Summary
What Joy
Two simple words—what joy—can carry two very different meanings depending on the inflection placed upon them. Spoken with wonder, they are the cry of a heart that has found what was lost. Spoken with a sneer, they are the grumble of one who resents that mercy has been shown to the unworthy. The three parables of Luke 15—the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son—turn on precisely this difference.
The setting tells us why. The tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to listen to Jesus, while the Pharisees and scribes grumbled, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them" Luke 15:1-2. To associate with such people, much less to share a table with them, was considered defiling. Yet Jesus does both. These three stories are sometimes called the parables of the outcast, and they sound very different in the ears of the outcast than in the ears of the self-righteous.
A shepherd with a hundred sheep loses one and leaves the ninety-nine in the open country—not abandoned, but in the care of fellow shepherds—until he finds the one and lays it on his shoulders. A woman who has lost a single silver drachma (a day's wage, very likely one coin from the ten-coin headpiece given as her dowry, her family's emergency provision) lights a lamp and sweeps every corner until she finds it. In each case, the finder is not content to celebrate quietly. The shepherd calls his friends and neighbors; the woman calls hers. Rejoice with me, for I have found what was lost. And Jesus draws the line straight through to heaven: there is more joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Luke 15:7, Luke 15:10).
The third parable adds a second voice. The younger son squanders his inheritance, comes to his senses, and rehearses an apology—but the father sees him while he is still far off, runs to him, and embraces him before a word can be spoken. A celebration is thrown. Then the elder brother comes home and refuses to enter. He has served, he says, like a slave; he has never disobeyed; and yet this son of yours is welcomed home with a feast. The father pleads with him: "We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found" Luke 15:32. The celebration was not optional. It was necessary.
Hear the parables, then, with the ear of the outcast sinner. We are the sheep that wandered—"All we like sheep have gone astray" Isaiah 53:6, and yet, as Peter writes, we have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls 1 Peter 2:25. We are the coin, unable even to seek our keeper, lifeless until found. We are the son, presuming to bargain for hired-servant status while the Father is already running. In every parable the initiative is His. Christ is the Good Shepherd who carries the burden of our sin on His shoulders. Christ is the seeker who lights the lamp of the gospel and leaves no corner unsearched. Christ is the Father who runs and embraces and clothes us in forgiveness before we can finish our speech. And heaven rejoices: what joy!
But hear them also with the ear of the Pharisee, the elder brother. The same words can curdle into resentment: what joy—said with a scowl—that this sinner should be forgiven, that this one should be welcomed, that the Father should spend His grace so freely. The danger of the disciple is to forget that we, too, were once outcasts, and that the ninety-nine are not abandoned but kept in the tender care of the church—Christ's body, where Word and Sacrament, prayer and the fellowship of the saints sustain us until the day we stand together in the presence of the angels. There, in heaven, there is no sorrow, no tears, only rejoicing—because all who have been lost have been found, and together we will say, with one voice, what joy.
Video citations
- "What Joy" 3-22-26 — If you would please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, the 15th chapter. If you're using a Pue edition of the Bible, this can be found on page 67 in the New Testament. We're in the Gospel of…