The Lost Parables
Luke 15:8-10 NKJV
8 "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!' 10 Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
As I looked at this chapter again, it dawned on me. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin are a setup for the big parable of the lost son.
In our verses for today, Jesus references a woman who lost a coin. This parable was on the heels of what Jesus shared about the man who lost a sheep. The sheep had such value that the man left the ninety-nine other sheep to find the one that was lost. Then, when he finds the lost sheep, he rejoices and calls his friends and neighbors and they rejoice. Jesus is showing that heaven rejoices over the lost repenting even more than the ones who are doing great. The lost matter to God.
The same principle is working in regard to the woman who had ten coins and lost one. She does a thorough search of her house. The scriptures do not tell us the value of the coin, but when you only have ten and lose one, it's a high-value item. And high-value items get more than just a cursory search. You seek until you find. And when she finds the coin, she rejoices and calls her friends and neighbors to rejoice with her. Again, if you lose a twenty-dollar bill, you are glad when you find it. But you are not calling friends and neighbors to rejoice with you. Jesus repeats the message that heaven rejoices over one sinner, one lost person repenting and changing direction.
So everyone knew in that day that sheep had value and coins had value, but what about a person? It was a great setup from Jesus. He is about to lay out a story of a young man who does the unthinkable in the Jewish culture. What Jesus shares in thisparable contains a number of things that are just wrong. The younger son, the one with the least desirable birth order, asks for His inheritance. Before the father dies. Then he cashes out and leaves the country of Israel to go to a far country. And there, far away from home, the younger son wastes the father's goods with some serious partying. Asking for the inheritance, the younger son leaving for a foreign country, and wasting his father's hard-earned money were almost the unpardonable sins to the Jews. Butwait, there’s more. After partying his father's money away, the young man gets a job working with pigs. Pigs were considered unclean animals, and this boy wanted to eat the food the pigs ate. I don't know that Jesus could have painted a more awful situation for the Jews.
This is a very familiar story. The son wakes up one day and realizes that things are better in his father's house. And so, he returns. The father sees him coming and runs to meet him. The father allows the boy to repent and then treats him as an honored guest and throws a party for him. And why not? The son was lost but now is found. And that meant more to the father than anything else. When the older brother complains about the rejoicing that is taking place for the son who wasted the father's money, the father states that it was right to throw a party. The son, loved and valued by the father, was dead, but now he is alive. He was lost, but now he is found.
The entire chapter is about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and the lost son. Jesus is making it clear that heaven rejoices when the lost are found and sinners repent. Men value livestock and money, but much more than that, God values people. The lost matter to God.