Sermon Notes

15 3 So he told them this parable: 4 “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
5 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9 Much more surely, therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue)
15 3-7 Their grumbling triggered this story. “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
5 6-8 Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. 9-10 Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! (The Message, MSG)

This week’s lesson explores Jesus as Christ the Savior through the Gospel of Luke and Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Luke views Jesus as the one who reached out to the lost, forgotten, and dispossessed. Paul sees Jesus as the one who not only reached out, but also reached in—meaning Jesus stepped forward to put his life on the line before humanity was even ready to receive that kind of sacrificial love. By viewing Jesus as the only person who was qualified to reach out and reach in as the ultimate expression of God’s love, Christians witness God at work in the flesh—which is not only appropriate, but is also redemptive, as we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent this week.

The Gospel of Luke, like all New Testament literature, emanates from a historical context of imperial rule. The 1st century CE Christians to whom the writer known as “Luke” addresses are subjects within the Roman Empire. His intended audience would have participated in the Roman economy as people who were the lower working-class stratus of society. They were more likely to be the “have nots” instead of “haves.” Due to living within complex societal structures which protected the “haves”—kings, governors, local political elites and their co-conspirators (like the religious and priestly leaders, judges, tax collectors)—most “have nots” existed on the margins of society.
In Luke 15, the Pharisees and Scribes speak against Jesus’ practice of associating with people who live on the margins of society. Jesus uses their accusations as a teaching opportunity. He tells three parables—the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost or prodigal son—that explore a scenario where something is lost and then found. The first two parables deal with certain “lost” items, the third parable deals with a lost person. However, all three parables are essentially about lost people. Luke employs the lost sheep and the lost coin as metaphors to instruct the disciples on how they should fastidiously look for persons who find themselves lost. It is important to note that in all of the parables, it is lostness—not sinfulness—that is stressed. Luke encourages followers of Jesus to rejoice over seeking and finding even “one lost soul.”
The Letter to the Romans is the longest of Paul’s undisputed letters and the latest. It was written around 55 CE while Paul was in Corinth, and it is addressed to the Church in Rome, the capital city of the Roman Empire. Adapting Greco-Roman conventions of letter writing—the Hellenistic Diatribe—Paul writes to explain why Jesus matters in the story of God’s redemption of humanity. Although Romans is the last of Paul’s undisputed letters, it is not a systematic presentation of Paul’s theology. In fact, the occasion for his writing is to persuade the Roman Church to financially support his apostolic mission to Spain. He writes to introduce himself, present his apostolic resume, and announce Phoebe—an invaluable deacon who is his right hand person and trusted advance agent. While introducing himself to Roman Christians, Paul outlines the core of the gospel (euangelion in Greek) as Jesus—the promised Messiah—fulfilling God’s plan to save the world. Like all New Testament literature, Israel’s scriptures (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) are the textual and theological grounding for Paul’s imagery and ideas in Romans.
In Romans 5, Paul speaks of justification as the righteousness of God received through Jesus the Son. For Paul, justification is being “reconciled with God” and having “peace with God” through faith in Jesus who died on behalf of all sinful humans. In the 1st century CE socio-political context of the “Pax Romana,” having peace with God, as opposed to the Emperor of Rome, would have been a revolutionary notion that decidedly undercut Roman imperial authority. According to Paul, justification is the basis and the beginning of God’s blessings for the believer. This means that our salvation is an act of God and not of people. We can’t start it, maintain it, or cause it to cease. Because Jesus died in the place of sinful humanity, God saves and blesses everyone who believes in Jesus Christ.

