The Lost Coin

"Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!' In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:8-10)

A few years ago my wife came home in tears. She had lost one of the diamonds from her engagement ring. She felt crushed that the ring had been tainted. I told her that I would replace the diamond. She said, "that is great but it will not be the original diamond. It will not be the exact one you gave me. " You see there is sentimental value in things that were given or created out of love. She felt like that a part of her went missing. Jesus tells the story of a lady that lost a coin. Now this was not just any coin, this was a Greek drachma, which by today's standards would be worth only about 20 cents, but to those of that day, it represented the amount a common laborer could earn for a days work. The woman had only ten coins, and she lost one of them. Jewish women often saved up ten of these coins and joined them together create a wedding necklace or hair dress which became a married woman’s treasured ornament, worn much like a wedding band is today, perhaps having been passed down from generation to generation. Now, last week we talked about a lost sheep. Now the sheep was important but it was also easier to find than some lost coin. This lady was persistent in looking for this coin. She swept through the whole house. Now this was not the kind of floor that we are accustom too. This was more of a dirt floor not to mention that there was no artificial light. So finding this coin would have been a lot like us finding a needle in a hay stack. You know that is how much God loves us, he loves us so much that he would go through any length to bring us back. We may feel that we are just like a worthless coin but we are so much more to God.