I just been reading Luke 15 where Jesus is telling three parables, the story of the lost sheep, the story of the lost coin, the story of the lost son. But as I read it I discovered that the message of Jesus is not about losing, sheep, coin or a son, but about the loss of a caring heart, or rather the loss of a father-heart.

The chapter starts by telling about tax collectors and other notorious sinners who often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the religious leaders complain that he was associating with such despicable people – even eating with them. As a response to their complaint and bad attitude Jesus used three illustrations to highlight his point. I find it very interesting that Jesus is using three illustrations to convey one single message. This message must be very important for us to get hold of.

The religious people were looking down on people. They were despising the people that Jesus was associating himself with. The religious people were only seeing notorious sinners, but Jesus was seeing hurting people of great value. Jesus represented the father-heart of God towards the sinners the religious people despised. By the three illustrative parables Jesus is trying to show the religious people that they had lost the father-heart. They were no longer caring for the lost. Actually they had great self-confidence and scorned everyone else. They were self-centred and very proud of their religiosity. But they did not care for ordinary people.

All the three illustrations or parables of Jesus in response to the bad attitude of the Pharisees are showing them that they had lost something essential to being a good person. They had lost love for people. They no longer saw people for what they were in themselves but only what were in relation to their own religious achievements.

The message of Jesus is that if we lose the father-heart we have lost everything. If we have no love for people but only measure them by their religious failures, we are as lost as the most notorious sinner.

We are to be like the shepherd that went looking for his lost sheep, only because of love. We are to be like the woman that turned on the ligth and looked in every corner and swept every nook and granny untill she found the valuable coin she had lost. We are to be like the father who saw the son while he was still a long distance away and ran towards him to embrace him out of overflowing love and compassion.

The father-heart is filled with love and compassion. This is something we can not afford to lose.