Gospel Meditation

Luke 15:1–10

Parable of the Lost Coin

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture. From memory, determine the central points.

1.         Here are the first two of three parables having to do with something lost, now the lost sheep and the lost coin. Next week’s meditation will focus on the third, the lost son, which is by far the longest of the three.

2.         Jesus is motivated to present the parables because the religious types caught Him spending time with tax collectors (the worst of the worst) and other various sorts of sinners, and they “grumbled” about it, likely saying unkind things about a man who did not keep himself from such unclean people.

3.         First the lost sheep. Only one sheep out of one hundred is lost yet the owner seeks after that sheep until it is found, then he puts the lame sheep over his shoulders and takes it home, whereupon the shepard rejoices in the find and makes it know to his neighbors.

4.         Then a woman loses a coin, a drachma or denarius, worth a day’s wages, thus, not much money. But it would seem the woman is poor, she needs to light a lamp (poor people’s homes often would have no windows or only a small one) and she searches diligently for the coin and finds it.

5.         Upon the finding of the lost coin, she lets all her friends and neighbors know of the joyous event.

6.         Coming up then next week is the parable about a lost son.