The parable of the Prodigal Son is about two relationships. We may be inclined to focus our attention on the father’s relationship with his younger son — the prodigal who left home and squandered his inheritance. However, in terms of our own lives, the father’s relationship with the older son may be the more important of the two.
In his early etchings and woodcuts of “The Prodigal Son,” Rembrandt depicts the younger brother as the principal character. In one rendition, the young man is ready to leave home. He has mounted a magnificent riding horse. He is wearing a feathered hat, cocked at a jaunty angle. He appears much like an old movie version of a swashbuckling Errol Flynn, ready for excitement and adventure. The father doesn’t even appear in the picture. But, toward the end of his life, Rembrandt painted his famous oil rendition of the parable in which the young man kneels before his father in a posture of humility. Only the…
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