In Luke’s gospel Jesus tells three stories to describe how God searches for us, we read the first two. First there’s the story of the lost sheep, then secondly, there’s the lost coin, (those are the ones we read), then there’s a third one that we didn’t read—the story about the lost son. In all three stories, Jesus paints a picture where the focus is on the searcher.

We are encouraged to imagine the shepherd searching diligently up hill and down till he finds the lost sheep. The woman who lost a coin gets out a lamp and starts looking in all the dark corners, you can imagine her moving the furniture, her eyes peeled. And then in the story of the Prodigal Son, the father sees the son while he is still a long way off. The father always has an eye on the road, hoping for his son to return. Jesus tells us that all three stories are about how God rejoices when we are found.

Because Jesus tells us the focus is on the searcher, it’s sort of ironic that…