The Prodigal Son

            Jacob’s Harvest, directed by Michael Scott, illustrates lessons in life we would all do well to learn. Humans seem to have a remarkable nature of wanting to do wrong. Though we are created in His image, unlike Him, we are vulnerable to error. Having grown up in a Christian family, I have been privileged to learn about what happens to those who refuse to reform their “heathen” ways.  Like the Prodigal Son, we usually have to learn the hard way how to find our way back home.

            A lesson learned the hard way is a lesson not soon forgotten. Just as the Prodigal Son learned his lesson the hard way, so does Jacob Hansen learn his lesson the hard way. In the parable of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament, the younger son demands his part of his father’s inheritance. Upon obtaining his small fortune, he squandered all the money on frivolous living. Being then in a desperate state of hunger, he takes a job feeding swine. Once he observes that the swine have more to eat than he does, he ultimately tries to fill his hunger with the husks that the swine are eating. Falling to this low point in his life, he remembers that the servants in his father’s house are never hungry, and are fed much more lavishly than these swine. This is the turning point for him, and he returns to his father’s house, meaning to repent and accept his father’s way of life even if it opposes his own.

            Like the Prodigal Son, Jacob has left his father’s farm to pursue his own selfish needs, leaving behind the woman he was to have wed, as well as many others who loved him. However, unlike the Prodigal Son, he does so without receiving an inheritance, and with many unfulfilled obligations. He soon finds that life as he had thought it would be was not a “bowl of cherries,” just as many of us find as we break the “apron strings” and depart from our familial ties. Growing up is never an easy task; as the cycle of life goes around, we must grow and learn responsibilities. Some take the reins of life more carefully than others. Jacob takes the reins reluctantly and slowly; however, he does eventually reach the turning point of his life and return to his roots to face the obligations he had left more than twenty years earlier.

            Coinciding with the Prodigal Son’s brother who stays at him is Dan Hansen, Jacob’s younger brother. He sees the destruction Jacob’s careless actions have caused and chooses a different path to travel. In his role as the responsible brother, Dan remains at home and assumes many of the roles Jacob was meant to fill. Yet, even as he marries his brother’s jilted bride and works the farm, he becomes bitter toward his brother, his father, and even his wife. Dan seems to long desperately for his father’s love, as he feels always to be placed second to his older brother in his father’s eyes. Fortunately, a happy conclusion is written to his story when Dan finally realizes that his father has always loved him, but that like many fathers, he has just assumed that Dan knew that and did not need to be told. As Dan and his father amend their relationship, he struggles to repair the relationship with his brother.

            In the relationship of the two brothers, Mr. Hansen holds the vital key to the unfolding of the happy ending. He loves both his sons equally; however, anyone (except Dan) can see the emptiness in his eyes that can only be filled by the return of his prodigal son---or as he refers to him in his address to the congregation of his church “my lost sheep.” When Jacob finally makes the ultimate sacrifice for the family, the unity of the family is restored and all are happy.

            Perhaps the most profound statement of the movie comes when Mr. Hansen proclaims, “Nothing is lost and yet everything is past as we wait for the harvest.” This final statement seems to sum up the true meaning of the movie; it is the theme that ties the past to the present and the future. The father seems to be saying that he loves Jacob no less now than he did before he ran away; that he forgives him; and that he can now look to the future and expect the harvest of his life to be full as he enjoys the rest of his life surrounded with both his sons.

Works Cited

Jacob's Harvest. Dir. Michael Scott. PerfTed Shackelford, Rebecca Jenkins, Ken Pogue and Ron White.Screen writer             Malcolm Macrury Atlantis Films, 1995.