That Remains

I'm reading The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen.  Nouwen was very influenced by Rembrandt's painting of the same name.

If you look closely at the painting, you will see that the son, while in rags and broken shoes, is still wearing a short sword.  Nouwen wrote that this is "... the badge of his nobility. Even in the midst of his debasement, he had clung to the truth that he still was the son of his father....It was this remembered and valued son-ship that finally persuaded him to turn back."

When I think of his return, I remember the son's thoughts of the father's hired hands, and how if he returned, he would at least have food to eat as they do. I never considered that the son returned because he remembered being his father's son.  In fact, I would have thought he would find that hard to claim because of the way he had left - his actions proclaiming that to him, his father was dead.

Isn't it reassuring to us that grace means that even when we are lost, we are still claimed by God, and we can rely on that to bring us home again.  Even when all else is gone, that remains.