we give in and leave home. We leave our Father’s home every time when we go our own ways, do our own wills, and build our own kingdoms. With our thoughts, feelings, emotions, passions, and actions we leave our Father’s home. We could call this leaving home like the younger son, outer waywardness or lostness. It’s the obvious, visible disobedience, deeds, and sins that make us leave the Father’s house.

However, there is also an inner waywardness or lostness like the elder son. We are also like the elder son. We have never left home, or we have come home a long time ago and have been home for a while. Or so we think. We think we are home but actually, we are not because our hearts are not yet fully home. “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’” (Lk 15:28-30).

Like the elder son, we have lived quite the dutiful lives. For most of our lives, we had been responsible, traditional, and homebound. We followed all the rules. We always did the right things. We go to church faithfully on Sundays. We do our church ministries. And yet we are as lost as the younger son. We cannot leave the land of our anger, envy, and fears. Filled with spiritual pride we don’t see our self-righteousness. We are not aware of our resentment for sinners like the younger son. Even though we have stayed “home” all our lives we have also left home as the younger brother. We had been working hard on our father’s land, but we had never fully tasted the joy of being at home. Instead of being grateful for all we have graciously received and for being with the father, we have become resentful of others. We are resentful and angry with those, the sinners, who have not yet come home. We are resentful of those who have returned. We envy the joy they are experiencing, the grace and love the Father gives them. We are angry because they are so warmly welcomed back and we have never received any recognition, honor, rewards, or acknowledgment for all the years we have worked so dutifully at home. These attitudes of the elder son’s heart, and when they are also in our hearts, are the opposite of the Father’s heart. Therefore, we are not home. We have also left home.

3. Coming Home

Whether we are younger or elder sons and daughters, we all need to come to home. But on our own, we cannot find our way home. We must be found and brought home by the Shepherd who goes out to find and bring us home. Jesus Christ is that Shepherd who came to find us. He left home to call and bring us home. He taught us to pray, Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. The Lord’s Prayer brings us home every time. With this prayer, we come to our senses. We repent, turn back, and come home. We surrender control back to God. We give up the securities and idols of this world. We acknowledge that only He can forgive, give, save, and protect us. With this prayer we allow ourselves to be found by the Father and to be healed by his love. We receive his grace, his forgiveness. We give ourselves over to his welcoming embrace. We step into the center of the light, kneel down, and let ourselves be held by a forgiving and loving God.

The Father loves all his, younger and elder, children equally. He never stopped loving us. His love never changes. That love is still there and will be there until the end, waiting all the time to welcome us back. His love pursues us. He runs out to embrace the younger son. He goes out to the elder son and pleads with him to come into the home. This is the first and everlasting love of God that always receives and embraces us with open arms. The love that forgives, redeems and restores. This is the love that celebrates joyously when his children that were lost and dead, come home, and now are found and alive. This is God’s inexhaustible and unlimited love that wants to give us new life and life in abundance. He gives us the very best and restores us as his children and heirs of his kingdom.

And here is one of the amazing mysteries of God. We don’t have to die to come home. We don’t have to wait for Jesus’ return and for the new creation to come home. We are God’s home. When we come home by praying the Lord’s Prayer, God comes and makes his home in us, here and now. Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (Jn 14:23). He also said, “Abide (dwell) in me as I abide (dwell, make my home) in you” (Jn 15:4). God chose to dwell within us. Here He holds us safe in the embrace of the all-knowing Father who calls us by name and says, you are my child. Having come home, and living close to the Father’s heart we now experience unspeakable joy and incomprehensible peace that are not of this world. Our intimacy with God is restored.

But our journey does not end when we have come home. Now that we are home, we must become like the Father. We now have a special calling to live out his divine love, compassion, and grace to others in our daily lives. We must love, welcome, forgive, and care for others like the Father. And so we pray, forgive our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. We are called to forgive others as the Father has forgiven us and to love others as the Father loves us — to be merciful, just as our Father is merciful (Lk 6:36). We are called to become like the Father for the lost children. We are the image of God and we become like Christ when we love and forgive others as Christ did.

Coming home and staying home, where God dwells, listening to His voice of truth and love — this is the journey we must make daily. The Lord’s Prayer helps us to make this journey, to become completely vulnerable, surrender totally, trust completely and so come home to our Father. Coming home, we kneel before the Father. We put our ears against his chest and listen to the heartbeat of God.

Yes, the world is still evil, broken, and hurting. Many have left home and are still lost. But every day there are people turning and returning home. And God is overjoyed. From God’s perspective, one act of repentance, one little gesture of selfless love, and one moment of true forgiveness are all that is needed to bring God from his throne to run to his returning son or daughter and to fill the heavens with sounds of divine joy. Because there, where this happens, there his kingdom has come. There his kingdom, his power, and his glory become visible. When we or others come home, there is a huge celebration, a feast in heaven. And thus, we pray and praise God, For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.