Luke 15:1–10

¹Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." ³So he told them this parable: ⁴"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? ⁵And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. ⁸"Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? ⁹And 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.' ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Man was made for communion with God. Like a sheep in green pastures, man was placed in the garden of paradise. That was to be our home; our dwelling in the presence of God. Under his care and protection, God himself was our Shepherd, and we lived in full and intimate communion with him. That is paradise! Living in complete harmony and fellowship with God, our Shepherd.

But like a sheep, man strayed from the Shepherd and was lost. Like a wayward sheep who turns and runs from its shepherd, mankind turned from God and ran. We have listened to the voice of other shepherds, thieves, and we left the green pasture and have become scattered sheep.

This scattering has brought us division and separation and death. Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise. Cain killed his brother and went away from the presence of the Lord. On account of their sin they were destroyed with a flood. But still they did not learn. They wanted to be like God and again were scatted over the face of the earth from the tower of Babel. Even after God gathered his chosen people into the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey, the rebelled and once again were scattered into exile and captivity.

Down through the centuries, mankind has sought to run from God and be independent of him, and has paid the consequences. For God is the source of all life and all goodness. And when man rejects God he rejects life and goodness. Suffering, sickness, poverty, and death are all what we have brought upon ourselves by rejecting the One who gives goodness and life.

Having rejected the God who gives life, death is at work in our lives today. We see it in sickness, in pain, in suffering. It raises its ugly head in racism, prejudice, poverty, war, crime, and addictions. It effects us with homelessness, unemployment, foreclosures, worry, and fear. It invades our very being with sinful lusts, thoughts, attitudes of pride and self-righteousness. These are all the doings of our sinful human nature; trying to live life without God.

Our sin and rebellion against God has corrupted human nature to the point that all men are sinners and all will one day die. Most people reject God outright. They do not believe in Jesus and refuse even to hear about him.

Even more, we who believe in Jesus and try to follow him as his disciples, find ourselves falling short. Even our most noble attempts to obey God, to love our neighbor, and to follow Jesus are stained with impure motives, thoughts or desires. Even we believers cannot rid ourselves of sin because we are by nature sinful human beings.

But God himself has promised to come and gather us back to him. Our OT reading says, "I will seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered...I will seek the lost and will bring back the strayed, and bind up the injured and strengthen the weak." God seeks us out, rescues us and bring us home. Jesus said, "I have come to seek and save the lost." Jesus does not sit still; He does not wait for the invited guests to come to him, but he goes out into the world, into the highways and byways, and gathers the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to the banquet of the master. There is action; the going out into the world to seek and find.

Jesus came into the world and became the lost sheep for us. He was the sheep who was sacrificed on the altar. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He gave his life as a ransom for us. He paid for our sin with his own, precious, holy blood; the price of redemption of the slave. We are the slaves to sin and death; Jesus paid the ransom price to redeem you from slavery and set you free from sin and death. On the cross the Lamb of God poured out his blood and washed you from sin. By his resurrection God declared: Your sins are forgiven! And so the sheep who was sacrificed became the Shepherd of the lost.

And the Good Shepherd gathers in the scattered sheep. "You shall be my people and I will be your God." Judah will be returned to the Holy Land. They will feed on green pastures. God's sheep will be cleansed with clean water from idolatry and uncleanness he tells us in the OT reading. It will be a great ingathering. Jesus says they will come from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south and will sit at table with Abraham in the kingdom of God.

Jesus doesn't ask us to find him, he finds us, the sinner, the lost sheep. He finds us in the washing with the clean water of baptism. The finding is repentance. Notice the reversal here: In Jesus' day, the Pharisees had the idea that repentance would bring in the kingdom. But in this parable Jesus reverses the action: the kingdom comes to us to give us repentance and faith. The Shepherd picks up the lost sheep, binds his wounds and carries him on his shoulders. That is not just a mere illustration Jesus uses. It is a theological statement about the work and salvation of Jesus. He carries you on his shoulders, just as he carried your sins on his shoulders and took them to the cross. He doesn't just walk beside us; he doesn't just lead us through life; he carries us on his shoulders. He carries our sins; our sickness, our pains; our suffering and our death. He takes the burdens off our shoulders and places them on his. He carries our loads for us; he carries us! He is not just a helper, an encourager, an example, a leader, He is the one who carries us through the wilderness, over the stones and through the thorns back to the green pastures and cool waters.

And when a lost sheep is found, there is joy and celebration in heaven over each and every one. And celebrations call for a meal, a banquet, a feast. Jesus tells of a man who made a banquet and sent his servant out to bring in the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind from the streets and alleys. Jesus tells about a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. Jesus right after this parable tells about a celebration feast a father made for his lost son who returned. And when Jesus told this parable it was because the Pharisees were complaining about him eating with sinners. So when Jesus says there is celebration in heaven, there was a celebration feast, eating and drinking.

So often in Scripture the joy of heaven is described in terms of a meal, a banquet in heaven. Holy Communion is just such a banquet where we have a foretaste of heaven itself; of fellowship with God; of communion with Jesus, eating and drinking his very body and blood. Here in this meal as we commune with Jesus our shepherd, we join him on the cross where he broke his body and poured out his blood, and we are raised with him in his resurrection. In this meal we join the banquet in heaven momentarily in fellowship with Abraham, and the prophets and those who come from the east and west and north and south, to celebrate the redemption from sin and death we have in Jesus Christ.

Today there is joy in heaven! There is celebration, over each and every one of you who believes in Jesus. This is a most loving invitation to trust that your sins are forgiven. That God loves you. No matter how far you have strayed from God. No matter how strongly you have rejected Christ or refused to believe in him, no matter what sins you have committed or how lost you are, Jesus, the Good Shepherd is seeking you and there is joy and celebration in heaven when he finds you. This is a most warm and loving invitation to you to have no fear for the Shepherd is near.

There is joy in heaven over one sheep who is found. Notice the action in our text: getting lost, searching, finding and gathering. Many are lost, some who have once even been in the church. But Jesus goes out to seek them. Jesus sends us out to find the lost. We are not to sit here waiting for them to come. We are to go out to the streets and alleys and bring in the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. There is no such thing as seeking the lost without going out into the world and into the community. And when they are found, gather them back into the flock of sheep where there shall be great rejoicing and celebration over one single soul that is found, even if that is your soul.

Amen.

And so often in the Bible the joy of this fellowship with God is depicted as a feast, a banquet of celebration. In the Gospel of Luke, our text today is set in the middle of several discourses dealing with meals and banquets. First Jesus talked about a gathering of people for the east and west and north and south to sit at the banquet table with Abraham and the prophets. Then he