...be transformed today...

4 “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

8 ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents’” Luke 15:4-10.

It’s very important that we don’t kid ourselves here. There was only one thing about the lost sheep that drove the shepherd to go looking for it. And that was simply the fact that it was lost. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now I know that it’s only a story, a parable of Jesus, one of Jesus’ many stories. But, like most of Jesus’ stories, this one connects with what sometimes goes on in everyone’s heads when we respond to Him. So many of us secretly assume that there must be something special about this person, or that one, that makes Jesus go looking for them. Some people, filled with self-confidence, always assume that they are one of the special ones. (I recently saw someone wearing a T-shirt that read “Jesus loves you, but I’m his favorite”.) Others, with low self-esteem, always assume that it’s the other people who are the special ones, and that they’re somewhere in the back of the flock, unnoticed and unimportant.

But here’s the point of both stories, and a lot of other stories Jesus taught:  Every single sheep is important to the shepherd, just as every single coin is important to the woman, and when any one of the sheep gets into difficulties the shepherd is especially concerned for them. That is the truth that’s so hard to learn, both for those with self-confidence and for those without it.

Now there is a little twist, a little pinch, in these stories today, in case anyone should think — and I’m sure some people do today — that the whole point of these two stories is simply Jesus’ desire to “include” anybody and everybody. “There is joy”, Jesus says, “among the angels in heaven when a sinner repents.” Just as the “Prodigal Son” doesn’t stroll home, whistling a cheerful tune, confident that his soft-hearted old father will take him back in, so the people with whom Jesus was celebrating were showing that they wanted their lives to change. By welcoming Jesus, they were inviting Him to do in their moral and spiritual lives what He did for so many people physically. Jesus welcomed sinners; but by the time He really finished with them, they weren’t sinners any more.

So today I want you to pray this simple pray — but make it personal for you: Lord, help me to celebrate your welcoming love, so that I may be transformed by it.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,

have mercy on me a sinner.