“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’ In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:8-10)
I’m sure that we’ve all lost a bit of change before. Imagine if we were missing a nickel from our pocket. Perhaps we’d be willing to make a quick scan with our eyes across the floor of a room to look for it. Or maybe we’d be willing to lift up a cushion or two in order to see if the nickel was hiding somewhere inside of our couch. But surely we wouldn’t go to the lengths that the woman in the parable went in order to find her single missing coin?
Would we stay up late at night? Would we lose sleep over a nickel? That’s what the woman in the parable did. She lit a lamp in order to search for her lost coin.Would we rearrange the furniture and go on a cleaning spree in order to find some change? That’s what the woman in the parable was willing to do. She swept her whole house as she looked for a single coin.nWe can imagine this woman lowering herself down to the ground, on her hands and knees, as she searched for her lost coin in every nook and cranny of her home.
Moreover, if we happened to find that one piece of change, would we call all of our closest friends and family to let them know about it? Would we ring the doorbells of our neighbor’s homes so that we could let them know that we found a single lost coin? Would we throw a party, inviting people to rejoice and celebrate with us? I’ve been to all kinds of parties throughout my life, but I’ve never been to a party that was being hosted because somebody found some lost change.
In this parable Jesus asks the question, “What woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?”
The answer is, “No woman would do that!”
No human being would care enough to go through all of that trouble to recover a single lost coin.
But God would, and He did, and He continues to do so.
Among other things, this parable shows us how much God loves us. His love is so great that it seems crazy. In His love for us He searches tirelessly and goes to great lengths in order to reclaim lost souls.
To find and save sinners, Jesus was willing to lose sleep. “In those days he departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:12) He stayed up late not only to pray that God’s saving plan be accomplished, as in the Garden of Gethsemane, but also to heal the sick and suffering. “When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.” (Mark 1:32) In other instances, Jesus woke up early to pray and was anxious to do the will of the Father throughout the whole of Galilee, “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed…. Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” (Mark 1:35, 38)
Like the woman in the parable, who we can imagine lowered herself to the ground as she searched for some lost change. In the person of Jesus Christ, God lowered himself, became man, and swept practically every corner of Israel in order to find and save sinners.A single sinner that seems to be valueless in the eyes of the world, is immeasurably valuable in the eyes of God. To this day His Catholic Church continues to sweep every corner of the globe to proclaim the good news of the Gospel and encourage sinners to return to communion with their Father. And just as the parable explains, those who are friends and neighbors of God rejoice whenever a single person who was lost is found.
