The Fourth Sunday of Lent: Feast of our Righteous Father John (Climacus) of Sinai, Author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent

introduction

On March 30 and on the Fourth Sunday of Holy Lent the Orthodox Church commemorates our Righteous Father John Climacus. He is called Climacus due to his authorship of the great spiritual work The Ladder of Divine Ascent. His commemoration is designated by the Church on one of the Sundays of Lent as his life and writings affirm him as a supreme bearer and proponent of Christian asceticism. The ascetic example of this great Saint of the Church inspires us in our Lenten journey.

Life of the Saint

Icon of Saint John Climacus and the Ladder of Divine Ascent provided by Athanasios Clark and used with permission.

Saint John Climacus was probably born in the second half of the sixth century; but his country and origins are alike unknown because, from the beginning of his renunciation of the world, he took great care to live as a stranger upon earth. “Exile,” he wrote, “is a separation from everything, in order that one may hold on totally to God.” We only know that, from the age of sixteen, after having received a solid intellectual formation, he renounced all the pleasures of this vain life for love of God and went to Mount Sinai, to the foot of the holy mountain on which God had in former times revealed His glory to Moses, and consecrated himself to the Lord with a burning heart as a sweet-smelling sacrifice.
Setting aside, from the moment of his entry into the stadium, all self-trust and self-satisfaction through unfeigned humility, he submitted body and soul to an elder called Martyrios and set himself, free from all care, to climb that spiritual ladder (klimax) at the top of which God stands, and to “add fire each day to fire, fervour to fervour, zeal to zeal.” He saw his shepherd as “the image of Christ” and, convinced that his elder was responsible for him before God, he had only one care: to reject his own will and “with all deliberateness to put aside the capacity to make [his] own judgement,” so that no interval passed between Martyrios’ commands, even those that appeared unjustified, and the obedience of his disciple. In spite of this perfect submission, Martyrios kept him as a novice for four years and only tonsured him when he was twenty, after having tested his humility. Strategios, one of the monks present at the tonsure predicted that the new monk would one day become one of the great lights of the world. When, later, Martyrios and his disciple paid a visit to John the Savaite, one of the most famous ascetics of the time, the latter, ignoring the elder, poured water over John’s feet. After they had left, John the Savaite declared that he did not know the young monk but, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he had washed the feet of the Abbot of Sinai. The same prophecy was confirmed by the great Anastasios the Sinaite (April 21), whom they also went to visit.
In spite of his youth, John showed the maturity of an elder and great discernment. Thus one day, when he had been sent into the world on a mission, and finding himself with lay-people, he had preferred to give in somewhat to vainglory by eating very little, rather than to gluttony; for, of these two evils, it was better to choose that which is less dangerous for beginners in monastic life.
He thus passed nineteen years in the blessed freedom from the care that obedience gives, freed from all conflict by the prayer of his spiritual father and on “a safe voyage, a sleeper’s journey,” moved towards the harbor of impassibility. On the death of Martyrios, he resolved to continue his ascension in solitude, a type of life suitable for only a small number, who, made strong on the rock of humility, flee from others so as not to be even for a moment deprived of the “sweetness of God.” He did not commit himself to this path, one so full of snares, on his own judgment, but on the recommendation of the holy elder George Arsilaites, who instructed him in the way of life proper to hesychasts. As his exercise ground, he chose a solitary place called Tholas, situated five miles from the main monastery, where other hermits lived, each not far from the others. He stayed there for forty years, consumed by an ever-increasing love of God, without thought for his own flesh, free of all contact with men, having unceasing prayer and vigilance as his only occupation, in order to “keep his incorporeal self shut up in the house of the body,” as an angel clothed in a body.

Saint John Climacus is seen standing at the foot of the ladder. With his left hand he directs our attention towards the ladder, while in his right hand he holds a scroll on which is written: "Ascend, ascend, Brethren."

