Lent 22 (2012)–A Cause for Celebration

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:8-10, NIV).

A cause for celebration.  Is this how you view your faith in Jesus Christ?

In today’s parable, the second installment of Joy in the Lost and Found, there is a woman who lost a coin and finds it.  She calls her friends and neighbors to share her joy.  I can relate.

I remember a time when I worked at Home Depot and would go home every day for lunch.  One day, I put on my coat and headed home.  When I arrived home and was fixing my lunch, I noticed that the prong on my ring was empty.  The diamond was gone.

Now I didn’t have an engagement ring.  My husband proposed to me over a pay phone from a Munich (West) Germany post office.  He flew home and we got married and for 15 years, I had a wedding ring and I was happy.  For our 15th wedding anniversary, he bought me a ring that had a diamond on it.  By American engagement standards, he felt like something important had been left undone, so fifteen years later, he wanted to celebrate our marriage by giving me a ring.  I’m not a jewelry kind of person by nature, but this ring was special…every bit as special as my wedding ring because it was celebrating something significant.

It meant a lot.  Far beyond its material value, it represented love.

When the diamond was missing, I was brokenhearted.  I was in a panic, frantically searching the kitchen.  No diamond.  I searched the car.  No diamond.  I drove back to Home Depot with my mind fixated on one thing: finding that diamond.  I scoured the parking lot, retracing every step I’d taken.  I looked over every inch of the floor in the store where I’d walked.  I went to the greenhouse where I worked, my heart sinking as I remembered the work I’d done that morning of moving a million plants.  As I shared my sadness with my co-workers who could see that I was worried, we all began to look…and then the most wonderful thing happened.  On the floor near where I’d put on my coat, the sunlight suddenly hit the loose diamond and I saw it.  I’d found something special and valuable that had been lost.  Now every analogy falls apart, but the lesson wasn’t lost on me:

There is a Harvest of Joy in finding something of great value that had been lost. 

I celebrated.  My co-workers celebrated with me.  I confessed it to my husband at dinner and together we celebrated that it was found.

Likewise and more so, God and all the angels celebrate at what was lost being found, what was broken being restored, and what had fallen apart being reclaimed and put back in its setting by its original Owner: the image of God in every human being is very precious in God’s sight and so valuable that Jesus Christ died on the Cross to allow us to be found again, in Him.  We celebrate our being found by worshiping Him and by inviting others to celebrate with us.  Heaven and all the saints on earth reap a Harvest of Joy when one sinner repents.  It is a cause for celebration.