Only ten more days until Christmas! I hope you will continue with us until we complete the entire gospel of Luke!
Have you ever reached for your wallet to pay for those Christmas gifts and discovered your purse was empty, your wallet gone. You look around frantically. You strive to remember where you last saw it. You search near the racks of clothing where you were recently browsing. You retrace your steps to your car. Is the wallet lying on the pavement?
The lost and found department is where someone comes looking for something they need and want, like a purse or a wallet. Or a child.
Luke 15 presents the story of the Prodigal Son, a parable recorded only in the gospel of Luke. Like the lost sheep and lost coin, this parable tells us of the lost and found.
The younger son grabs his inheritance and heads off with not even a glance behind. He wastes the money and then sinks into poverty, poverty that drives him to feed pigs. At last, the son returns to his father and asks to be treated as a servant. Instead, the father welcomes him as a son. “My son who was dead has come back to life!”
How different with Jesus. Jesus also left his Father’s home, but his goal was not his own pleasure. He left heaven and came to seek and save the lost. His life started in a manger and ended at a cross. The price was high. But the love was great. And after the resurrection, his Father could say, “My son who was dead has come back to life!”
How do you feel after you find your lost wallet? Relief? Joy? How does the Lord feel when you find your way back to His home?
