Giving Up Something for Lent? – by Greg Albrecht
During this time of the year, presuming that God will love them/love them more when they prove their love to him, many “give up” something for Lent. But the deeper question is beyond what we do to “give something up.” The question is, ultimately, who gives up what? When I think of God’s love I start at the cross of Christ, Jesus’ demonstration and revelation of God the Father’s own divine agape love – by willingly giving himself for you and me.
“Giving up something” for Lent is a twisted spiritual proposition – it’s just another ceremony, observance or ritual deceiving us into thinking that we can manipulate God into loving us on our terms. The gospel truth is that God’s love, once we accept it and embrace it, empowers us to love as he loves, rather than trying to twist God and his love into how we prefer to experience and define it.
This month, as we move closer and closer to the annual memorial of the cross of Christ and the celebration of his glorious resurrection, take a moment with me to study and ponder the incredible, mind-boggling dimensions and facets of God’s love. Let us seek to know God as he is, accepting and embracing his love and grace as it is, rather than trying to engineer him into some religious image/idea of love.
The insights and thoughts about God’s love I want to share with you are based on the parable of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15). I keep coming back to this classic parable to see more of God – so join me in re-visiting this glorious parable Jesus gave. My most recent return to the Prodigal Son has been greatly enhanced by studying The Return of the Prodigal, Rembrandt’s masterpiece, regarded by many as the greatest painting ever painted. Rembrandt’s own life (1606-1669) seemed to lead toward this, his ultimate masterpiece – he was no stranger to suffering, neither was his life a paradigm of virtue and morality. Suffering and shame filled Rembrandt’s family life. He was married in 1634, and then his first son died two months after his birth in 1635. In 1638, his first daughter died after living only three weeks. In 1640, his second daughter was born and lived only a month. His wife died in 1642, shortly after giving birth to a son who survived into adulthood.
Some believe Rembrandt was actually involved in an illicit relationship with a younger woman even while his wife was dying. Later, after that living-together relationship ended, Rembrandt had another affair with yet another younger woman with whom he had a daughter out of wedlock. Rembrandt also experienced loss, anguish and crisis in his financial life – even though his art enabled him to live well, he usually spent more than he earned, and made some bad investments.
His early depictions of biblical characters, scenes and stories were primarily based in the Old Testament, but the older he became he paid more attention to the New Testament – The Return of the Prodigal was one of his last paintings. Some art historians point out that Rembrandt had been making sketches of the father and son of Jesus’ parable for several decades, and that his interpretations grew in empathy and spiritual perception as he saw his own life unfold in this classic parable.
The Return of the Prodigal might have been Rembrandt’s way of painting a sermon – inviting all who would eventually gaze on his masterpiece to read their own specific story into his grand, sweeping interpretation of the unbelievable, unconditional love and grace of God.
Even though Jesus says that the father saw his son at a distance, as he made his own way home [while he was still a long way off, his father saw him… – Luke 15:20], as the father and son embrace Rembrandt depicts the father’s eyes as willingly shut. Some believe that Rembrandt was underlining our heavenly Father’s voluntary blindness to our sin, so that whether he was depicted as literally blind or simply as willingly closing his eyes, the father “sees” his son with his heart rather than his eyes. Rembrandt depicted the parable as parables are intended to be read – not as architectural blueprints supplying literal sizes, shapes and dimensions, but as creative, spiritual stories whose meanings are deeper than literal words and terms can often convey.
The figure Rembrandt painted portraying our heavenly Father has one decidedly male hand, pulling the returning, wayward son toward him – and a gentle female hand, caressing the son’s back. Rembrandt, way ahead of his time, is suggesting that (since God made male and female) both genders have God-given, unique ways of expressing aspects of the love of God.
Rembrandt illuminates the father and son through his use of light, calling our attention to them, while also inviting us to consider a prominent individual standing in the darkness who has his hands folded, as if in judgment of the homecoming. We must conclude that this is the resentful older son, the older brother who never left home and wants everyone to realize it. Rembrandt thus gives appropriate attention to the three leading characters in Jesus’ parable:
- The most common interpretation of this parable concerns the scandalous way in which the prodigal (extravagantly wasteful) son receives forgiveness.
- But the father is also prodigal (extravagantly wasteful). The father throws rules and religious conventions to the wind, closing his eyes to the penalties, penance and payback that religion demands the younger son fulfill to “prove” his repentance. The father sees his son with his heart, not his eyes. There is no hint that the father insists that the son prove his love by “giving up something.”
- The older brother is consumed by anger and resentment because of what he interprets as “foolish, extravagant, outrageous grace” on the part of his father. The older brother lived a respectable, law-abiding life and seemed proud of it. The older brother observed stipulated rules and religious conventions. The older brother obeyed ceremonies and the rituals – he “gave up” wild living. The older brother was up at dawn, tending to the chores, while the younger brother was far away, sleeping off his hangover from the night before. We might say that the older brother was always “giving up something for Lent” in the process of trying to prove his love and earn the commendation of his father.
In The Return of the Prodigal Rembrandt paints the older brother with folded hands, frowning on the homecoming, even as his father generously grants a free and total pardon to the returning, younger son. The older brother cannot accept his father’s failure to demand penance and retribution from his wayward younger brother. The older brother is scandalized by the extravagant way in which his father lavishly extends grace.
But the father makes no demands that the returning son “give something up” in payment for his poor choices and bad behavior. In Jesus’ parable the primary things that are “given up” and sacrificed are 1) the father’s justifiable (by human reckoning) demand for payback and 2) the fatted calf.
As we study, pray, ponder and give thanks for God’s unconditional, no-matter-what love, this time of year helps us remember that Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) to give up himself for us. Fully aware of the suffering and shame that awaits, God’s love compels and motivates Jesus toward the ultimate expression of that love. God’s love suffers human violence – it doesn’t inflict suffering or demand that we prove our love for him first before he will extend his love to us.
…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame… – Hebrews 12:2
We are astonished and amazed by the love demonstrated by the cross of Christ. The passion of Jesus invites us to receive the love of God, rather than assuming our relationship with God is based on our pitiful attempt to prove our love to him by “giving up” something.
The love of God has no boundaries! The grace of God goes to any lengths – because the Father loves you and me, as his children, more than any law. Indeed, the greatest law of God is love, for love is his very nature and there can be no more precise, exact and predictable measurement of how God will operate in any given situation than his love. We bow down before the Father, as we come home, for indeed we are all returning prodigals.
As God’s arms wrap around you and me, we give thanks that the door to his home is wide open. God’s love is supreme and matchless – a love he gives to us and lives in us through the risen life of our Lord Jesus! May we be filled with gratitude and thanksgiving for who he is – for HE IS LOVE! Thanks for your continuing support of CWR/PTM – thanks for helping us proclaim God’s love around this world!
Because of his love,
Greg Albrecht
Friend and Partner Letter from March 2015
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