He use to eat all that was compatible with his monastic profession, but in very small quantities, thus subduing the tyranny of the flesh while not providing a pretext for vainglory. By living in solitude and retreat, he put to death the mighty flame of greed, which, under the pretext of charity and hospitality, leads negligent monks to gluttony, the door to all passions, and to the love of money, “a worship of idols and the offspring of unbelief.” He triumphed over sloth (acedia)—that death of the soul which attacks hesychasts in particular—and laxity, by the remembrance of death. By meditating on eternal rewards, he undid the chain of sadness; he knew only a single sadness: that “affliction which leads to joy” and makes us run with ardor along the path of repentance, purifying the soul from all its impurities.
What still prevented him from arriving at impassibility (apatheia)? He had long since conquered anger by the sword of obedience. He had suffocated vainglory, that three-pointed thorn which forever harasses those who battle for holiness, and which entwines itself with every virtue like a leech, by solitude and even more by silence. As a reward for his labors, which he took care to season constantly with self-accusation, the Lord gave him the queen of virtues, holy and precious humility: “a grace in the soul, and with a name known only to those who have had experience of it, a gift from God.”
As his cell was too near the others, he would often withdraw to a distant cave at the foot of the mountain, which he made an antechamber of heaven by his groans and the tears which fell effortlessly from his eyes like an abundant spring, transfiguring his body as with a “wedding garment.” By this blessed affliction and these continual tears, he “did not cease to celebrate daily” and kept perpetual prayer in his heart, which had become like an inviolable fortress against the assaults of evil thoughts (logismoi). Sometimes he was ravished in spirit in the midst of the angelic choirs, not knowing if he was in the body or out of it, and then with great simplicity he asked God to teach him about the mysteries of theology. When he came out of the furnace of prayer, he sometimes felt purified as if by fire, and sometimes totally radiant with light.
As for sleep, he allowed himself just the measure necessary to keep his spirit vigilant in prayer and, before sleeping, he prayed at length, or wrote down on tablets the fruit of his meditations on the inspired Scriptures.
He took great care over many years to keep his virtues hidden from human eyes, but, when God judged that the time had come for him to transmit to others the light he had acquired for the edification of the Church, He led a young monk named Moses to John, who, thanks to the intervention of the other ascetics, succeeded in overcoming the resistance of the man of God, and was accepted as his disciple. One afternoon, when Moses had gone a long way away to find earth for their little garden, and had lain down under a large rock to rest, Abba John, in his cell, received the revelation that Moses was in danger, and he immediately seized the weapon of prayer. In the evening, when Moses returned, he told John that in his sleep he had, all of a sudden, heard the voice of his elder calling him, at the very moment when the rock began to break away from its moorings and threatened to crush him.
Saint John’s prayer also had the power to heal visible and invisible wounds. It was thus that he delivered a monk from the demon of lust, which had pushed him to the point of despair. On another occasion, he made rain fall. Yet it was above all in the gift of spiritual teaching that God manifested His grace in him. Basing his teaching on his personal experience, he generously instructed all those who came to him on the snares which lay in wait for monks in their battle passions and against the prince of this world. This spiritual teaching, however, attracted the jealousy of some who then spread around calumnies about him, accusing him of being a conceited chatterer. Although his conscience was clear, Abba John did not attempt to justify himself but, seeking rather to take away any pretext from those who sought one, he stopped teaching for a whole year, convinced that it was better to do some slight harm to his friends rather than to exacerbate the resentment of the wicked. All the inhabitants of the desert were edified at his silence and by this proof of humility, and it was only at the insistence of his repentant calumniators that he agreed to receive visitors again.
