Restore us, O LORD God of hosts!
Let your face shine, that we may be saved! Verse 19
Luke 15:1-10
In this passage, Jesus tells of two things that were lost, then found; a sheep and a coin.
Which one of the stories resonates more with you today?
For me it's the coin. Two reasons for that. First, I don't have any sheep. I've never had any livestock, so I don't know what it's like to lose a sheep or cow. I've had pets for most of my life, and have lost cats to goodness knows what or where. But I never really looked that hard for a cat that didn't come home. When you are owned by a cat, you just get used to that sort of thing.
However, if you read this parable closely, the woman had ten coins and she lost one. Ponder this. She lost ten percent of her entire savings! I might compare that to, say, losing an entire paycheck (not ten percent of my income, mind you, but still significant enough to send me into a panic).
I promise you, I would be digging through garbage to find this check. Reminds me of a funny story from over 20 years ago. Way back in, I think 1985 or so, we had tickets to see U2 in Fort Worth. Turns out to be the show that B.B. King opened for them! O.o Anyway, one day, I was looking for the tickets, and they were missing. I asked my wife where they were. She didn't know. Finally found them. IN THE TRASH! "Oops," she said. Heh. She accidentally threw away the U2 tickets!! 23 years later, we still talk about that.
Anyway, I can imagine the kind of frantic searching that this woman was doing, upon finding that she had misplaced a tenth of her money.
Can you remember the last time you felt lost? Honestly, I can't. Even driving around Boston on vacation, I never felt totally lost.
But I can kind of identify with the feelings that Stephanie must have had this last week, during her first week at high school. The place is huge! She had been in it before, because her big sister went there. But she didn't really know her way around yet. What a feeling of "lostness" that must be!
If you read this passage, you also see there is an element of celebration upon the finding of the lost item. The shepherd celebrates finding his lost sheep, even though he had 99 others. The woman calls her friends to celebrate finding her coin (more rightfully so, since it was a tenth of her money).
But the final verses tell us that the angels of heaven celebrate in the same way every time a sinner comes to Jesus. Every time a lost soul is found.
Know that God seeks after his lost children in the same way that the shepherd and woman looked for their lost stuff. There is a difference, of course. He already knows where his "lost" sheep are. And he has already made arrangements for them to be "found." Nevertheless, he orchestrates history to complete this plan.
Wow.
And the angels throw a party.
Grace and peace, friends.