Jeremiah 4:11-13, Psalm 14, 1 Timothy 1:-12-17, Luke 15:1-10
Now that we are back in the Sanctuary we can look at that stained-glass window there, our Good Shepherd window. The shepherd, of course, is the Lord Jesus, but with the European features that artists always gave him. Jesus names himself the Good Shepherd in the Gospel of John, but here in Luke’s Gospel he does it indirectly. In the parable it’s actually the Pharisees and scribes that he invites to think like shepherds. He says, “Which one of you?” Which one of you would go searching for that one lost? If our stained-glass window were strictly on this parable, the face of the shepherd might better be a mirror, for every which one of you to see your face reflected in it.
And yet, since the Lord Jesus tells every parable ultimately about himself, his face does belong there, only more Arabic-looking. And in the face of Jesus we are to read the face of God. The Pharisees and scribes had no problem with God as the Shepherd of Israel, but the Lord Jesus is suggesting that their God is that kind of shepherd that seeks out sinners at the risk of the righteous.
If it was acceptable to compare God to a shepherd, it was not acceptable to compare God to a woman. Notice that in the woman part of the parable, the Lord Jesus does not say, “Which one of you,” because no Pharisee or scribe would want to sweep a house. That’s what women were for, and servants. But the implication is clear—the Lord Jesus would be that woman, and further, God would be that woman. Imagine a stained-glass window of that woman! A dark-skinned Arabic-looking woman, wearing all her jewelry, depicted so that you could count nine coins in her jewelry with one coin missing. With her face as Jesus’ face made feminine, implicitly a face for God.
Is it really true? Does this woman show us God? Does God really come after you like that? Are you so important to her, so precious? You are but one of seven billion people, and our planet is one speck in the galaxy, and our galaxy is one of billions, and are you to believe that God is so aware of you, and passionate to find you, and joyful to have found you? Does God get happy over you? Are you like a coin in God’s earring, or a ring on one of her toes?
Would you like it to be true? Do you want that kind of God? Would you like God to notice when you’re missing? Would you like God to come searching after you and find you? Or would you rather have God more objective, a little less personal, thank you very much, more like a king or an executive than like a woman with a broom?
But how can you even be lost to God? Doesn’t God know everything? Wouldn’t God already know where the coin is, where every last sheep is? How far do you push a parable? What does it mean when we say that we are lost but have been found? How lost are we ever?
It seems like there are very many people in the world whom God does not come after, whom God apparently lets stay lost. Lost in misery, lost in poverty, lost in oppression and grinding hopelessness. And even so among the rich. We in the world have as much good reason for grieving and mourning and lamentation as God would have for joy in heaven. If God rejoices over one that is found, doesn’t God also grieve and lament for all the millions that stay lost in so many different ways, and all across the planet, and all through the centuries? It wasn’t only the Jerusalem of Jeremiah that was burned down, it wasn’t only the people of Israel who are “my poor people.”
The prophet Jeremiah attributes this loss and misery to God’s fierce anger. Fair enough. God’s fierce anger may be regarded as righteous if we consider all the inhumanity of humankind, all the violence and greed and cruelty, especially by men with power who “eat up their people like bread,” which causes the misery and poverty and oppression and grinding hopelessness of the countless unremembered people through the ages who have been let stay lost. Within God’s anger is there grieving, is there lamentation within God’s judgment, as much as there is rejoicing in heaven?
I hope so. We have reason to think so—because of the cross, because of the grief and lamentation of the Son of God upon the cross. If we can read upon the cross the otherwise unfathomable heart of God, if we can see upon the sorrowful face of the crucified Jesus the otherwise unimaginable face of God, if we can say that the desolation described by Jeremiah is revealed upon the cross as the desolation of God’s own soul, then we have reason to think so, and you may hope so.
That’s where I must take you as a preacher of the Gospel, and that’s what you may see within the Sacrament: the breaking of the bread for the broken heart of God, and the pouring of the wine for the spilling of God’s soul. If you can imagine God to be like a woman, then you can imagine a God who grieves eternally for every last lost child. It must be a sober truth.
The Christian Church has taught for centuries that all those billions of lost souls have been condemned to hell, no matter how much they might have suffered already in this life. I don’t believe it, and neither did the early Church, nor does the Bible teach it when interpreted correctly. But neither does the Bible reveal to us their ultimate fate beyond their death. We might offer implications and suggestions, but finally we have to leave it with God, and the nature of God revealed in Jesus Christ, especially upon the cross. We have to leave it with the grace of God, and the love of God.
And although the grief of God is real for every last lost child, grief is not the last word for God, lamentation is not the end for God. The goal of God is finding, finding past the limits and beyond the edge, finding in the darkest places, the goal of God is reclaiming and rejoicing. God is more like the woman than a king. The king says, That is my law, so be it! But the woman lights her lamp and keeps on sweeping till she finds it, and rejoices, and she wants us all to share her joy with her.
I wonder if the Lord Jesus was laughing a little when he told this parable. Because the joke was on the Pharisees and scribes. They complained about Jesus eating with sinners, and by "sinners" they meant other people. But Jesus ate with scribes and Pharisees no less often, precisely because they were sinners too, and that’s the joke. The Lord Jesus loved the scribes and Pharisees no less than the tax collectors, maybe even a little more, but they could not accept his love. You poor Pharisees, you silly scribes, just let yourself be lost and you will find that you are found.
Here’s the best part of the joke. The Pharisees had a brilliant student named Saul of Tarsus. He was an ultra-Pharisee, a take-no-prisoners zealot, ruthless in his righteousness, zealous for the Law and more jealous than God. He was the hot wind of Jeremiah, devastating the infant church. He went out searching for Christian lambs to save them from themselves, with violence if necessary, finding them and binding them and punishing them for their own good.
And the Lord Jesus came after him, on the road, like the woman with the broom, and knocked him down, blinded him with light, and cast him into darkness. All of his brilliant righteousness he realized was the worst of sin. He lost everything—his mission, his vision, his reputation, his mentors and his friends, his purpose in life, he was absolutely lost—because he had been found. He was the tenth coin, and the Lord Jesus fastened him on his earring, and put a fancy dress on, and he danced with the angels.
The sober truth is that we are lost, more than we know. And the joke on us is that we were found before we knew that we were lost. Silly us. If we can laugh at ourselves we can laugh along with God. Why else repent? Repentance is letting go, and let the woman take you in her arms and hold you as she dances. Or let him put you on his shoulder and he will carry you.
This is the same good news every week, and every week we have to hear it and believe it once again. And if this is true, then God’s nature must be love. Here we have to park our unanswered questions, that God, by nature, is love. The sorrow and the grief of God is from love, and God’s love is so great that the final outcome for absolutely everything and everyone will be grace and joy.
Copyright © 2019, by Daniel James Meeter, all rights reserved.
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