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8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” ~ Luke 15:8-10
The theme of Luke 15 is the joy that a repentant sinner brings to God. Mother Teresa once wisely said, "A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love.” In addition, Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, "When the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in streams, and so soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure that it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart.”
In today's text the Lord Jesus places the spotlight on a women who, in their culture, was not respected. In fact, in the Middle Eastern culture, it was an insult to compare a male audience to a woman. Here again, the Lord Jesus confronts the pride of the "religious leaders" and teaches us a little more about His grace-filled culture.
This second parable in Luke 15 has the same theme as the other two: lost, sought, found, celebrated. In v.8 we read, "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?"
These first two parables of Luke 15 shows us what it means to be lost. To be lost means being out of place. Sheep belong with the flock, coins belong on the necklace, and lost sinners belong in fellowship with God. But to be lost also means being out of service. A lost sheep is of no value to the shepherd, a lost coin has no value to the owner, and a lost sinner cannot experience the enriching fulfillment God has for him in Jesus Christ.
Imagine we are in a little house in a little village in Israel. It has four walls, a low doorway, and no windows. The floors are made of dirt, and they are hard and dusty. There is a woman in this little house and she's lost one of her ten silver coins. These coins are made of just over four grams of silver. The Greeks called them a drachma, the Romans called them a denarius, worth a day's wage.
In those days women were given a dowry by their father. On occasion their husband would even give them a dowry, which would act as a security for their future. The women would put a hole in each coin and put them on a silver necklace which they would put around their neck.
As the story goes, the woman loses one coin, she lights the lamp, sweeps the house, searches carefully until she finds it. It's value to the woman energizes the search. It is more than sentimental value, it could be all she has if she were left alone. So, she searched carefully, diligently. She reached with her broom into every corner of the house. She moved everything and looked in every crack by her light. And she kept doing this until it was found.
To be “found” means that you are back in place, back in service, and out of danger. No wonder the shepherd and the woman rejoiced and invited their friends to rejoice with them!
In v.9 we read, “And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin." Finding the lost coin motivates the woman to celebrate. Here, the word “friends,” and the word “neighbors,” are used. She calls her lady friends. Men stayed with men in that culture and women with women. They were very close in the little village. They all knew each other. Everybody's suffering would be everybody's suffering and everybody's joy would be everybody's joy.
In v.10 we read, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The Lord Jesus was reaching out to obvious sinners because this is what brings joy to God. He gets no joy out of the ninety-nine self-righteous people. His joy is in the recovery of a repenting sinner, the type of people with whom these "righteous" religious leaders did not associate.
Let's consider the words, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.” Where the angels are, there is joy and the angels are in the presence of God. So, there is joy in the presence of God. The joy, however, is coming, first of all from God, He is the one in view in v.7 where we are told there is "joy in Heaven." It's the joy of God that fills heaven.
I find it instructive that God doesn't mind being compared to a woman. It is God in Christ who is the woman seeking the lost sinner hidden in the cracks, in the dust, in the debris of a dirty world of sin. It is God in Christ who initiated the search for us. And, God in Christ, died an awful death to redeem us back to Himself. This creates the greatest joy in God and in us, those who have been found.
