Still a Long Way Off
Luke 15:20 · 1 John 4:19 (NIV)
Rembrandt van Rijn died in Amsterdam on October 4, 1669. He was 63.
Years earlier he had been the city's most famous painter. He bought a grand house and filled it with art, armor, and curiosities from around the world. Then the money ran out. In 1656 he was declared insolvent. Over the next two years his house and everything in it were sold at auction to pay his debts.
The losses did not stop there. His first wife, Saskia, had died in 1642. Financial pressure later forced him to sell her grave. The woman who shared his later life, Hendrickje, died in 1663. His son Titus died in 1668. The National Gallery of Art says Rembrandt never regained financial solvency and ended up living on his daughter Cornelia’s savings.
When he died, he was buried in a rented grave in the Westerkerk. That grave has long since disappeared. No one knows exactly where he lies.
Psalm 49 could have been written over his life. "For all can see that the wise die, that the foolish and the senseless also perish, leaving their wealth to others." Some people, the psalm says, "named lands after themselves." Their tombs were meant to be their houses forever. Rembrandt could not even hold on to his tomb.
But something of his did remain.
In his last years Rembrandt painted one of the stories JESUS told. A young man asks his father for his share of the estate, leaves for a far country, and "squandered his wealth in wild living." When the money is gone and he is starving, he walks back. He has a speech ready. He plans to ask for a job as a hired hand.
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."
Rembrandt’s painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son, belongs to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and is generally dated around 1668. In it the son kneels in rags, his head shaven, leaning against his father. The old father bends over him with both hands resting on his back. Off to the right stands a figure commonly identified as the older brother, upright and still, watching.
A man who had buried a wife and a son, and watched his house and money go, painted a son who had spent everything and a father whose welcome did not depend on repayment.
The writer Henri Nouwen spent years reflecting on that painting and wrote a book about it. He recognized himself in both sons, the one who left and the one who stood apart. The painting also brought him to a harder calling: to grow into the father’s generosity.
Walt Larimore, a physician and author, closes his ten-day reading plan on loving one another with a simple order of things. You were loved first. He points to 1 John 4:19: "We love because he first loved us." In Luke’s story, the father reaches his son before the confession begins. The son does confess, but the father welcomes him as a son rather than hiring him as a servant. JESUS shows us a love we cannot earn.
The son was still a long way off when his father saw him. He had turned toward home, but he had not cleaned up or paid anything back. Before he could speak, his father ran to meet him.
In today’s reading from Irenaeus, the second-century bishop of Lyon, mammon becomes a picture of an appetite that can never be filled. His ancient explanation of the word is an interpretation, not a reliable modern account of its origin. His warning still reaches me: possessions can become a master. The younger son learned what it was to spend everything and remain hungry. His father’s welcome offers something money could not buy.
Psalm 49 says no one can pay the ransom for a life. "No payment is ever enough" is about our inability to buy our way out of death. Then the psalm turns: "But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead; he will surely take me to himself." Christians hear that hope in the light of CHRIST. What we cannot purchase, we receive as grace.
It does leave me thinking about how much of my own life I have spent rehearsing the speech instead of noticing that the Father is already running.
Rembrandt's grave is gone. The money is gone. The grand house belongs to a museum now. What remains is a picture of a father's arms around a son who had nothing left to offer. Paul said it plainly: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
Some of you are still a long way off this Sunday. You have a speech ready. You are not sure you will be welcome. GOD sees you from a distance. HE is already on HIS way.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.
🙏 To the one who is still a long way off, the Father has already seen you and is running.
🙏 To the one who watched what they built slip away, the love that met the prodigal remains when the money is gone.
🙏 To the one standing to the side like the older brother, the Father says you are always with HIM.
🙏 To the one rehearsing a speech, let HIM reach you before you finish it.
Grace and Peace.
Sources: Luke 15, NIV; 1 John 4:19, NIV; Henri Nouwen Society: The Return of the Prodigal Son; Psalm 49, NIV; 1 Corinthians 13, NIV; National Gallery of Art: Rembrandt; Hermitage Foundation UK: The Prodigal Son; Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.8; Walt Larimore, day 10. Scripture quotations: New International Version (NIV).
This Sunday’s Sabbath is What Remains. Read the preview and request the full reflection →