3.17 The Lost Piece of Money
XVII. THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.
Luke 15:8 - Luke 15:10. This parable was spoken on the same occasion as that of the Lost Sheep (see p. 76). A woman whose fortune consisted of ten 180 THE PARABLES OF JESUS drachmas (each worth about a franc of modern money) loses one of them. Insignificant as the loss is in itself, it is not so to her. She is convinced that the coin must be still in the house, but in what particular part of it she knows not. In Palestine the houses of the poor have either very small windows or none at all, in consequence of which their interior is obscure. She therefore lights a lamp, and sweeps the house, and searches diligently until she finds it. And when she has found it, her joy is too great to be kept to herself, and so she calls together her female friends and neigh bours, and invites them to share in her joy at finding the coin which she had lost. “ Even so,” adds Jesus, “ there shall be joy before the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”
Jesus closes this parable and that of the Lost Sheep with similar words, in which He confines Himself to indicating one point in their teaching namely, the joy felt in heaven at the repentance of even one sinner. This point, however, by no means exhausts the teaching of these parables. The great lesson which they convey, though they do not formally THE PARABLES OF JESUS 181 state it, is the value of the soul. The joy which we feel at finding sftmething which we had lost is an index to our sense of its value; the greater our joy at its recovery, the greater, also, is the value which we set upon it; and no one would experience any joy from the recovery of an object lost, if it was worthless in his eyes. The joy, therefore, of the blessed spirits who stand before the throne of God in heaven, over one sinner who repents, is at once an evidence of their sense of the value of the soul, and at the same time a sufficient justification of the efforts made by Jesus to save those souls which had gone astray. The Pharisees looked down haughtily and disdain fully upon publicans and sinners. It was nothing to them that men made after the image and likeness of God were ready to perish; like Cain, they disclaimed all responsibility for their brethren if, indeed, they would deign to regard such men as their brethren; and they viewed with an evil eye the condescension of Jesus towards the objects of their contempt and abhorrence. On the contrary, the love of Our Lord for sinners was based on His knowledge of the 182 THE PARABLES OF JESUS worth of the individual soul, a knowledge shared by the angels in heaven, who rejoice as often as a sinner turns from the error of his way.
TAGS: [Parables]