Lost?

We've seen a lot lately, in Luke especially, about people being lost. A few things have struck me about the way in which this impacts us.

If you've ever been lost, you'll know it's not great. Recently I foolishly trusted my brother's navigational skills around Blackburn town centre - it didn't go well. I was happy to let him drive on - up until the point he turned to me and asked "do you know where we are?". Ah. Oh dear.

It's only when we realised that neither of us knew what way we were heading that we got the map out and were able to navigate our way to where we were supposed to be going. With the aid of a map, there was no problem - we arrived at the right place, albeit at the wrong time.

It's a bit like that with the people we've looked at in Luke. Whilst Dan and I assumed we knew where we were going there was no need for the map. Various people Jesus encounters are showing all the signs of being lost, but plenty of them don't realise how much they need to be shown the way.

It's only when we realise we're lost that we look for help, and in Luke's gospel the people we've seen Jesus save are those who have recognised the error of their ways, and know they need someone to offer them a way out. It's only when we realise we're lost that we can be found - found by a God who "came to seek and save what was lost".

There's another beautiful aspect to this. The word "lost" implies that the thing which has gone missing belonged to someone in the first place. When we lose something, we go looking for it - because it's ours, and because we quite like having it in our lives. God seeks us for much the same reasons. Our amazing God dies for his runaway children at the time they are most lost, all because he longs to make them found, and bring them home.