溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
What Does It Mean That the Father Recognized His Son from Afar and Ran to Embrace Him?
Is a love that runs to embrace before asking any conditions truly possible for a human parent?
While he was still far off, his father saw him and was moved to the depths, and ran and embraced him.
This parable became, within the Jewish-Christian tradition, the story that pictures the extreme of a parent's love. Early Church Fathers read it as an allegory of God's unconditional mercy — yet the elder brother's anger within the same story, his grievance that he who always stayed by his father's side was never so honored, was treated separately, birthing a tension between justice and mercy. Love that welcomes without condition, and justice that reckons what is rightly owed — this contest between the two still repeats between parents and children today.
As someone who has, at least once, wandered far, everyone still finds this story — is there someone who would run out unconditionally to embrace me — moving, faith or no faith.
While the son who had squandered his inheritance was still far off, his father already recognized him and ran out to embrace him.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
While the son who had squandered his inheritance was still far off, his father already recognized him and ran out to embrace him. That he recognized him "from afar" means he had been watching that road every day. While the son was still rehearsing his apology, the father had already forgotten all dignity and run to him. In this scene, I want to believe unconditional love is not confined to stories. I weigh whether there is a heart, in me or waiting for me, that watches for a return this way.
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