Easter was a bit odd for me. I knew that I was still finishing off the second "week" of the Spiritual Exercises so was still meditating on aspects of Jesus public ministry and knew that I would be coming back to pray with Jesus passion and death in the third "week" which would be a few weeks after Holy Week.
And so for the past few weeks I was left hanging with that thought "Let's not let Jesus do this on his own", as I continued to contemplate Jesus ministry, the increasing hostility of the religious rulers, leading inexorably towards his passion. Now I am officially moving into the third"week" I don't want to lose some of the insights I've had in the second week where the grace I have been seeking is to "See Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly.
In the first "week" when I was considering "sin" and how it would feel to be utterly disconnected from God, I sat with this passage for some time. I imagined the son coming to his 'senses' - smelling the pigs, hearing his stomach growl with hunger, looking at the mud and the state he was in - and setting out.
I had shamed my father saying to him in effect, "I wish you were dead". I shamed him in front of the whole community and then when I got what I wanted I squandered it, the money that he had worked all his life for, without a single thought or concern except for my own desires. Then, finding myself starving, feeding pigs of all things, I realise that in my father's household servants are better off than I am. I set out on the long road home and while I'm far off.....................
............I am met by the most insignificant person in the household who says to me "Get lost! You're dead to us. You have dishonoured your family and shamed us in front of the community. You made a choice." And I am cast into complete destitution.
And I deserved this, I brought it on myself. The community would approve of the father's actions - he did the right thing. But I have lost connection with my true self - the self that I understand because I am my father's son, I am part of this community and my actions have excluded me from love and warmth, comfort and belonging.
The feelings sitting meditating on this passage in this way, was complete brokenness and loss. Grief at being separated from the Father.
As I prayed more recently, seeking to see Jesus more clearly, I returned to this passage and this time I imagined the son setting off; hesitating, doubting whether this was the best thing to do, stopping and considering turning around again, considering just giving up and dying. His feelings are shame and self loathing. How could I have done this thing, shaming my father in this way.
Then I see my father running - lifting up his robe and running - my father is shaming himself in front of the whole community. To lift up his robe and run is considered shameful in the culture and here my father is shaming himself in his absolutely reckless, loving desire to get to me.
His response to my shame is to shame himself; to take my shame from me by taking it on himself.
Jesus presents a new image of God; the Father who shames himself to get to us. Whose love has no limits, whose love is all generosity and compassion.
Jesus - the very image of God.
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