Filled with all the virtues of action and contemplation, and having arrived at the summit of the holy ladder through victory over all the passions of the old man, Saint John shone like a star on the Sinai peninsula and was held in awe by all the monks. He thought himself no less of a beginner for all that and, avid to find examples of evangelical conduct, undertook journeys to various Egyptian monasteries. He visited in particular a great coenobitic monastery in the region of Alexandria, a veritable earthly paradise which was governed by a shepherd gifted with infallible discernment. This brotherhood was united by such charity in the Lord, exempt from all familiarity and useless talk, that the monks had scarcely need of the warnings of the superior, for they mutually encouraged each other to a most divine vigilance. Of all their virtues, the most admirable, according to John, was the way they were especially careful never to “injure a brother’s conscience” in the slightest. He was also very edified by a visit to a dependency of this monastery, called “The Prison,” where monks who had gravely sinned lived in extreme ascesis and gave extraordinary proofs of repentance, straining by their labors to receive God’s forgiveness. Far from appearing as hard and intolerable, this prison seemed rather to the Saint to be the model of monastic life: “A soul that has lost its one-time confidence and abandoned its hope of dispassion, that has broken the seal of chastity, that has squandered the treasury of divine graces, that has become a stranger to divine consolation, that has rejected the Lord’s command…and that is wounded and pierced by sorrow as it remembers all this, will not only take on the labors mentioned above with all eagerness, but will even decide devoutly to kill itself with penitential works. It will do so if there is in it only the tiniest spark of love or of fear of the Lord.”
When the Saint had sojourned these forty years in the desert, he was charged by God, like a second Moses, to be at the head of this new Israel by becoming abbot of the monastery at the foot of the holy mountain (c. 650). It is recounted that, on the day of his enthronement, six hundred pilgrims were present, and when they were all seated for the meal, the great prophet Moses himself, dressed in a white tunic, could be seen coming and going, giving orders with authority to the cooks, the cellarers, the stewards and the other helpers.
Having penetrated into the mystical darkness of contemplation, this new Moses, having been initiated into the secrets of the spiritual Law, and coming back down the mountain impassible, his face transfigured by divine grace, was able to become for all the shepherd, the physician and the spiritual master. Carrying within him the Book written by God, he did not have need of other books to teach his monks the science of the sciences and the art of arts.
The Abbot of Raitho, who was also named John, having been informed of the wonderful manner of life of the monks of Sinai, wrote to Saint John, asking him to explain briefly but in an methodical way what those who had embraced the angelic life should do in order to be saved. He who did not know how to go against the wishes of another, thus engraved with the stylus of his own experience the Tablets of the Spiritual Law. He presented this treatise as a Ladder of thirty steps, that Jacob, “he who supplanted the passions” contemplated while he was lying on the bed of ascesis (Genesis 28:12). In his Orthodox Summa of the spiritual life, which has remained for centuries the outstanding guide to evangelical living, both for monks and for lay people, Saint John does not institute rules but, by practical recommendations, judiciously-chosen details and short pithy maxims and riddles often full of humor, he initiates the soul into spiritual combat and the discernment of thoughts. His “word” is brief, dense and tapered, and it penetrates like a sword to the depths of the soul, uncompromisingly cutting out all self-satisfaction, and tracing hypocritical ascesis and egoism to their roots. Like that of Saint Gregory (January 25) in the theological domain, this “word” is the Gospel put into practice, and it will lead most surely those who let themselves be impregnated by it through an assiduous reading to the gates of heaven, where Christ awaits us.
At the end of his life, the blessed John designated his brother George, who had embraced the hesychast life from the beginning of his renunciation, as his successor at the head of the monastery. When he was about to die, George said to him: “So, you are abandoning me and leaving! I prayed, however, that you would send me to the Lord first, for without you I cannot shepherd this brotherhood.” But Saint John reassured him, and said: “Do not grieve and do not be afraid. If I find grace before God, I shall not let you complete even a year after me.” And it was so: ten months after John’s falling asleep, George departed in his turn to the Lord.

