Luke 15:1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." 3 So 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? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And 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.' 7 Just 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.

Have you ever lost something that deeply mattered to you? A sheep maybe? I did. Not a sheep, but a son. It happened years ago at Walt Disney World when my son Samuel was not quite three. My family and I were on our way to the next ride, when one of the costumed Walt Disney characters appeared. Samuel and I started walking over for a closer look. As is always the case when a Disney character appears, a sudden stampede of parents and children surrounded the character to get an all-coveted autograph. Samuel was right in front of me with my hand on his shoulder. Before I could even react, numerous children got between Samuel and I, separating him from me. It was like he was caught in an undertow. Then he was gone. I couldn’t see him anymore. I looked in every direction, calling his name. I started running through the crowd, thinking that he must only be a few feet away. But try as I might I couldn’t find him. He was lost! I was filled with panic and fear. My son was lost. I saw my wife and sister and yelled to them what had happened and told them to start looking, while I said a silent prayer. About two agonizing minutes later we found him, about 75 feet away from where I had lost him. I have never experienced such a feeling of relief and joy. My lost son was found.

Though it was sheer agony at the time, I now thank God for the experience of momentarily losing my son. For it gave me a lasting insight into what Jesus is trying to tell us in this parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15. When you lose someone or something that matters deeply to you, finding them becomes your primary focus, your highest priority, and your loving obsession. And when you find the lost one, there is indescribable joy and relief. Like I had for Samuel. Like the shepherd had for the lost sheep. Like Jesus does for the lost.

On the occasion which Luke 15 records, the evangelist tells us that the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. When the Pharisees and Old Testament scholars saw this, they grumbled, “This man Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The fact that Jesus welcomed such people and even entered into table fellowship with them, was proof positive that he could not be the Messiah. They were absolutely certain that the Messiah, when he arrived, would be just like them. Like them, he wouldn’t even think of contaminating himself by associating with lowly sinners. Instead, he would welcome the holy, the righteous, the worthy; those who had kept God’s Law in the strictest way. But this Jesus, he did the very opposite.

Who were “tax collectors and sinners”? The tax collectors were Jews who collected various taxes for the Romans, and for this reason, many viewed them as traitors. In addition, tax collectors had a well-deserved reputation for cheating the people by charging more taxes that the people actually owed. The sinners included all those Jews who had fallen away from the life that God commanded, by living in unrepentant sin. Because of this they likely had been expelled from the synagogue and temple and consigned to hell. Prostitutes would have been a part of this group. So would drunkards and thieves. But the category of “sinners” was much larger than that. According to the Pharisees and scribes it included anyone who violated their understanding of the Commandments. Remember that they called Jesus a “sinner” because he healed someone on the Sabbath (John 9:16; see also Mark 3:1-6).

The problem with the Pharisees and scribes is that they were blind to what was really happening on this particular day. So Jesus told the parable of the lost sheep to give them (and us) the proper perspective.

"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? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And 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.' Just 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.

What was happening was that lost sheep were being carried back to the flock by their true Shepherd. The Pharisees missed this totally. When the Pharisees looked at the sinners surrounding Jesus they saw losers. Jesus saw the lost. The Pharisees viewed them as a lost cause. Jesus viewed them as lost sheep, who once had been part of God’s flock; lost sheep that needed to be found.

The Pharisees lumped all the people around Jesus together and made no distinction. But what Jesus saw, and what filled him with joy, was that there were some among that group of sinners who had been found. They had repented of their sins and were coming to Jesus for forgiveness and new life. Lost sheep were being carried on the Shepherd’s shoulders back to the flock.

What Jesus was now doing had been prophesied in Ezekiel 34: “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Ezekiel 34:11-12). The Son of God made man, the true Shepherd of Israel was seeking and finding the loss, something that Jesus had said was his mission: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

Before Jesus had found them, the harsh legalistic teaching of the Pharisees and scribes had driven these lost sheep even further from God. The good news that Jesus preached drew them to him. For the Gospel that Jesus preached announced that every sinner could be forgiven and start anew, when they repented and turned to Jesus in faith. They were not lost causes. They were lost sheep; lost sheep that had been found by their true Shepherd Jesus; lost sheep that he had returned to the flock of Israel.

It was this that filled Jesus and heaven with unsurpassing joy: “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Jesus was saying to the Pharisees, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” But these leaders of Israel were blind to this joy; from their perspective, even if it were possible for such lost causes to repent, which was highly unlikely, they must do it in the proper way by going to the temple and synagogue.

I talked earlier about who the lost sheep in Jesus’ day were. Who are the lost sheep today?

When we speak about people who are “lost” we often have in mind people whose entire lives have been so consumed by some addiction that they have lost everything; addictions such as drugs and alcohol, gambling, sex or something else. Or we think of those poor souls who, because of mental illness, have lost their minds, they have lost the ability to reason, or remember. Or we think of those people, who, because of some tragedy or loss in their lives, have had a break down, and end up on the streets, or sleep in alleys. But these are extreme cases.

