2021 Lenten Devotional from Austin Seminary

A Lenten Lexicon: An Introduction The Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s well-known oil painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son” captures one moment in the biblical parable (Luke 15:11-32). The painting shows the repentant son kneeling before his father who tenderly embraces and receives him.

Though Rembrandt explored many scenes of this parable through drawings, etchings, and other paintings, this most famous painting seems to show us the artist’s interpretation of verses 20b-21.

Because I regularly see reproductions of this painting when walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, this scene has become fixed in my mind’s eye. It hangs in nearly every cathedral, chapel, and church along the various French routes of the Camino. Rembrandt’s painting has been reproduced as a large banner, and I came to understand that the Roman Catholic Church decided to utilize it there as an evangelical invitation to locals, tourists, and pilgrims. “Revenez à Dieu de tout votre cœur” are the words added to Rembrandt’s painting reproduced on these banners, positioned above the figure of the father who compassionately holds his repentant son. The words announce “Come back to God with all your heart.” These words from the prophet Joel, always appointed as one of the scripture readings on Ash Wednesday, now daily call out from the banner to all who have ears to hear.

Lent is always this pilgrimage, always this journey—for each of us to return to God with all our heart. In the church’s early centuries, Lent was the final forty-day journey made by those who had been preparing for baptism for years. It was an intense time, marked by fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (Matthew 6:1-18).

Lent was and is always the season for all of us, even the already-baptized, to renew our faith. We all enter a time when we are invited to intensify our own journey as the baptized ones whose lives are patterned in Christ’s own dying and rising. We find life in self-giving as he did; we find freedom in his power over sin and death. We renew our baptismal vows to walk with purpose as Christ’s own in this world, renouncing evil and committing ourselves to his ways of love, justice, and peace.

Just as those early Christians were learning what it meant to align themselves with Christ as Lord and Savior and to live as Christ’s own in their lifetime, we do the same. In fact I have chosen another verse from this –1–