Three and a Half Stories - The Lost Sheep

 In Luke 15:4-7 Jesus relates the story of the lost sheep. In a room above our piano we have a Nathan Green giclée that depicts this iconic story and shows the ruggedly handsome Jesus carrying a black-faced sheep. I love it!

But have you ever thought about how a sheep gets lost? Now sheep aren’t the world’s smartest animals. They tend to pretty much follow other sheep. Their main avocation is eating.

Here’s a sheep munching grass. Yum! Oh there’s another juicy bunch behind that bush. Nibble nibble. Yum! Hey, there’s another tasty looking patch over there. Amble amble, nibble nibble. Um! Ooh, even better over there. Yowza!

And step by step, nibble by nibble the sheep takes a zig zag path away from the flock and the shepherd until, at some, point, he looks up, looks around, and says, “Hey, where is everyone?” and he realizes that he is lost. Being lost in a Middle East desert is life-threatening. He will starve or be eaten. 

Note that the sheep had absolutely no intention of getting lost; it just happened. Step by step, he wandered away.

Sound familiar to anyone?

How does Jesus illustrate God’s reaction? The shepherd searches and searches and keeps searching for that one lost sheep until he finds it. He picks it up across his shoulders and carries it back to safety. Then he throws a BIG party! Time to celebrate finding his sheep.  

Jesus concludes this story by pointing out the joy in heaven that happens when one person realizes that they are lost and wants to come home.  And, there's the gentle poke at the "righteous" that there's more celebration over the return of the one lost sheep than ...

What struck me about this story is how it is God who pursues the lost sheep. If I’ve wandered away from God, I just have to let God know that I know that I’m lost and He comes to find me.

Next up: The Lost Coin