We also speak of people who have lost their way. People who through a series of bad decisions have ended up in a place in life that has strained relationships or separated them from their loved ones.

But from God’s perspective, who are the lost sheep today? Two passages from God’s Word are helpful. Isaiah declares in chapter 53 of his prophesy: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). And the psalmist confesses in Psalm 119, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant” (Psalm 119:176).

These passages tell us that lost sheep are those who at one time were in fellowship with the flock, the Christian Church, but then wandered away. This should come as no surprise. For because of our sinful flesh, we are prone to go astray and stubbornly go our own way. There are so many things that cause one-time church goers to wander away. Sometimes, they become offended by someone in the church, and refuse to return. Or they have truly been hurt by a fellow Christian, whether Pastor or parishioner, and they leave. Still others wander away from their Shepherd because of some tragedy, loss, or adversity in their lives. This leads them to become disillusioned with God or angry at him, and they look for greener pastures. Others become hoodwinked by false religion or theology and they leave the true flock for another world religion or an antichristian cult. For still others, it a very gradual thing that can’t be traced to any one thing. Perhaps they miss a Sunday, then another, and another, and before they know it they have fallen out of the habit or regularly hearing the Word and receiving the Sacrament. Like a sheep who absent-mindedly wanders away little by little until he is far from the flock, so are these folks.

Yet there are many more who have never known Jesus Christ as Savior. If we believe God’s revelation in Scripture, and we do, these also are lost sheep. The same Greek word [apollumi] that is translated here in Luke 15 as “lost” is translated elsewhere as “perish.” For example, John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Yet John 3:16 could just as easily be translated, “that whoever believes in him should not be lost but have eternal life.” When Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:18 writes, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing,” it could just as easily be translated, “the word of the cross is folly to those who are lost.” Such unbelievers who have never known the Gospel were born into this world “lost.” They also need to be found.

To all such lost sheep, I have a message for you. Jesus has been searching for you. It grieves and saddens him that you have become lost, separated from him by your sin. You are the primary focus of his love; his highest priority; his obsession. You are the one lost sheep, and he is willing to leave all others until he finds you. You matter that much to him. He fears for you, for you are incredibly vulnerable to dangers that you do not even see, vulnerable to predators, the kind of which you have never known, and you would never wish to know. Jesus is looking for you, calling for you, so that he might find you, and rescue you, and return you to the flock. The church is his flock.

Just as I was filled with heart-wrenching emotion when I had lost my son, so that nothing else mattered until I found him. That is how Jesus feels about you. So that you might return to his flock this Shepherd has sacrificed everything, even his own life. Listen again to Isaiah 53: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And to those who have been found, Peter writes, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25).

Everyone who repents and believes this good news is found and returned to the flock. To repent means to admit one’s sinfulness and to turn from that sin; to believe means to believe that through Jesus Christ crucified all sins are forgiven and eternal life given as a free gift.

There is one more crucial point about the Parable of the Lost Sheep that we dare not miss. That point is this: The shepherd found the lost sheep. The lost sheep did not find the shepherd. The lost sheep was not able to find his way back. Everything depended on the searching of the shepherd. In the same way, Jesus finds lost sheep. Lost sheep do not find Jesus. They are not able. Everything depends on Jesus who is seeking the sheep. Even when someone considers himself a seeker and is thinking about returning to church, it is only because Jesus has first sought out the sheep. As God says in Isaiah 65:1, “"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me.” It is all by his grace.

How does Jesus seek and find lost sheep today? Through the Gospel, the good news of forgiveness and salvation through the cross of Christ. It is that Gospel that drew the lost sheep of Jesus day out of the woodwork. For in that message they heard love and hope. It is the same Gospel that Jesus works through today to find the lost and draw them to him.

That Gospel comes primarily through the preaching office of the Pastor. But it also comes through the Sacraments, the Liturgy, absolution, hymns, the reading of Scripture, and the counsel and conversation of fellow Christians. The bottom line is this. Christ has chosen to seek the lost sheep through His Church, through you and I, the ninety-nine righteous. When we bring people to church, share our faith with them, or direct them to a place where they can hear or read the Gospel, Christ is seeking his lost sheep. And if finding the one lost sheep is Jesus’ obsession, shouldn’t it be ours?

Nothing makes heaven happier than finding the lost: “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” What Christian would not want to contribute to heaven’s joy! As it is written at the very end of James’ epistle: “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20). What could possibly be better than that?

By God’s grace we have been found and carried back the flock. May we not hinder Jesus in anyway, but rather be instruments of grace as He seeks the lost sheep. For they are his obsession and heaven’s great joy. Amen.

Pastor Richard Bucher, Th.D
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
Lexington, KY