Parables are dark sayings which Jesus chose to speak, in order to hide the truth from His detractors and explain it later to His disciples. Commonly known as the ‘Parable of the Prodigal son’, many great thinkers prefer to call it – ‘The Parable of the Waiting Father’.

In this story, the younger son rejected his father’s love and discipline, but wanted his share of his father’s money before it’s time, so that he could enjoy the fleeting pleasures of this world. He distanced himself furthest from his father’s home and led a recklessly extravagant life with all his fair-weather friends, only to become a pauper. His profligate lifestyle plunged him into such despondency that he ended up eating pig food for survival. (What a fall from the sublime to the ridiculous – when a son leaves his Heavenly Father’s oversight!).

On reviewing this parable, I find it strange, that the father never stepped forward to prevent his son from leaving home or even make a search for him later. He ran, embraced and kissed him only when the son had repented of his egregious folly and started walking back home. He was so jubilant with his son’s home-coming, that he even threw open a grand party to celebrate his return.

The story takes a twist here, as the elder son turns red, to see that his father had not only forgiven his vagabond brother and clothed him with costly attire, but also killed a fatted calf to commemorate the occasion.

In rounding up this story, we find that the younger son, who had lost his way in life, had reconciled with his father, while the eldest, who always lived within the precincts of his father’s oversight, had to rework on his reconciliation, not only with his father but also with his brother - upward with God and outward with men!

Here’s the clincher –

“It’s not how we start our Christian walk, but how we finish it”.