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Good morning. The picture showed two female figures swathed in black niqabs. Between them, as her arms held them in a giant hug, was the weary face of a 62 year-old woman; you can see her eyes closed in sheer relief even behind her dark glasses. This was the moment Karen Nettleton from Australia, was reunited with her grandchildren. The picture was released on Monday. The story is a sad one. Karen's daughter Tara converted to Islam and married the Australian jihadist Khaled Sharrouf. In 2014 they took their five children to Syria to join Isis. Both parents and two of the children are now dead. For five years Karen Nettleton has searched for her three surviving grandchildren. Last month she finally tracked them down in the Al Hol refugee camp in Syria. The argument about whether the families of Isis fighters should be repatriated will go on, but what strikes me today is the sheer loving persistence of their grandmother. Karen was in tears as she embraced her granddaughters, and smothering them with kisses through the black material. Her gesture reminded me of the best-known stories in the New Testament, the story of the Prodigal Son. As a Christian this story is in the back of my mind this week, Holy Week. A young man brings grief to his father by taking his share of the inheritance and leaving home for a far country. When he returned after squandering his inheritance his father threw his arms round him and simply hugged him, welcoming him home. It was that unselfconscious embrace that links the parable to the picture, though of course the difference is that Karen's grandchildren did not choose to join Isis. And while the Prodigal's father stayed anxiously at home Karen went out to find her orphaned grandchildren. On this Maundy Thursday it's a later interpretation of the Prodigal Son that is resonating with me. The theologian Karl Barth thought that the Prodigal Son stood for all humanity; we are all lost and alienated whether through our own fault or the fault of others. In the end it doesn't matter whose fault it is - we just need to be rescued. Barth speaks of Christ's incarnation as going into the far country of our lost humanity and taking our place in captivity. This for him is divine humility, Christ loving the lost so much that he risks losing everything to bring us home. Which in the Gospel he does of course. He loses his own life and by doing so redeems the world. It's not clear yet whether Karen Nettleton's mission will lead to her grandchildren returning home, which they say is what they want. But to me that image of her hugging them at her journey's end is a window into the nature of divine and human love that cannot leave me indifferent.