Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Lost and Found, Part 11 of 78

TEXT: "So He spoke this parable to them, saying, 'What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!" I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance' " (Luke 15:3-7).

IDEA: Repentance in the parable is being found.

PURPOSE: To underline in a listener’s thinking that salvation is God’s work for us and not our work for Him.

Read again the parable that Jesus told (Luke 15:3-7).

Ask yourself, “What are the dominant themes in the story?”

Seeking a sheep that is lost—lost and found

Joy over the recovery of the sheep

Repentance

The Pharisees to whom Jesus told the story would have agreed that sinners and vile people desperately needed to repent. Here is a story based on an old Jewish legend:

Nahum of Gimso, the pious teacher, was one day driving home three asses, laden with bread and fruits, to his house of study. While he was following the beasts in the midday heat, more asleep than awake, a sick beggar, deformed with ulcers and half-dead with hunger, came up to Nahum of Gimso and asked for some food.

Nahum never refused a beggar, but the heat of the day made him lazy, and he answered crossly, “Just wait until I have found something for you.” With reluctant feet he followed the beast that had gone ahead and began bad-temperedly to grope about in the baskets that carried his goods. But while he was still feeling about aimlessly, he heard a weak and yet terribly urgent sigh. When he turned around, the beggar lay stretched out dead in the sand.

Nahum was quick now to take the bread and fruit out of the baskets, and he hurried back to the beggar. He implored the dead man to eat. He threw himself on the beggar’s ulcerated body to bring him back to life. But it was all in vain. Then Nahum cried to God and said, “Lord of the world, through my laziness a man’s life has been lost! O ease my grief and punish me. May the feet that were slow to bring help to the needy become lame, the hands that were so negligent to serve him wither up, the eyes that looked askance at his need go blind, and my body bear his illness. Lord of the world, so punish me in this life and in my body, that thou punish me not in the next life and in my soul!” From that day on Nahum was sick. His feet went lame, his hands withered, his eyes went blind, and his body was covered with sores.

Once Rabbi Akiba, his pupil, visited him, and when he saw him lying wasted in his bed sheets, he cried out for sorrow and said, “Woe is me that I must see you like this, you pious man!”

But Nahum smiled and said, “Blessed are you, Akiba, that you can see me so, for this is a sign of grace to me, that God demands my sins from me in this life and in my body, and leaves me unharmed in the next life and in my soul.” [Lineman, Jesus of the Parables, p.71]

I. What do you see from this story about how the Pharisees regarded repentance?

They took it very seriously.

They put the initiative on sinners to come home to God.

II. Look at the parable that Jesus told and see the contrast with this Jewish story on the order and the nature of repentance:

Jesus reversed the order of repentance. The rabbis saw it as the precondition for God’s grace. It was a work by which a righteous individual showed himself righteous. So little is repentance a human act to prepare the way for grace, that Jesus put it on the same level as being found.

The sheep does nothing to prompt the shepherd to start the search except to become lost.

Jesus also changes our ideas of what repentance is. In this parable, the shepherd finds the sheep. Then in the conclusion of the parable, there is reported joy over one sinner who repents. Here “being found” is equated with repentance.

We talk about “finding Christ.” He is not lost. We are.