When I was in elementary school, sometime before my tenth birthday, my grandparents gave to my sister and I each a diamond necklace. Now, these diamond necklaces were nothing fancy; a simple gold chain with a diamond solitaire setting hanging on it. But they were beautiful, and they were special. My Mom kept the necklaces hidden away with her jewelry, and on Sunday mornings after getting dressed, my sister and I would go to my parents’ bathroom, and they would help us put the necklaces on before going to church. We only wore the necklaces to church and on important occasions because it was special jewelry. And each time we wore the necklaces, we remembered our grandparents fondly.
Somewhere in the midst of my many, many moves over the last decade, I have managed to lose my necklace. I didn’t realize the necklace was missing until about a year ago when I got some new earrings that go perfectly with that necklace. But I just can’t seem to find it now. At one time, my sister had borrowed my necklace because the chain was a little longer, but she doesn’t have it now. And then I thought that the necklace was safely stored at my parents’ house, with my mother’s jewelry, just like it had been when I was young. But it’s not there either. Nor is it stored away with my jewelry. I have looked through every box trying to find that necklace. Still I have had no luck. I remain hopeful that someday that necklace will turn up, but every now and then I look for it again anyway. Sometimes I look for it because it would be great with something I’m wearing, but sometimes I look for it simply because it is special to me. And I know I won’t stop looking for that necklace until I have found it, I’ll probably always have hope that it will turn up somewhere.
And that’s exactly how God looks at us, all of us! The Bible is full of all kinds of good news, especially in the Gospels. But some of the best news of the Gospel is right here in this passage from Luke. And it’s this: God in Jesus Christ comes to us; God seeks us in our lostness! We are so special to God that he searches for us and never gives up. In fact, God is so determined to find the lost that he sent his Son among us! A doctor cannot set a broken arm from across the street. “Love cannot cure our lovelessness from the other side of the sky.” No, the “Word was made flesh.” (John 1: 14) God has come to the “other side of the tracks,” and voluntarily shares the prison house that we have built for ourselves, in order that we may be set free!
As Jesus tells these two parables to the grumbling scribes and Pharisees, he unveils this amazing and wonderful truth about our God. No Pharisee had ever dreamed of a God like that, a God who would so desperately search after the lost. No Pharisee would have ever conceived of a God who went out to search for sinners. But this is the love of God; the love that became incarnate in Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save the lost. And God in Jesus Christ is never going to give up that search on us, or on anyone else!
Jesus shares these parables for a reason, in order that we might really truly understand just how vast the love of God is that it so purposefully seeks us out. But in order for we 21st century Christians to truly appreciate what Jesus was trying to communicate through these two parables, we have to hear them through the ears of his first listeners. The people of Jesus’ time would have easily understood the important and difficult job of a shepherd. Throughout biblical times, tending flocks and agriculture were the basis of the economy in the Middle East. And in Judea, shepherding was no easy task! It was difficult and dangerous. Pasture was scarce. The narrow central plateau in that area was only a few miles wide, and then it plunged down to the wild cliffs and the terrible devastation of the desert. There were no retaining walls and the sheep would wander. A poet describes the shepherd in this way: When you meet a shepherd, you are immediately struck by him, “sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed, leaning on his staff and looking out over his scattered sheep, everyone of them on his heart, you understand why the shepherd of Judea sprang to the front in his people’s history; why they gave his name to the king and made him they symbol of providence; why Christ took him as the type of self-sacrifice.”
The shepherd was personally responsible for the sheep. They were experts at tracking and could follow the straying sheep’s footprints for miles across the hills. There was not a shepherd for whom it was not all in a day’s work to risk his life for his sheep. And sure enough, when reports came that a sheep was lost, the whole village would wait and watch, until they saw the shepherd striding home with the sheep across his shoulders. And then the whole community would celebrate in joy and thanksgiving! Christ came to seek and to save the lost! There is no greater reason to celebrate than that!!!
And what of that woman and her lost coin? The coin the woman lost was a silver drachma, worth about a day’s wages, not an extravagant amount. But the meaning of the parable would be lost if the coin was of some great monetary value. Though it is possible that the thorough searching by the woman was out of sheer necessity; if she didn’t have that coin, the family didn’t eat. The more likely possibility was that this coin had a more sentimental significance. The mark of a married woman was a headdress made of ten silver coins linked together by a silver chain. For perhaps years a girl would scrape and save to amass her ten coins, for the headdress was almost the equivalent of her wedding ring. It may well be that it was one of these coins that the woman had lost, and so she searched for it as any woman would search if she lost her wedding ring.
It would not be difficult to lose a coin in a house at that time, and it might take a long search to find it. The houses were very dark, lit only by one little circular window, not much more than about a foot and a half across. The floor was beaten earth covered with dried reeds and rushes; and to look for a coin on a floor like that was very much like looking for a needle in a haystack. The woman swept the floor in the hope that she might see the coin glint or hear it jingle as it moved. And you can be sure that the moment the woman found that coin, she would call all her women friends over for a great celebration! You can easily imagine the great joy of the woman when at last she saw the glint of the elusive coin and when she held it in her hand again. God, said Jesus, is like that. God searches after us with such determination as a shepherd who seeks after a lost sheep, or a woman who looks for her most prized possession. And when the lost is found, a heavenly celebration ensues!
Over three decades ago, a few years before I was born, my grandfather was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He underwent treatment and surgery to remove the cancerous kidney. And thankfully, through the work of the doctors and the prayers of many people, the cancer went into remission for 17 years! But after that first bout with cancer, upon returning to his work as the pastor of a church in Oak Ridge, my grandfather preached a sermon entitled, “On Living with Cancer.” He said a lot of wonderful things in that sermon, but there has been one message that has stuck with my entire family over this great span of time, one message that has been told to my cousins and me over and over again.
He talked about turning the corner. We use that phrase a lot, you know, “She’s turned a corner.” It means different things, sometimes bad, sometimes good. My grandfather “turned a corner” when he was diagnosed with cancer. He turned another corner when the surgery removed that cancerous kidney, and yet another when they discovered that the cancer had gone into remission. And here’s what he shared with that congregation in Oak Ridge. He said, “I’ve turned a lot of corners in my life, and especially in the last several weeks. And this is what I’ve learned. I’ve learned that we can never know exactly what we will see when we turn the corner, but we can be sure of this; whatever lies around the bend, good or bad, God will be there. God will meet us and God will walk with us.”
God will meet us and God will walk with us, because God seeks us. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see.” Friends, we face yet another corner in our lives. As this church prepares to celebrate its final worship services in the coming weeks, each of us is preparing to turn a corner. We don’t know what’s around the bend and what the future holds for us. But this much we can be sure of: in God there is healing, and wholeness, and hope, and freedom, and especially love. I’m sure that God has something new and wonderful in mind for each of us; that is the promise of the gospel, new life! Certainly we feel fear and trepidation as we approach the uncertainty of this corner we must inevitably turn. But let us move forward with a strong and active faith, knowing that ours is a God who seeks us out. Ours is a God who calls us by name. Ours is a God who in Jesus Christ has come to seek and to save the lost. And God waits for us around the corner, ready to welcome us with open arms!
