“It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”
- Luke 15:32
This chapter of Luke has three of the most well-known parables. Stories all revolve around something, or someone being lost, and then found. These are also stories of two very different hearts. The one heart being ours, prone to wander, laying among filth and wretchedness, and desperate for salvation. The other heart is God’s, seeking to save, embracing and rejoicing over the wretched, and desperate to save. One heart is on the run, and the other heart is in compassionate pursuit. One heart is dead, and another is ready to make it come alive.
The Lost Sheep:
Sometimes we wander. A brief slip of the mind allows the soul to slide. It moves toward sin and muck, leading to the awful feeling of being stuck. We are the lost sheep sometimes. Though Jesus is the good shepherd, and He will never lose one of His, we dare to test that with our slipping and sliding souls.
Sometimes our wandering is like coating ourselves in oil and sprinting head-first toward a smooth hill. Yet other times our wandering is more like we close our eyes and keep walking. Suddenly there is a felt imbalance and a loss of desire to keep pace. We slow down to the point our sinful flesh catches up, causing our blinded selves to stagger. We are sheep who left our shepherd.
Yet our shepherd tracks us down, searching diligently for our wandering souls. Though we are lost, He finds us, picks us up onto his shoulders, and joyfully carries us to the pasture again. Reunited with the shepherd we re-find our peace and comfort. Though perhaps our souls remember our wanderings and at times the flesh longs to run again, we also have the testimony of the shepherd who finds us, perhaps making it all the easier to repent and turn to Him in our times of need.
The Lost Coin:
Sometimes we lay in wretchedness. Our wanderings go too far and we are lost in the dust of this life. We find our company in dust bunnies and dark shadows. We are a coin lost between the couch cushions or in the cracks in the floor underneath the kitchen table. We are surrounded by crumbs and wrappers. Some might even think we are gone for good.
Yet our God does not like to leave the place a mess. Our God is a God who deeply cleans and searches the whole house, looking for a ratty soul to become found. Our God is a God who seeks around for the lost coin in every couch cushion and every crack in the floor. Our God is a God who when finding us, rejoices and receives our repentance, no matter how filthy and ruined we are. Even a sticky, dusty, and grimy coin of silver will still be received by God.
The Lost Sons:
I know we usually call it the prodigal son story, but recently someone pointed out that the father in the story goes out twice, once for each son. First is the prodigal son, consider then the lost sheep and the lost coin to the point we have dubbed him the prodigal child. The other son though sticks by his Father, yet to the point of being like one of the servants. Rather than enjoying the riches of the father’s love, the older son made himself a servant, all while building resentment toward the father. We see no apparent failures of the father in this story, instead, we see two sons fail to fully grasp who their father is. The sons wind up wanting to adhere to a set of rules as servants, rather than realizing that they have all the inheritance they need from the father.
Sometimes we are like the prodigal son who doubles down on wandering and wretchedness. Other times though we are like the older son who refuses to go to the father because they don’t receive what they think they ought to receive. At once they had all they needed, and that never left them, and yet they both decided to refuse what was freely part of their life.
The father though runs to both. The father embraces both of the sons. The father unconditionally loves both of the sons. The father also knows then the meaningfulness of the dead coming to life, of the lost being found. The father's heart was bent on searching, finding, and restoring.
Final Blessing:
Another common part of these stories is repentance. We find repentance a rather harsh practice when we picture going before a judge and having to confess all our sins. However, what Luke 15 reveals is that repentance is a sheep returning to the shepherd, a coin being cleansed by its finder, and sons being embraced by their father. What if we changed our imaginations during confession and repentance from standing before our judge, and instead standing before our shepherd, cleaner, and father? Only in this do we see the removal of shame from sin and self, to where restoration is made possible because of the fathers love that pursues us.
Wretched we may be, but received we are all the more. Repentance is the practice of turning away from death and turning toward life, allowing ourselves to be embraced and nurtured. It’s letting yourself be picked up, cleaned off, and embraced by Jesus: our good shepherd, cleanser, and father.
Now may the Lord of Life and Redemption be with you in every step, every breath, and every heartbeat of your journey!
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