15 3-7 Their grumbling triggered this story. “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
In the opening verses of the first half of the lesson text, Jesus responds to Pharisees and Scribes who are complaining that Jesus spends too much time hanging with “sinners.” In his narrative teaching style, Jesus directs his critics’ attention to their own attitudes and actions through a parable about a lost sheep. Which one of them, he posits, if they owned 100 sheep, would not leave the 99 to search for but one lost sheep? After a diligent search, wouldn’t they rejoice over finding the one lost sheep? Wouldn’t they tenderly put the sheep on their shoulders, lovingly carrying it back to the fold, rather than scolding it all the way? And wouldn’t they invite their friends and neighbors over to celebrate the finding of the one lost sheep?
Jesus’ parable assumes that everyone, including the Pharisees and Scribes, would respond to losing and finding the “one lost sheep” with thanksgiving and celebration. Then Jesus gets to the crux of the matter and his point in telling the parable. All of heaven rejoices over the repentance of one lost sinner; even more so than the 99 “righteous” who didn’t need a rescue in the first place. This parable reveals a number of things we should consider.
• Sinfulness is not stressed (in going astray, getting lost), but the state of lostness.
• The owner takes the initiative, diligently and persistently seeking the lost.
• The owner rejoices and invites and expects his neighbors to do likewise.
• It is not a person who is lost, but things, and it is a person that diligently seeks to find what is lost.
• The parable is not primarily intended as a picture of God’s seeking after lost people, but of people seeking after “lost” things.
This parable, coupled with the parable of the lost coin, speak of people being excited to search for and find lost possessions, but not lost people. The Pharisees were “lovers of money” and they had no problem leaving 99 sheep to seek one lost sheep, or to turning the house upside-down to find one lost coin. But they would not do the same for a “lost” person.
Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ encounter with these hypocritical religious leaders makes it clear that the Church must be about finding lost people at any cost. We must redeem those whom societal elites consider to be the “others,” deplorables, those beyond help, and those who are unable of repentance because they are sinners. In fact, the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin does not factor in sin at all. This is the crux of the Gospel. Jesus—as God the Son—was about the work of reaching out, searching for, and rescuing those the establishment thought were not worthy of redemption or salvation.
5 6-8 Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. 9-10 Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!
In the verses of the second half of the lesson text, the lesson shifts from Jesus’ consideration with finding lost people regardless of their sin—remember this was the concern of the Pharisees and Scribes—to Paul’s assertions concerning the nature of human sin, and its lack of relevance on salvation. Why is sin not relevant to salvation? Because, Christ the Son has justified us in the eyes of God.
In verses 6-8, Paul says we don’t need to be convinced to rejoice in times of peace and prosperity. We should trust in what God has done with us based upon our justification. In the NRSVue translation, this verse is familiarly translated, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” In the verses immediately preceding the printed lesson text, Paul reminds us that trouble develops our character. Here, he affirms that trouble also reminds us of God’s character, bringing assurance that our hope in Christ will neither disappoint nor fail. Our hope is specifically backed by the love of God. God’s love was “poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (verse 5 in NRSVue) at the time of our justification by faith.
As we reflect on God’s great act of love—our justification—Paul urges us to consider the “timing” of this act. When we were helpless, ungodly, and “of no use whatever to God,” God in Christ loved us “while we were sinners,” while we were worthy only of eternal Divine wrath. Now we begin to comprehend how the love of God was dramatically displayed in our justification. And that same love assures us of the hope we have in God’s future promises being fulfilled.
In verses 9-10, Paul says if God demonstrated Divine love for us while we were still sinners, then we don’t have to be concerned about being at odds with God anymore. We have been eternally reconciled with God through justification as the result of the redemptive work of Christ—“by means of this sacrificial death.” Paul stresses that our justification originates with God, as a demonstration of Divine love. Our Christian theology affirms that which God did for us—making right all of humanity’s wrong, that’s what justification is—was at the cost of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. This is an enduring belief of the Church! God’s wrath has been satisfied, the penalty for sin has been paid, and we no longer need to fear Divine condemnation.
Instead, Christians are released to experience the freedom of being able to boldly approach God in right relationship. If our sin and God’s righteousness previously caused us to avoid God, now, we no longer have to duck in the shadows because Jesus removed is this fear at Calvary. Further, justification produced peace with God and produces the peace of God. That is a wondrous gift to consider, reflect, and ponder upon during this season of Advent. God wrapped God’s self in flesh, and came as Christ the Son to bring peace and goodwill to all of humanity—not only through a manger, but also through an old rugged cross.

i. Gale A. Yee. Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set ( Kindle Edition), 2891.