Orthodox Commemoration of the Sunday of Saint John Climacus

The feast day of Saint John Climacus is March 30, however, due to the popularity of the Saint and the practice of not having weekday Divine Liturgies during Great Lent, the Orthodox Church commemorates the Saint on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. As a Sunday of Great Lent, the commemoration is celebrated with the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, which is preceded by a Matins (Orthros) service. A Great Vespers is conducted on Saturday evening.
Scripture readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent are the following: At the Orthros (Matins): The prescribed weekly Gospel reading. At the Divine Liturgy: Hebrews 6:13-20; Mark 9:17-31.

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT - ADORATION OF THE CROSS (Mark 8:34-38; 9:1).

This Sunday commemorates the venerable Cross and the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The Cross as such takes on meaning and adoration because of the Crucifixion of Christ upon it. Therefore, whether it be in hymns or prayers, it is understood that the Cross without Christ has no meaning or place in Christianity. The adoration of the Cross in the middle of Great Lent is to remind the faithful in advance of the Crucifixion of Christ. Therefore, the Dassages from the Bible and the hymnology refer to the Passions, the sufferings, of Jesus Christ: The passages read this day repeat the calling of the Christian by Christ to dedicate his life, for "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Christ)" (v. 34-35). This verse clearly indicates the kind of dedication which is needed by the Christian in three steps:

1. To renounce his arrogance and disobedience to God's Plan,
2. To lift up his personal cross (the difficulties of life) with patience, faith and the full acceptance of the Will of God without complaint that the burden is too heavy; having denied himself and lifted up his cross leads him to the,
3. Decision to follow Christ.

These three voluntary steps are three links which cannot be separated from each other, because the main power to accomplish them is the Grace of God, which man always invokes. The Adoration of the Cross is expressed by the faithful through prayer, fasting, almsgiving and the forgiveness of the trespasses of others. On this Sunday the Adoration of the Cross is commemorated with a special service following the Divine Liturgy in which the significance of the Cross is that it leads to the Resurrection of Christ.

The Sunday of Orthodoxy

February 21, 2010

The Restoration of the Icons

Today, on the first Sunday of Lent, we commemorate the Triumph of Orthodoxy. On this day we bring icons to church and carry them in procession to celebrate the restoration of the icons after the iconoclast heresy long ago. But even though the icons are highly visible, the Triumph of Orthodoxy does not only mean we can have icons.
There’s a subtext to iconoclasm that we miss because we aren’t ancient Greeks or Romans. Saint Paul writes that “Christ crucified [is] to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). The religions of the Greeks emphasized the transcendence of God: The high, exalted, remote Deity, they believed, could not be associated with the grossness of the flesh. To them, spirit was good; matter was bad — and man was a divine spirit trapped in a lowly material world, unless he can escape through secret knowledge.
In the face of that belief, the first Christians proclaimed that God has become a perfectly material, fully physical human being; that he actually died; and not only did he rise bodily from the dead, He promises to raise us for eternity in bodies. Salvation doesn’t lie in an escape from matter. Instead Christians expect to live eternally, bodily, in the Resurrection.
Although this pagan Greek disdain for matter and the body was alien to the Christian Gospel, it remained alive in heresies around the periphery of the Church. Finally, in the eighth century, in the wake of Islam’s impact on Christian culture, this delusion reared its head among the Christians.
The iconoclasts [literally, image-breakers] asserted that since “God is spirit” (John 4:24), then He cannot be depicted using matter. Since (they said) an icon can only show the humanity of Christ, not His invisible divine nature, they claimed icons of Christ improperly divided Jesus the man from Christ our God. And, scandalized by Christian veneration of icons, the iconoclasts called it the same as worship of pagan idols. Gaining the ear of the emperor, they arranged to have the Archbishop of Constantinople replaced by one of their own, and began persecuting the Orthodox who venerated images, even putting them to death.
The history of the present feast is that of the restoration of icons to the Church. In answering the iconoclasts’ objections, the holy Fathers remind us that the holy, transcendent God has become a Man; “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). He saves us by participating fully in our visible, material nature — uniting it to Himself in His triumph over death, in His ascension and return to His own divine glory and throne, in His eternal life, divine nature, holiness and righteousness. Saint Gregory the Theologian famously says, “That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved.”
Christ can be depicted in matter — in paint on wood, in mosaics in stone, on metal bells and vessels — precisely because ever since Gabriel’s annunciation, “Hail, full of grace,” God the Word is forevermore a material, human Person. He saves us on an entirely material Cross of wood, shedding real blood; He heals and sanctifies us with oil, water, the bodies of the saints, and above all with His own Body and Blood.
God is Spirit, and Christ our God is also human. He is impassible — but in His incarnation, He’s no stranger to pain or tribulation. In Him the human and divine natures are united “without mingling, change, division, or separation,” as the Fathers have said. In the light of this fearful divine Mystery, no Orthodox Christian is tempted to worship the mere wood or paint of an icon: as Saint Basil wrote, when we venerate Christ or the saints in an icon, the honor we show passes on to the one the image represents.
Jesus Christ is the God who gets His hands dirty. That still scandalizes people who prefer a deity they can keep on a pedestal. We live in a culture that — like the ancient Greeks — prefers to be merely a fan of an impersonal god that we can compartmentalize, ignore, and salute when appropriate. The message of the restoration of the icons is that this conveniently uninvolved deity of civil religion is a false god. Ironically, the god that cannot be depicted in images is an idol invented by the minds of men. But the living God – the I AM whose bodily resurrection we will celebrate in a few weeks, is “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” (1 John 1:1) This God, who saves the world by His material Incarnation, is fittingly depicted using matter. This is the Orthodoxy that triumphs today

