From our Pastor
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Search for Lost Sheep
Luke 15:1-10, 1 Timothy 1:12-17 September 15/16, 2007
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“Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.” The Bible tells me over and over again how God loves me. It tells it in very different ways. It says it boldly, clearly, repeatedly. God loves me, and all people. Jesus is the good shepherd who loves his sheep, all his sheep. “God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” The Bible makes it clear that Jesus died to pay for the sins of the whole world.
Jesus loves his sheep, all his sheep, even his wandering sheep. Do his sheep ever wander! We hear about a husband who decides he’s done with his wife. He’s interested in greener pastures. So he leaves her and their young children, and makes life very hard for them. How could God love someone like that? A man murders in cold blood. We hear about it so often, we can become numb to the news. Is that even news any more? Could God possibly love a cold-blooded murderer? Could God stomach someone who kills again and again, or someone who kills his own family, or kills his former girlfriend and her new boyfriend? Certainly God does not love such people, we think. Does God love people who live perverted lives, proudly living as homosexuals and promoting such a life style to others, demanding that children be taught that there’s nothing wrong with what they do? When people have done such terrible things, how could God possibly love people like that?
Jesus loves his sheep. He loves all his sheep. He even loves his sheep who have wandered away from him. Jesus loves homosexuals and murderers and people who run out on their spouses and children. Jesus loves them so much; he even goes searching for them. Can you imagine that? Isn’t that backwards? When they’ve done something wrong, they should come crawling back to God asking for forgiveness. But God goes searching for them!
It’s like a 19-year-old child who has been not only disrespectful of his parents, but also openly rebellious, flaunting the house rules, living contrary to his parents will. He insults his parents, mocks them and leaves. Should the parents go running after their adult son and apologize for making the rules too hard? Or should the adult son come back and ask for forgiveness? Obviously the latter. But that doesn’t always happen.
But there’s something else that can happen. What if the parents go after their son and reassure him of their love while insisting that he be respectful of them and follow house rules? Jesus still loves his lost children who have been disobedient, dishonoring even. He even goes searching for them. Jesus will not apologize for his rules. They are good rules. Jesus’ commandments are all about loving God and loving one another. Jesus goes to find his disobedient children to reassure them of his love; to tell them how dearly he wants to forgive them; to encourage them to confess their sins so that they can be reconciled.
That’s the kind of thing Jesus has in mind when the Pharisees and scribes are grumbling about Jesus hanging around with criminals, with lowlifes. Jesus is spending times with tax collectors and sinners. It’s the riff raff. Jesus is hanging out with criminals, with outcasts from polite society. These are the very worst of people. If you want to get ahead in the church, say the religious leaders, you can’t be associating with the likes of these horrible people! You surely can’t be sitting down and having a meal with them, of all things. In response Jesus talks about how any one of them, if they lost one sheep out of their flock, would go searching for his lost sheep until he found it. And when he found it, he would celebrate for all he’s worth. Same thing goes for a woman who loses one of her ten coins. She would tear the house apart looking for that coin. And when she finds it, she’d celebrate.
That’s how it is, but even more so, for Jesus. He is the good shepherd who loves his sheep so dearly, that he goes searching for his sheep. He goes looking for lost people, who have wandered far away. That’s how much he loves all his people. Every one of them. And that is good news to me. Because that means that Jesus comes searching for me. He looks for me, even when I have wandered away. St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:15 that “Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I’m the worst.” Paul had blasphemed and persecuted the church of God. He was terrible. He realized how great God’s free gift of forgiveness was for him.
Each of us needs to come to that understanding that I’m the worst, the most horrible. I’ve abandoned God. I’ve lived contrary to God’s will. When each of us comes to the realization that I’m the worst of sinners, then when we come to understand that God could love someone like me, then we can understand how God could love other horrible sinners, too. When we understand how horrible our sins are, we begin to understand God’s great love for us, love enough to come searching for us, love enough to die for us, when we were yet sinners.
There are many lost sheep, lost lambs, who are far away from the Lord. Some don’t even want to have anything to do with God. Because God loves them, he will be searching for them. God will do his search though you and me. We’re the ones God calls to bring his good news of love and forgiveness to those despicable people who have turned away from God. They are no worse than us. We’re all sinners. God loves them as much as God loves us. And God wants us to search.
Search for lost sheep who have strayed from God. That means, search for terrible sinners. Tell them the good news that Jesus has paid for all their sins. Tell them that Jesus is searching for them and loves them deeply. Love people to Jesus.
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Mount Olive Lutheran Church
2001 N. Alpine Rd. Rockford, IL 61107
815/399-3171
Pastor Ken Krause
kkrause@mtolivelutheran.com