Theology Of Being Lost
When a dog is lost, there is extreme effort put into finding that dog. Posters, social groups, driving or walking around searching. How much more do you think God pursues us in our own stumbling fog? We think of the lost as wicked people who rebel. But what if we saw “the lost” as God sees all of us? Human beings made in God’s image struggling to understand the world around us. The truth is that we are never truly lost when it comes to God. For God is always near. God is always wooing us to open our eyes and see the goodness that is possible when the kindom comes on earth and it does in the heavens.
When I consider the parable of the Two Brothers (Prodigal Son) I envision the way the father runs to greet his once lost son. The picture we have is of a father running in a comically undignified manner. He runs, grabbing his robes to meet the son who left. Much like a dog running to meet us vibrating with excitement. All pretense is gone when we greet the lost ones who are found. We are lost but we are found.
Being found is more about recognizing that we are known and loved even when we think ourselves beyond love. The love of dogs especially exposes our own feeble understanding of the wideness of love, the wideness of mercy, the wideness of God’s grace. Forgiveness is given, grace is given, love is, mercy is. Need I go on?
Consider the father running to greet the son he feared lost. He doesn’t care that the servants may laugh at the way he runs. He just runs. The father doesn’t care whether the son feels unworthy or not because the father has no other thought than how worthy the son is of his love. I cannot imagine any other way for the father to be.
God is like that father in the parable. We may not believe this, but God is always near because “God does not lose that which God loves.” We may feel lost and abandoned, but God is there. We may think God is distant, but God is not. How do we know this?
Because God did a comically undignified thing. God came into the world as a baby. Attended by outcasts and foreigners. Annunced by Angels in an undignified town and born to a young woman who was most likely at risk of being outcast. But God came into our world. lived among us, and eventually was killed by our violence.
But then as if to laugh in the face of sin and death, raised, and then ascended into the heavens to bring humanity into the heavens. It sounds more like a farce than reality. It make look funny to us and seem undignified or at least ungodlike. But that’s kinda the point. It is easier to love someone who knows how goofy it can be to be a human being.