A few short weeks after moving to the Washington DC area in spring of 2010, Dale and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. We had dreamed about taking a Mediterranean cruise, but we had just moved and didn’t feel it was the right time to leave our kids for 10 days and fly overseas. Dale asked how I would feel about a dinner cruise down the Potomac River…not quite the plan B I was hoping for. I asked him what he thought about getting anniversary rings - we would have my engagement solitaire placed in a new setting and have a signet ring made especially for him. I think Dale was surprised, as I’m not a fine jewelry kind of girl. Not because I don’t like nice jewelry, but because I am horrible about losing things. For years I had a drawer in my jewelry box with one of dozens of earrings, because I’d lost the other one. I just couldn’t be trusted with an expensive ring. I committed to myself and Dale that I wouldn’t ever take this anniversary ring off, except to clean it, so off we went to commission a custom jeweler. When the rings were finally ready, they were absolutely worth the wait!
Fast forward two years and the kids and I are in the North Carolina mountains with my parents and I’ve just spent the last two hours at a tennis clinic. I pour myself a big glass of lemonade and sit down to relax. I look down at my ring and can’t believe what I’m seeing. The center stone, my engagement diamond, is gone, leaving a dark, sad crater in my anniversary ring. My heart dropped as I racked my brain to remember the last time I looked down and noticed my ring. It had to be in the van or on the tennis court somewhere. I frantically retraced my steps to the van, and tore it upside down, but no diamond. I then drove straight back to the tennis center. Relieved that no one else was on the court I had been on, I ran to it, praying that God would help me find it. If only the court had been hard and painted green or blue or even black, but these courts were clay. They were a maddening gray color with sparkling flecks of crushed granite throughout. How would I ever find my lost diamond? I prayed and searched and searched and prayed, and after an hour, still had not found it. I was devastated! How could I tell Dale that I had lost the diamond he had given me?
I walked into the clubhouse, tears streaming down my face and asked the tennis pro to keep an eye out for my diamond, then slowly drove back to the house, dreading the phone call with Dale. A couple of hours later, my dad answered the home phone and it was the tennis pro, with the best news I could have possibly received - she found my diamond!! I hustled back to the courts and hugged the pro’s neck about ten times, grateful beyond words that my diamond had been lost but now was found!
Today we will take an in-depth look at all of Luke chapter 15, about, you guessed it, Jesus’ parables of the lost - a sheep, a coin and a son.
Read Luke 15
“All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to him. And the Pharisees and scribes were complaining, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” (vv 1-2) Jesus’ popularity with the outcasts of society who had “ears to hear” was making the religious leaders highly uncomfortable and irritated. Why were those cast out from righteous society so attracted to Jesus? His care and concern for them was obvious; they were desperate for His compassionate notice, which He was delighted to freely give. These three famous parables, all representing lost sinners being found by Jesus and entering the kingdom of God were not directed towards the misfits surrounding Jesus, but the Pharisees and keepers of the law. Perhaps one of these word pictures would break through their hard hearts and they would realize Who was right in front of them.
