Longing to be Found

by Andrew T. Le Peau

I am the all-American male. Now, I know what you’re thinking as you sit there reading this. You’re thinking, “You know, Andy, I hate to say this, but you are the all-American male.” So you’re right, but I suspect it is for the wrong reasons. You see, you’re thinking I am the all-American male because of my boyish charm and disarming good looks. But, I have to be honest, despite these and numerous other fine character qualities, that is not why I am the all-American male. The reason is that I hate to get lost.

Well, it’s not so much getting lost that is the problem. The problem is having other people know I am lost. I have a friend, whose gender shall remain undisclosed, and once she said, “I love getting lost, unless it is with Andy Le Peau.”

I have been known to drive across state lines rather than stop and ask for directions. And if I am finally forced to pull into a gas station, I do what any typical American male would do. I make my wife get out of the car and ask for help.

I fall in line with the great All-American tradition of Daniel Boone who was asked if he was ever lost in the wilds of the west. He replied, “No, I was never lost. But I was bewildered for a few days once.”

In Luke 15, Jesus tells a story about sheep getting lost. Now I’m not exactly going to compare myself to the All-American sheep . . . well, maybe I am, but in any case, just stick with me here. The story goes like this, “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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

This familiar parable is the first of a set of three that Jesus uses to combat the Pharisees’ objection to Jesus eating with sinners. This one is followed by the story of a woman who lost a coin and then the parable of the prodigal son.

In these three parables we know that Jesus offers a new vision of God. He puts forward a picture of God that is a radical departure from the legalistic keeper of accounts the Pharisees promoted. Jesus instead offers a picture of a God who gladly welcomes sinners into the household of faith, who does not require that we achieve perfection before we come into his presence. Jesus tells of a God who celebrates each one who repents.

All this we know quite well. What is perhaps less often appreciated is that in this parable Jesus also offers a radically new definition of repentance. So let’s look at it more closely. [NOTE: I am indebted to Kenneth E. Bailey, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15 (St. Louis, Concordia, 1989), pp. 54–92, for much of the analysis of Luke 15:4–7 found here, especially pp. 85–86.]

In verse 4 Jesus obliges the Pharisees to identify with the main character when he says, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them . . .” The Pharisees are shepherds of the flock of Israel, a frequent Old Testament image for a leader of the people. But they have been bad shepherds, Jesus suggests. They have committed the greatest transgression a shepherd can commit—they have lost a sheep.

Any shepherd knows that it is the nature of sheep to wander. Sheep go nibbling from one tuft of grass to another until they are out of sight and out of earshot. They are totally oblivious to their environment, unlike cats, for example, that have a hyper-awareness of their surroundings. So the shepherd is at fault here. He should have known and been prepared. At the same time the sheep is not innocent. It has in fact wandered off. Likewise the sinners are still sinners who have wandered away from God. But the leaders of Israel should have been alert to this and done something about it.

Then Jesus makes a big switch. The bad shepherd becomes the good shepherd when he takes the initiative to go in search of the one lost, probably leaving the 99 in the care of an undershepherd or in the hands of a shepherd of a neighboring flock over the next hill.

When a sheep finally comes to its senses and realizes that it is alone and lost, it typically becomes terrified. It will sit in the shade of a bush or rock, shaking and bleating in fear. When the shepherd finds it, the sheep will be in such nervous exhaustion that it won’t even be able to walk or stand. The shepherd must put the 70-pound animal on his shoulders and carry it home. The shepherd pays a price to return the sheep to safety. It is the shepherd’s sacrificial action alone that saves the sheep. In fact, in the first centuries of the church, it was this picture of the good shepherd that the church used as the primary picture of atonement rather than the cross.

So what does the shepherd do? He calls his friends and neighbors together to celebrate. Jesus spells this out in the interpretation he gives in verse 7, drawing clear parallels between the story and his meaning.

• Sinners are lost, just as the sheep is lost.
• God goes after lost sinners, just as the good shepherd goes after the lost sheep.
• There is a celebration in heaven, just as there is a celebration in the village.
• There is the sinner who repents, just as there is the sheep who . . . who does what?

