"Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not
light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?
And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors,
saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.'
Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one
sinner who repents." Luke 15:8-10
Twenty-five years ago Bernie
Squitieri adorned his bride, Carla, with jewelry.
Well, that may
not be entirely accurate. I know of only one bauble Squitieri gave his
beloved on that day. Still, that single wedding band was a doozie, which
cost the groom a bundle. And if you're wondering just how much a bundle
is, I can tell you Carla's ring was worth $400,000. To put that into the
parable language above, that's a lot of coins.
For a
quarter-century Carla wore that precious ring. She had every intention
of doing so for the rest of her life. And then, one recent Sunday
evening, having cleaned up the kitchen, she took off her ring and put it
on some paper towels to dry. Later, when Bernie went through the kitchen
he saw a pile of paper towels and threw them into the garbage.
On
Monday, Carla realized her ring was missing, and together they figured
out it had been tossed into the household garbage. Even worse, the
garbage, along with the ring had been picked up by the dumpster. A
frantic call was made, and the couple learned their ring was headed to a
radioactive garbage area.
The trash company was understanding and
rerouted the truck to another site. There the vehicle's contents were
dumped and the Squitieris were stuck with the nasty job of sorting
through 10 tons of stinky, smelly, unsanitary, slimy stuff to find a
small ring.
Now my question is how long would you have dug
through that dumpster's contents?-an hour? A day? A week? As long as it
took?
Unless I miss my guess, almost all of our Daily Devo folks
have picked that last option. Nobody leaves a $400,000 ring in a junk
pile. And if you didn't want to search for the ring, there are a lot of
other folks who would.
Well, folks, now you understand what Jesus
was driving at with His parable of the lost coin: make that the lost
soul. So that the lost of this world might be saved from the radioactive
fires of hell, Jesus came into this world and sacrificed His life so we
might be rescued. His third-day resurrection from the dead says there is
forgiveness and salvation for all who believe.
And now, and now
He has asked His people to seek out and try to reclaim those who are
lost. As individuals, as families, as congregations and denominations,
the Savior wants us to be the helpers of the Holy Spirit in bringing
light to those who are in darkness.
And when souls are touched by
God's gracious hand and won -- down here, as well in heaven -- there
should be great rejoicing.
Just like there was rejoicing for the
Squitieris when, after 25 minutes of digging, the 12.5-carat ring was
recovered.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, grant that I may be dedicated
in searching for all those valuable, lost souls. In the Name of Jesus I
ask it. Amen.
Pastor Ken
Klaus Lutheran Hour Ministries All rights reserved;
not to be duplicated without permission.
