Reading Luke 15, I felt sorta unsettled. They're famous parables of people finding one lost sheep, a silver coin, a long-lost son. I know they're causes for celebration and joy, to find something you thought you have lost, to have someone return to you, I understand those sentiments, really I do.
But what about the other 99 obedient sheeps? The other 9 silver coins that did not cause the woman any sleepless nights? The other son who had been by the father's side, working for him tirelessly? If anything, these sheeps, the other son, should receive more appreciation and love than the wandering sheep or the prodigal son, innit? One would think so at first...
Which is why I found the parables slightly disconcerting. So our Father in heaven will love the lost ones most, and take the other faithful followers for granted? So in order to get more attention from God, we hafta be bad? It's just like a family with lots of children, really - with so many other competition for the parents' affections, one has to be different, rebellious even, to receive a tad bit more than the rest.
Then I realize I had been looking at it the way this world has shaped our minds to think - that we hafta work for love, and more acutely, that we hafta think about ourselves, our own benefits first, before anything else - even something as important as somebody else's life. Consumed by our own needs and wants, we have become blind to the bigger picture, the grander plan at work through God's hands.
Yes, getting back that one lost sheep will be more triumphant and joyous than all the 99 obedient sheeps combined - 'I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent' Luke 15:7 - but why should that be a troubling thought? When we are truly one with Jesus, his joy will be ours, and so will ours be his. Our goals would be the same as the Lord's - to bring people to the light of Christ, and to worship him all the days of our lives through words
and actions.
"My son," the father said, "you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we have to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." - Luke 15:31
Besides, it only further illustrates the face that every single person in this world is precious in God's eyes; even one out of a hundred is one too many to be left lost in the woods. And who in this world has not been inflicted by sin, has not been lost at least once in their lives?
All of a sudden, Luke 15 does not quite bother me anymore. =)