More than 90 percent of Greeks are members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and faith plays an important role in Greek life. The Greek Orthodox faith observes several fasts during the year, which means abstinence from foods derived from animals containing red blood (cephalopods are allowed, since they do not have red blood), from dairy products, and at times from olive oil, and wine as well.
Strict observers of all fasting periods and fast days will follow these guidelines for over 180 days a year.
Total fasting (no food at all) is reserved for a period of time before taking Holy Communion. 

Foods allowed during fast periods are called nistisima (νηστίσιμα, pronounced nee-STEE-see-mah) and they are eaten during the Great Lent and other fasts. The Greek Orthodox Paschal (Easter) season starts with The Great Lent, beginning on a Monday (Clean Monday) seven weeks before Easter Sunday. The Greek Orthodox faith. The weeks of the Great Lent are: 

1. First Sunday (Sunday of Orthodoxy)
2. Second Sunday (St. Gregory Palamas)
3. Third Sunday (Adoration of Cross)
4. Fourth Sunday (St. John of Climax)
5. Fifth Sunday (St. Mary of Egypt)
6. Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday

 

Fasting

Greek Orthodox Lent is a time of fasting, which means abstaining from foods that contain animals with red blood (meats, poultry, game) and products from animals with red blood (milk, cheese, eggs, etc.), and fish and seafood with backbones. Olive oil and wine are also restricted. The number of meals on each day is also limited.

JESUS FOR LOVE

• «Αλλά σας λέω: Αγαπάτε τους εχθρούς σας και προσεύχεστε για εκείνους που σας διώκουν"

•  "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" 

• "Mais je vous dis: Aimez vos ennemis et priez pour ceux qui vous persécutent»

• "Ich aber sage euch: Liebt eure Feinde und betet für die, die euch verfolgen"

• "Pero yo os digo: Amad a vuestros enemigos y orad por los que os persiguen"

• "Datapuwa't sinasabi ko sa inyo: Ibigin ninyo ang inyong mga kaaway at manalangin para sa mga taong umuusig sa inyo"

• "しかし、私はあなたを教えて：誰があなたを迫害する者のためにあなたの敵と祈りを利用しています"

• "लेकिन मैं आपको बता: जो आप कष्ट के लिए अपने दुश्मनों और प्रार्थना लव"

• ": أحبوا أعداءكم وصلوا لأجل الذين يضطهدونكم ولكن أقول لكم"

• "אבל אני אומר לכם: אהבו את אויביכם והתפללו עבור מי לרדוף אותך"

• «Բայց ես պատմել ձեզ: Սեր ձեր թշնամիներին, եւ աղոթեք նրանց համար, ովքեր հալածել ձեզ»

• "მაგრამ მე გეტყვით: შეიყვარე შენი მტრები და ვილოცო მათთვის, ვინც დევნის თქვენ"

