One of the eighteenth century’s most impactful painters was the Italian master Pompeo Girolamo Batoni. Famous for his portraits of contemporary celebrities and for his artistic renditions of Christian imagery, Batoni was eventually awarded Austrian nobility. He has many famous paintings including The Ecstasy of St. Catherine of Siena and The Fall of Simon Magus, but almost no work in his portfolio is as visually stunning as his 1773 masterpiece The Return of the Prodigal Son. 
If you don’t know the story of "The Prodigal Son", here’s the background. Apart from “The Good Samaritan”, “The Prodigal Son” is perhaps the most famous parable of Jesus Christ. Recounted in the New Testament by Luke, it is the story of a boy, who, fed up with the day-to-day banality of family life, seeks to strike out in the city on his own. With stunning disrespect, the young son asks his father if he can have his share of the inheritance early (essentially telling his Dad: “You are dead to me.”) so that he can abandon his family and seek pleasure elsewhere. Inexplicably, his father says yes.
The son, laden with his father’s hard-won fortune travels to the city and hosts enormous parties. He lives a lavish life drinking and sleeping with prostitutes. He shames his family and himself; and, when a famine strikes the land, he finds himself friendless and impoverished. He takes odd jobs around the town. He eventually ends up working with and eating with pigs, and when everything has gotten as bad as it can, in desperation, he turns home.
If you don’t see the irony and terror of his position, picture yourself in it. His family loved him, and he told them he was better off with them dead. He shamed them. He disrespected them. He squandered their money on women and wine; and when he fell to eating with pigs, he returned to them hat in hand. For all his presumptuousness, even this son knew he was in trouble. In fact, he planned on returning not as a son, but as a servant – someone seeking work rather than love from his father. He knew it was going to be bad. But then, in a stunning twist, the father welcomes him home. Luke reads:
So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.' But his father ordered his servants, 'Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.' (20-24)
“…this son of mine was dead, but has come back to life again.” That is passion. That is patience. That is agape love.
Batoni’s painting marks this moment beautifully. The son is beaten down, afraid, and ashamed. All his arrogance and pride has given way to fear. He knows he’s returning home unwanted and unloved; but in that moment – the moment where the father could have turned him away in a fit of righteous anger – he instead raises his garment, tucks the frightened boy inside, and says simply, “I love you. Thank God you are alive.”
How many times have you been the prodigal son, wife, husband, daughter or friend? How many times have you hurt those who loved you most and tossed the affection of your closest allies away with disdain? How many times have we all looked at mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters and screamed actions of hate even when the other person’s heart held nothing but love? And how many times, when things have gotten worse than we could have imagined, when the life we longed for has locked us in a prison cell of pain, has that very beaten and betrayed person taken us back?
If agape love is, in its simplicity and depth almost impossible to describe, it is at least partially composed of patience. Not the patience of a hunter stalking his prey or a scientist laboring endlessly in a lab, but the patience of the father in Batoni’s painting – unaffected, silent, constant, and true. Motivated not by self-interest, but by the everlasting bonds of a love we sometimes feel and almost never understand. Bound up in the feeling that some things are more important than pride and respect, and that among all virtues love – steady, unfailing, unconditional love – is the most beautiful and rare virtue of all.
In my life, I have pushed away those I love a thousand times. I have acted ashamed and wandered from respectability. But these people have always waited for me to return. And as I remember my mom and dad, friends and brothers forgiving every slander and sin, I wonder when I’ll learn the lesson of the father, and stop behaving like the son.
Where are you today? Are you waiting for a departed loved one or sleeping with the pigs of your past too fearful of the consequences to stumble home. Are you embracing a son birthed in the newness of forgiveness or feeling the warmth of a patience that simply refuses to die? Wherever you are, take a look at Batoni’s painting sometime and take hope. Our lives can be ugly, wretched and filled with hate. Our actions are often dark and disgusting. But for every year of solitude, there is a moment of return that washes all those sins away. That is the beauty of patience. That is the beauty of agape love.
As you stated, agape love is almost impossible to describe...but despite the difficulty, you have given me (another) "snapshot" into what true, unconditional love is. Absolutely beautiful.
Posted by: Jacksy | February 04, 2007 at 07:18 PM
I had always seen the prodigal son as a story purely of sin and redemption. I had never thought through all the virtues that path implies. Thank you:)
Posted by: Beth | February 06, 2007 at 04:55 PM
Great post here. Like most of the parables, the prodigal son story has so many layers and so much wisdom just waiting to be dug up. Also interesting is the way the other son handles the return of the prodigal son. He is bitter and angry, understandably so, and the father responds perfectly: "everything I have is yours". I suppose you could say the father is trying to teach him the same agape love and that the "understandable" reaction is not always the right one.
Posted by: Matt | February 07, 2007 at 11:32 AM
Jacksy and Beth,
Thank you:)
Matt,
I didn't get to highlight it, but the father's response to the older son is, as you say, perfect. You could literally sit down with this parable and turn every sentence into a two hour discussion. It is truly remarkable. Great comments.
Posted by: John | February 07, 2007 at 07:15 PM
Matt,
You'll see I elaborated on the second half of the parable above.
Posted by: John | February 13, 2007 at 10:21 AM