The ProdigalSample

THE PAINTING

Jesus was a great storyteller, but he didn’t tell typical or predictable stories.

Instead, Jesus often shared parables—stories that painted a picture of the kingdom of God. His parables included people and settings that were familiar to his audience so they could easily connect what they heard with truth about God. He used ordinary things to tell extraordinary stories.

One of Jesus’s most well-known parables is the story of a son who abandons his father to live life on his own before finally returning home to face his dad.

Rembrandt is just one of many artists who imagined this homecoming scene and painted it on a canvas. His painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” is considered by many to be one of the greatest paintings in the world. Almost nine feet tall, it hangs in the The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Take a look at the painting (you can also find it here.) What do you see?  

[By the way: Rembrandt lived in the Netherlands in the 1600s. Like many artists back then, he often painted Jesus and other Biblical characters to look like his own countrymen. But Jesus was from Galilee in the Middle East. His skin, and the skin of people in his stories, would have been darker than what you see in this image. Even so, the painting can still help us think about the story in important ways.] 

Read the parable in Luke 15:11-32. Then look at the painting again. What do you feel? How is the scene like you might imagine it? How is it different?

Who do you relate to the most in this story?

Over the next four days, we’re going to put ourselves in the shoes of the people in the painting and the parable. What did they see, hear, and experience? And what can this parable teach us about God?

REFLECTION

What are your first thoughts and feelings as you look at the painting?

DISCUSSION

What characters can you identify in the painting?  What do you learn about each of them from the parable?