Luke 15:4-6
"If one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does he not
leave the ninety nine in the open pasture and go after the missing one till he
has found it? How delighted he is then! He lifts it onto his shoulders, and
home he goes to call his friends and neighbors together. 'Celebrate with me!'
He cries. 'I have found my lost sheep.'"
This passage starts a series of parables by Jesus, 3 to
be exact. It all started because of the Pharisees grumbling about how Jesus was
welcoming and eating with sinners. That's when Jesus tells them these parables
in order to show them how important everyone is to him.
Shepherds were very low when it came to the views of
society. But, Jesus used this parable to reach the uneducated man so they would
understand what he was saying. Jesus said that a man lost 1 sheep out of 100.
Now, when I was little and heard this passage for the first time I was like,
" first, how does he know he has only 99 sheep? That’s a lot of sheep to
count! Second, he lost 1 sheep but if he leaves what might happen to the other
99 sheep? If I were him I would stay to keep the rest of the herd safe."
But, that's not Jesus' point.
From what I hear, sheep are not that smart. If I was that
shepherd I probably would have been concerned about the one sheep getting hurt;
but I would have also been afraid that my other sheep would leave or be
attacked. That's the point though; I'm not a perfect shepherd: Jesus is.
We are Jesus' flock of sheep. He loves and cares about
each one of us. He doesn't want any of us to stray from him. If one of us
leaves him he loves us enough to go find that one. Then when he comes back with
that one he lets it rejoin the flock. If another sheep would leave he would do
the same.
This is Jesus' point: he came to save us all. We are all
sinners in one way or another. If we stray from him he doesn't just let us go.
He gets us back. We are his bride. He loves every one of us and wants us all to
be saved. It doesn’t matter if we have been saved for years or only a day. He
loves us all equally. He, and the angels rejoice when a lost sheep is saved. We
should rejoice and want to help save the lost sheep/people too.
So, are you lost and needing to be saved? Do you know
anyone who needs to be saved? What can you do to spread Jesus' love today?
Image from here.
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