I remember looking through what was probably a children’s book on Bible stories when I was in primary school. There were stories about Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the Whale, as well as stories about Jesus. One story was “The Parable of the Lost Sheep.” There was a cartoon of Jesus walking through the fields on a sunny day, looking for a poor little lost lamb. Jesus finds it in the grass near a shady tree and hefts it onto his shoulders. It is a happy story, set in a happy scene with a happy ending. But lambs don’t get lost only on sunny summer days. They also get lost in wind and hail storms and blizzards. Or if the flock is ravaged by a pack of wolves, a lost lamb may be found amidst the bloody carnage of its fold, disoriented and in shock. It may need to be mended, like a soldier who survived a drone attack while his brothers-in-arms did not.
A lost lamb might be stuck on a ledge of a cliff, like a rock climber who fell while free climbing or caught in the current of a swollen river. It might have fallen into a deep, dark well, or perhaps it had a collar that became ensnarled in branches or brambles. Today, with oversized ranches, if it’s too dangerous or costly to attempt a rescue of a single lamb, then that lamb might be written off as a loss. Even the inconvenience of hunting for a missing sheep might be a reason not to attempt to save it. But Jesus doesn’t conduct a cost-benefit analysis when someone needs saving, and saving a life is never inconvenient for God.
Lost sheep come in many different species
There are many other lost lambs to be found in this world and this age and they come in all shapes and sizes. The lost lamb may be leaning against the car ahead of you one night in chintzy clothing reeking of cheap perfume, asking the driver if he wants to party. She’s probably much younger than she appears and could very well be a runaway.
Or the lost sheep might be the guy in a gray t-shirt sitting by the window of a second-floor apartment along the street with a glazed look in his eyes and a Penrose wrapped around his arm. There doesn’t seem to be much of a future for him either, but God sees something worth saving in this person. These wayward son and daughters are also important to God even if they are not so appealing to us.
It’s also a matter of place
There are lost sheep, and there are the places where the lost wind up. There are prisons, and there are dungeons, and then there are oubliettes—small cells scarcely larger than a man-sized hole, accessed by a secret, locked door hidden in the floor. A dungeon below street level, with a small window for light to penetrate and for a prisoner to communicate with some passing citizen, was a veritable five-star hotel compared to an oubliette. Prisoners here were usually thrown scraps of food and a bucket of water when someone remembered they were there, but they were never released. The term “oubliette” comes from the French word “oublier,” which means “to forget.” And many prisoners were forgotten.
Many Godly people have served time in prison
The Apostle Peter, and later Paul and Silas, were freed supernaturally from their bonds—by an angel in Peter’s case and by an earthquake in the case of Paul and Silas. Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor (1909–2001), was repeatedly tortured in Romania. He recounts that in a vision, Jesus appeared to him to reassure him, and after that, he had a lingering sense of peace and comfort under torture. He was not physically released early, but his mind and soul were liberated.
Labor Camps 14 and 22 in North Korea, particularly Kwan-li-so 22 caught the attention of Amnesty International before it reportedly shut down. The Lubyanka KGB prison in Moscow, the Tadmor Military Prison in Syria—where in 1980 between five hundred and one thousand prisoners were killed in a matter of minutes—are particularly notorious contemporary prisons. Additionally, Diyarbakir Prison in Türkiye and Evin Prison in Iran, which is especially terrifying for women, house many who have violated some customs of our culture (such as wearing jeans, listening to music, or having a pet poodle) that we take for granted.
God is not promising an angel to release a lost believer unjustly jailed, though more than a few claim to have been visited by angels while incarcerated. Some might find early release through a pardon or a regime change, which can be as miraculous as an earthquake. Yet, not everyone, or even most are released. We don’t know why, but we believe there is justice and reward if not in this life, then in the next if we hold fast to our faith. Can Joe Rogan make that promise to his listening audience?
You just gotta ask
Yesterday, my cell phone carrier crashed from coast to coast. People in metropolitan areas could not make or receive calls, send emails, and so on for most of the day. Today, I received a text informing me of a twenty-dollar company rebate on my next bill. The only “catch” was that I had to click on a link to activate it. If I did not respond, then there would be no deal. This is life, and it’s why Jesus says in Matthew 7:7-8, “Ask, and you will receive,” though I’ve paraphrased his comment for context.
While God can do whatever He chooses, it makes sense, at least to me, that the person lost and in danger actually wishes to be rescued and asks God for His help. Some people are ambivalent about life or their lifestyle. Some young urban kids may do reckless things because they don’t expect to live to be twenty-five in any event. Some people smoke because they rationalize that if lung cancer doesn’t get them, something else will. Many have a death wish because they believe that anything is better than the lonely, miserable existence they’ve known so far. The Bible promises that we can find God if we search for Him, but many are too tired to even search.
I’ve learned that God generally respects our wishes, and if we tell Him, “Leave me alone; I can’t be bothered,” then He won’t be. The author of Hebrews 11:6 in the New Testament says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would approach God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” And what are those rewards? That you’ll win the lottery? That you’ll get good marks this semester at university? That your abusive boyfriend will stop drinking? That your grandma might get better from her ailment? That your landlord won’t evict you from your apartment? These are all real-life issues, and many people dealing with them must face them alone. But if you are a Christian, you have God’s assurance that He has your back. He takes you on a spiritual journey where the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line, and one where His logic may not be apparent. But God’s ways are not ours. You may not be spared from some third-world dungeon, but your jailers will find it impossible to keep you in solitary confinement.
Today, God’s worldwide flock has perhaps a billion or more sheep, and the number of wayward lambs at any given time may run into the millions. There are also millions of other sheep from other flocks that need rescuing.
Today
Today, in the United States, we are on the brink of some gigantic catastrophe. Real hunger is setting in among certain populations, and hungry people are not getting the government support to which they are entitled by law. The same is true for health care. People who have violated our laws by coming to the U.S. illegally (i.e., without permission) are being arrested, illegally dragged to prison, and shipped to other countries on other continents. One crime should not necessarily follow another, especially if it is the state that is perpetrating it.
My wife and I are fairly vocal in our concerns about the direction our country is moving. Someday, there may be a knock on our door by masked men claiming to represent the U.S. This is a new reality for us, but our hope is not in the Democrats winning power in November or in the Republicans being soundly defeated. Our hope is in God Almighty, who has our back—even and especially if we are lost. We are His sheep, and He is our shepherd. And He can also be your shepherd.
#lost_sheep, #oubliettes