Well, the sheep doesn’t seem to do anything except get lost. Does the sheep repent? Where is the repentance in the parable? Where is the parallel? What does the sheep do? Does it turn around and go back as soon as it realizes it is lost? Does it apologize? Does it promise never to get lost again? Does it offer to correct other wandering sheep? No. The sheep does nothing except get lost. So where is the repentance in the parable that Jesus seems to see?

What happens is that Jesus has created a new definition of repentance. Jesus says that repentance is not sorrow or reforming your life or performing some meritorious work. Rather Jesus says that repentance is allowing yourself to be found. It is the acceptance of being found by Jesus. Just as the shepherd pays the full price and fully accomplishes all that is needed to save the sheep, so it is with Jesus and us. Jesus accomplishes for us what we cannot accomplish for ourselves.

A couple years ago my wife Phyllis and I went to the funeral of the father of some Jewish friends of ours. It was held in a Jewish funeral parlor with 100 people or so in attendance. A Jewish cantor led the service, singing, reading the Scriptures and leading in prayer. He also preached and told a story from the Talmud, a set of Jewish commentaries on the Pentateuch that also includes legends, anecdotes, and sayings that illustrate the traditional law.

The story the cantor told was of a man who received a summons from the king. Now the man knew he had to be in some sort of difficulty, for there would be no other reason the king would call him. So, suspecting that he was in trouble, he decided he needed help. The man therefore went to his best friend and explained, “Friend, I have received a summons from the king. Will you go with me? I need your help.”

And the best friend replied, “I understand your trouble, but I am sorry, I am not able to go with you to see the king.”

The man was surprised by this response because this was, after all, his best friend, the one he had been closest to for many years. But he decided he had to accept this answer and went to his next closest friend and made the same request. “Friend, I have received a summons from the king. Will you go with me? I need your help.”

And the second friend replied, “I see the difficulty you are in. I can go with you up to the gate of the palace, but I cannot go any further with you. You will have to see the king by yourself.”

Again the man was disappointed because even though he was not as close to this second friend as he was to the first, nonetheless, this was a good friend. But the man was getting desperate, so he went to the third friend whom he really had not been as close to as the other two friends.

So he made the same request to the third friend, and the third friend replied, “My friend, I am more than happy to help you. In fact, not only will I go with you to meet the king, but I will also go to him for you. Indeed, I want you to stay here, and I will go to the king myself and plead your case to him personally, so that when you do meet him, all will be well even before you arrive.”

Now the interpretation that the Talmud offered and that the cantor repeated to those of us sitting in that funeral service was this: the summons to meet the king meant that the man was about to die and meet God to give an account of his life. The first friend represented that which was closest to the man during his life—his possessions and wealth. But they could not go with him to meet God. The second friend represented his family, who would be with him right up to death’s door. But they could not pass through to the other side with him.

“And the third friend,” the cantor began . . . Well, at this point I almost stood up and shouted with growing excitement, “I know who the third friend is! I know who the third friend is!” But at the same time I felt somewhat disoriented because I knew I was supposed to be at a Jewish funeral. I began to look around and, sure enough, I saw the Star of David, the yarmulkes on the heads of the men in front of me and other symbols of the Jewish faith. Yet who would the cantor say was the third friend?

So the cantor continued, “And the third friend represented the man’s good works, for it says in Psalm 85:13, ‘Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.’”

I have seldom been more stunned or disappointed. My Jewish friends were so close to the truth and yet so far! We know Jesus is the third friend. He is your third friend, and he is my third friend. He is the one who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He is like the shepherd who searches for and finds the lost sheep so paralyzed with terror that it cannot do a thing to save itself. When we repent, we do nothing. We only allow ourselves to be found by Jesus. Likewise when we receive our summons from the king, we can do nothing for ourselves. Jesus is the third friend who goes to the king to plead our case for us. Jesus is the third friend who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

You know, I hate being lost. After all, I’m the all-American male. But I love being found by Jesus.

—Andrew T. Le Peau is editorial director of InterVarsity Press. His wife, Phyllis, is the InterVarsity area director in Chicago West and agrees that he really does hate getting lost.

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