'Did you go back to your dad?' he asked.
'Yes, I did,' he replied.
'And did you apologize?'
'Yes, I did,' he nodded.
'And did he kill the fatted calf?'
'No,' said the boy, 'he jolly well near killed the prodigal son!'
By contrast, the warmth of the father's reception of this boy in Jesus' story is surprising. It's unlike most of us to be reconciled so totally, with no recriminations, no grievances.
While [the son] 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 (Luke 15:20).
It would have been so human for the father to have made the boy squirm a bit for his folly, to have demanded some restitution or inflicted some punishment. But the story has none of that. Instead we are presented with a wonderful readiness to forgive. The father seems to have been waiting and watching even while the boy's back was turned against him. Notice how the father runs to him? In the ancient world that was something a senior man simply would not do in public. It was considered undignified. Clearly this man's heart is so full that it compels him, careless of the embarrassment or of what his neighbours might think, to pick up his long gown and run! He is filled, says Jesus, with compassion for the boy. He throws his arms around him and, to translate the Greek a little more precisely, covers him with tender kisses.
The boy, for his part, has determined that he is going to try to make it up with his father. His thought is to offer to work as a wage labourer on the family farm, so as to repay the money he had so recklessly wasted. The father,
