The Search of Love.
Three parables stand together in this chapter. The occasion of all is one and the same the murmuring of scribes and Pharisees against the Saviour, who would eat with sinners. And the general drift of all is the same the feeling of God towards repentant sinners, illustrated by man's feeling towards a possession lost and found. Thus far there is unity there is even identity in the three. But no two parables of our Lord are really identical, however like may be the incidents of one to those of another. And so it is here. There is a climax natural and real in the three losses in this chapter. In the first parable the owner of a hundred sheep loses one of them; in the second the owner of ten pieces of silver loses one of them; in the third the father of two sons loses one of them. Now, the second lost thing, though it is less valuable than the first, is to the owner more so. The third is a loss different in kind, and appealing yet more forcibly to the understanding and heart of mankind. There is a climax also in the thing signified. The sheep has strayed in its ignorance from the flock and the pasture. The son exiles himself of self-will and rebelliousness from the home and from the father. Between these two extremes of mere simplicity and utter wilfulness lies the insensate unconciousness of the lost coin.
I. The woman who has lost one of the ten pieces cannot acquiesce and rest in her loss. Little in itself, to her it is vital. She waits not for the light of day, but discovering her loss at night, by night she sets herself to repair it. She lights the lamp, sweeps the house, and seeks diligently till she finds it. It is a parable of the love of God. God represents Himself as missing one soul. Little is that soul in itself to the great God. But God would show to us that each one is precious. Each one was separately created; each one has a place designed for it in the universal temple; each one not filling that place leaves a blank. The eye of love misses it, and therefore the hand of love seeks it.
II. The parable goes on to speak of a sweeping. I know it is a homely figure too homely, perhaps, for some tastes beneath the dignity, some might say, of the pulpit; only that here Christ has gone before, has written it in His Book, and given it to me for a text. And how wonderful, however homely, is this figure! The love of God first lights up in the world this lamp of revelation, telling man what man could not know; for no man hath ascended up to heaven to read there, in the light of that world, the things that were and that are and that shall be. First this, the remembering that this light will never fall of itself upon the lost coin, the very loss of which lies in its being out of sight of the man himself. Then, secondly, the love of God sweeps sweeps, I say, the house, which is the man. You suffered the dust of earth to lie thick upon you perhaps the amiable dust of kindly sentiment, of satisfied affection; or perhaps the ugly dust of eager grasping, of predominant self, of overmastering passion; and so, evading the illumination, you necessitated the sweeping. It was the love of God still.
III. The love of God will seek diligently till it find. Marvellous word! Record at once of difficulty and perseverance. How much is repaired ere the finding be accomplished! To find the lost soul is not easy. The whole work of sanctification is wrapped up in it. Every thought has to be brought into captivity; every motive has to be elevated. Objects indifferent once, or distasteful, are to be made the aim of the life; and that holiness, which to fallen man is repugnant, must be cultivated for a purpose to fallen man repulsive that he may at last see God. This is the meaning of that diligent search by which love at last shall find; for without success love cannot live. Love cannot sleep till its object be accomplished. No toil is too great, may she but attain.
C. J. Vaughan, Penny Pulpit,new series, No. 832.
References: Luke 15:8. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 352; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity,part i., p. 84; Expository Sermons on the New Testament,p. 86.