Dane Ortlund, writing in his wonderful new book Gentle And Lowly, of Jesus’ words that resonate perhaps most deeply with depressed, anxious Christians.

Of Christ’s promise in John, “Whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.”

Ortlund:

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“We no longer use the expression ‘in no wise’, but it was a 17th century English way of capturing the emphatic negative of the Greek of John 6:37.

The text literally reads, ‘the one coming to me I will not — not — cast out.’

Sometimes, as here, Greek uses two negatives piled on top of each other for literary forcefulness. ‘I will most certainly never, ever cast out.’

It is this emphatic negation that Christ will ever cast us out that [John] Bunyan calls ‘this great and strange expression.”

….Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are factories of fresh resistances to Christ’s love.

Even when we run out of tangible reasons to be cast our, such as specific sins or failures, we tend to retain a vague sense that, given enough time, Jesus will finally grow tried of us and hold us at arm’s length.

“No, wait” — we say, cautiously approaching Jesus — “you don’t understand. I’ve really messed up, in all kinds of ways.”

I know, he responds.

“You know most of it, sure. Certainly more than what others see. But there’s perversity down inside me that is hidden from everyone.”

I know it all.

“Well — the thing is, it isn’t just my past. It’s my present too.”

I understand.

“But I don’t know if I can break free of this any time soon.”

That’s the only kind of person I’m here to help.

“The burden is heavy — and heavier all the time.”

Then let me carry it.

“It’s too much to bear.”

Not for me.

“You don’t get it. My offenses aren’t directed towards others. They’re against you.”

Then I am the one most suited to forgive them.

“But the more ugliness in me you discover, the sooner you’ll get fed up with me.”

Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

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End of passage from Ortlund’s book.

Of course remember we must come to Christ first.

As intolerant, as exclusivist as it might sound to our modern ears, he is and has always been, “the way, the truth, and the life,” and as Peter says in Acts, “Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one.”

And when we come to that name, he will never —ever — cast us out.

As Ortlund notes later in his book, Jesus saves us “to the uttermost,” which means as far, as wide, as fully as possible. That is “to the uttermost.”

And it is the most beautiful “no matter what” love you and I can ever know.

In his book, On The Road With St. Augustine, James Smith retells the Prodigal Son story with this wonderful quote at the end.

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“That Father of yours comes running and gathers you up in his arms while your head is down, and your mother later tells you, ‘He walked to the end of the road every single day waiting for you‘.”

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Beautiful and true.

As a parent you would, as well. As a parable about The Father, that is certainly the case.

In his book, Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen says this of our journey from home.

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“Leaving home is, then, much more than an historical event bound to time and place.

It is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being, that God holds me safe in an eternal embrace, that I am indeed carved in the palms of God’s hands and hidden in their shadows…. Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one.”

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So for us, as Prodigals, what is returning home?

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“One of life’s hardest spiritual choices: to trust or not to trust in God’s all-forgiving love.”’

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Strange, isn’t it, how difficult it is for us to believe we’re as deeply loved as Christ himself.

And yet, as Nouwen writes elsewhere, “The spiritual life is a long and often arduous search for what you have already found.”

Ultimately, of the story, Nouwen writes:

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“[It is] about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all the rejections have taken place.”

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Amen.

[Painting: Return of the Prodigal Son, Murillo]

I love this, in English theologian J.I. Packer’s, Praying the Lord’s Prayer.

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“We should certainly not content ourselves with parroting other people’s prayers, nor would God be content if we did (for what parent could be happy if his child only ever spoke to him in quotations, thus limiting his conversation to the reciting of other people’s sentiments?)”

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Yes! Imagine a child, formally and haltingly addressing his parent — with no familiarity, no free spirit, no heart. And yet that is the way we are often taught to pray to God.

Brennan Manning puts it this way: “A little child cannot do a bad coloring; nor can a child of God do bad prayer.”

Just talk to the Father as if he were your dad (because he is), and Jesus as if he were your brother (because he is).

In Choose and Choose Again, J. Kevin Butcher makes a very good distinction re: something a lot of depressive Christians particularly struggle with.

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“Guilt is about what I do. Shame is about who I am. The antidote for guilt is forgiveness. Shame calls me to cease to exist…. knowing that we are forgiven but still feeling dirty is pathological shame.

….Shame doesn’t force us to do anything, but the psychic pain of feeling worthless can be so intense that we’ll do anything to make it stop.

 …..Shame keeps us from personalizing and taking into our hearts anything about God that gives us value and allows us to know, to feel, and to be secured in his love.

Don’t forget: Our enemy isn’t playing. He’s trying to kill us, and shame is his poison – a slow, lethal drip that gets into our emotional and spiritual cells and vacuums our God-given humanity and love of life right out of us.”

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Of course the antidote to all this is to accept ourselves as accepted by God, and more than accepted — beloved.

In The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, Tim Keller writes:

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“You believe the gospel; maybe you have done so for years.

But….and it is a big ‘but’…every day you find yourself being sucked back into the courtroom.

You do not feel you are living like Paul says. You are getting sucked back in.

All I can tell you is that we have to relive the gospel every time we pray…..we have to relive the gospel on the spot and ask ourselves what we are doing in the courtroom. We should not be there. The court is adjourned.           

….Like Paul, we can say, ‘I don’t care what you think. I don’t even care what I think. I only care about what the Lord thinks.’

And he has said, ‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,’ and ‘You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.’

Live out of that.”