Christian Love - Christ's CommandmentWhat's at the heart of Christian love? Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, once wrote, "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death" (1 John 3:14). And "by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:2-3).
Christian Love - Not a Feeling, a LifestyleSo, what do these scriptures regarding "Christian love" really mean? Is it a warm fuzzy feeling? I don't have a warm fuzzy feeling for everyone I meet, Christian or otherwise -- does that mean I'm not saved? No, a "warm fuzzy feeling" is not the biblical definition for "love". So, what is the Biblical definition for love? Let's search the Scriptures and find out…
  A Pharisaic lawyer once asked our Lord, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:36-40)
 According to Matthew's Gospel, the very essence of the Law and the Prophets is to love God and to love others. And we see this term "the Law and the Prophets" used in one other place in Matthew's Gospel. It's in this passage that we find the Biblical definition for love: "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12)
 Would you want your wife to commit adultery? Would you want someone to murder you or to murder someone you love? Would you want someone to steal from you, lie to you, covet your possessions? Of course not! So don't go and do these things to other people! Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, commands us to "owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'You shall not covet,' and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:8-10)
  In Luke's Gospel, Jesus elaborates on this "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" principle. He says, "Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful." (Luke 6:30-36)

SUNDAY 20TH HOLY GOSPEL

The Parable of the Prodigal Son – The Text
Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father. 

"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. “The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'

"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'

"'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found'" (Luke 15:11-32). 

The Parable of the Prodigal Son – The Meaning

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most well-known stories of Jesus. It is more commonly referred to as the story of the prodigal son, though the word prodigal is not found in Scripture. To characterize the son as “lost” emphasizes that sinners are alienated from God; to characterize the son as “prodigal” casts an emphasis on a wayward lifestyle. In truth, this particular parable has many points to bring out concerning the nature of man and God.

The word prodigal may be defined as “rashly or wastefully extravagant”; the son in the story exhibited this behavior with his handling of his share of his father’s estate. Having prematurely gotten hold of his inheritance from the father he “squandered his wealth in wild living” then, “began to be in need.” The natural state of unregenerate mankind is always toward lust and greed and extravagance of all kinds; without God we squander our resources and energies until we are void and empty. When the younger son found himself in this state, he remained in the far country working in a contemptible job and willing to eat the food he was feeding to the pigs which were under his care. When we remain in a place of alienation from God, we descend into futility, darkness, and humiliation.

The parable of the prodigal son indicates, however, that we do have the opportunity to make a change; we do not have to stay in our hopeless state; we can come to ourselves. The lost son realized that in his father’s house there was sustenance for him; he humbled himself, willing, if necessary, to be his father’s servant, and started back home. This turning in our lives is the first indication of God’s love for us. Even recognizing our sinful, hopeless state is initiated in us by God, Himself. “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

The parable of the prodigal son makes it obvious that God was at work. That he was able to see the younger son when he was still a long way off means that the father was watching for his son, waiting for him, longing for him. The father runs to him, embraces him, loves him and gives him gifts; he seems totally oblivious to the fact that his son has disrespected him, acted outrageously, and lost everything. The father lavishes upon him, celebrates over him. This is a wonderful picture of the great love of God towards us. He seeks after us, reaches out to us. When we come to Him, He washes away all our evil deeds of the past, not holding them against us. “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).

The parable of the prodigal son also shows the attitude of the self-righteous sinner, pictured by the older son. He quarreled with his father that the younger son had messed up and yet the father had prepared for him the “fatted calf.” Because he considered himself better than the younger son, he could not share in the father’s joy. “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” The older son’s hardness of heart made him unaware of the riches available to him in his father’s house. This son complained that he had “slaved all these years.” He had no more love for the father than the younger son; nor did he avail himself of all the good things the father freely provided for him at all times. Both sin and self-righteousness separate us from God. We all require God’s grace, His unearned, unmerited love for us. The father went out to the disgruntled older son. God is He who always continues to seek after us, regardless of the state we are in.