The Lost Sheep
A man who owned a flock of 100 sheep did a quick head count and realized that one sheep (let’s call him Herb) was missing! Always curious, Herb would frequently wander off from the rest of the flock. His owner looked in all of the usual spots Herb often wandered, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Finally, after several hours and perhaps all night, he found poor Herb caught in a thicket and unable to break free himself. So grateful that a predator hadn’t found Herb and destroyed him, his master ran to him, picked him up, put him on his shoulders and carried Herb home, because he just couldn’t walk unassisted. The man was ecstatic to have found Herb and proclaimed his good news to everyone, whether they listened or not, “Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!” (v 6)
The Lost Coin
A woman had her wages for the last two weeks. As a common laborer, these small coins were invaluable to her. So imagine her shock and grief when she was counting her money and realized that she was missing one drachma! Like me and my lost diamond, she hadn’t lost everything, she still had nine coins, but each was valuable and was needed for her livelihood. I imagine that she needed every single coin to pay her rent, send her children to school and feed them. Perhaps she was also responsible for caring for her elderly parents. Regardless, finding this lost coin was all she could think about! She searched and searched and finally, in between the slats on the floor she saw a silver glint reflecting the light. She grabbed the coin and shouted to her neighbors, “Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost!” (v 9)
The Lost Son
An extremely wealthy man had two sons. The younger son, fitful and wanting to live his life solo, arrogantly asked his father for his inheritance early, which the father sadly agreed to. The son then converted into cash all of his inheritance, most likely including land or herds, which he then foolishly squandered in reckless living in a foreign country. While the money and champagne were flowing, the young man had plenty of friends; they could always count on him for a good time. Until the day the money ran out. He went to his friends for help only to discover they weren’t true friends and had only been using him for the endless pitchers of drinks he provided them. The young man found himself all alone, in a strange land with no money and no skills with which to make money. So he hired himself out to a pig farmer, of all things, and found himself looking at the pig’s slop longingly. If only he could share what the pigs were eating tonight…Wait a second, what was he saying? What was he doing? He’d never been around pigs, as they were forbidden as unclean in Israel, yet here he was, willing to defile himself over and over again. He decided right then and there that he would drag himself back home to his father and beg for mercy and a job as one of his servants. That would definitely be better than the pit he currently found himself in.
“But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.” (v 20) The father threw aside all expected behavioral conventions of the time, as running was considered undignified for an older person, especially a wealthy landowner. More importantly, he would hear none of his son’s plans to repay him and work as a servant. Instead he quickly called for his servants to bring a richly embroidered robe and his own signet ring and dress his son in them, to kill the fattened calf and prepare a feast “because this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” (v 24)
This next part of the parable is when Jesus surprises the Pharisees as the older brother, who has never left home but stayed and done all the right things, catches wind of his little brother’s return. He is furious! And for so many reasons. Even though his father refused to disown the rebellious son, he had viewed his brother as dead since the day he walked out on their family. He had no reason to mourn; instead he became an only child that day. He’d admit that he was tired of his father’s grief over the loss, of his daily looking out in the direction the rebel left, in hopes of his return. When his father came to him and pleaded with him to join the reunion, “he replied to his father, ‘Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’” (vv 29-30) Sound familiar? The Pharisees and other religious leaders had devoted their lives to obeying God’s law, plus many extra-biblical rules and regulations that would hopefully guarantee them favor with God. And yet Jesus, apparently God’s self-appointed spokesperson, was no happier than when He was with the destitute, the rebellious and wayward.
Joy in Heaven When the Lost are Found
In every subplot of this parable, whether sheep, coin or son, the response in heaven to the lost being found is the same - much rejoicing - standing in sharp contrast to Jesus’ opponents' indignance with Jesus’ preference of the sinner over them. He declares, “in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance.” (v 7) Jesus’ irony does not go unnoticed, as anyone in Old Testament history who was considered “righteous” was so because of their turning back to God and believing that what He promised He would do. No human being on his own seeks God or does any good that merits salvation. In his treatise on grace, the Apostle Paul quotes from the Psalms as well as Ecclesiastes, “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.” (Rom 3:10-12) Paul is not denying that humans perform some actions conforming externally to goodness, but these actions, prior to salvation, are still stained by evil. They are not done for God’s glory and do not come from faith.
Big Picture Questions for Today:
Most if not all of you reading this devotion today are familiar with this trio of parables. Which struck you today as you read?
In the parable of the lost son, which son do you currently identify with most? I believe that we all identify with qualities of both at different times of our life and faith journey. Which brother is currently more familiar?
Pray that you would be reminded daily that there is nothing good in yourself that is worthy of salvation, of being found. Praise God that, in His kind sovereignty, chose to rescue you from yourself and make you His child.
