Tuesday in the Second Week of Advent, December 6, 2022

Matthew 18, 12-14

Jesus said to his disciples: “What is your opinion?  If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

It is interesting that Jesus poses this parable as a question to the disciples.  It is as though they or their interests somehow figured into it.  And, indeed, they do, and all other believers with them, for any of us could wind up as a “lost sheep”.

The lectionary translation of this text contains a serious error which influences how we understand it.  The text does not say, “one of them goes astray” but “one of them is led astray”.  The Greek verb is passive, not active.  The sheep does not wander off by accident or due to weakness.  It is deliberately led astray by someone who has a nefarious purpose for it.  The shepherd then has urgent need to find and rescue that sheep.  It will not come back on its own and it will not be safe wherever it is.  Someone intends on killing and eating it.  Knowing that the sheep has been led astray. The shepherd goes off at some risk to himself.  He has to look for it not just in the places a sheep might go, but in the places where it would not normally go.  The hunt for it takes time, and the shepherd needs to get back to his flock in order to protect it from any other enemies who might be lurking close by.  We can imagine something of his relief when he finds it alive and unharmed.  He rejoices over the sheep that had been led off and which he had discovered in time to save it.  

“In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”  The Greek word translated here as “lost” means “to be destroyed” or “to perish” — it means lost not as in “could not be found”, but in terms of something being killed or destroyed: “It is not the will of your Heavenly Father that one of these should be butchered.”  The fate of the lost sheep was not that it would remain lost, but that it would wind up as someone’s meal.  In our case, the devil’s.  

The number “one hundred” signified fullness in ancient times.  It was one of several numbers that did, such as ten, twelve, and a hundred and forty-four.  It signified fullness because it was arrived at by ten multiplying itself and could be evenly divided into halves and quarters.  When one sheep leaves the hundred, ninety-nine remain, and so the lost sheep had to be found for the number to be “healed”.  That is, all who are going to be saved will be saved.  But if the lost sheep were slaughtered by an enemy, it’s place would have to be taken by another, which the Lord would provide, for he has “other sheep I have that are not of this fold” (John 10, 16).  Let us then not allow ourselves to be enticed by the promises of a stranger in the shape of pleasures, power, wealth, or by teachings which flatter us.  Only the Lord opens the way to heaven for us.  Whatever his laws are, whatever his will is, let us follow it.