HOPE! - What Did I Do with My Wedding Ring?

Jesus’ parable of the lost coin is unique to Luke’s Gospel and is positioned in between the parables of the lost sheep and the lost son.

In the parable, there’s a woman who has ten silver coins (Greek = drachmae), but at some point she realizes that she’s lost one of them. 

She then goes and lights an oil lamp and goes all through her house, sweeping it clean, until she eventually finds it – and when she does, there is much rejoicing… in fact, she throws a party!

So what’s the big deal with the coin? Why does she get so excited when she finds it?

Well, you see, back in the first century when Jesus told this parable, many married women wore ten coins on a chain, in kind of a similar way that a woman in today’s culture might wear a wedding ring. Now these coins were really really important. They were so important, in fact, that they couldn’t ever be taken from her, not even to pay off a debt. 

The fact that she lost the coin would have been considered to be a financial disaster! But it was even more symbolic than that. She would have been shamed for having been so careless as to lose something of such great value which was a symbol of her marriage. What would her husband think? What would her friends and family think? Why, while her husband was away, would she have taken this symbol of her marriage off in the first place?

The story is more than about coins. It’s about the value that God places on his people. Jesus says that God is like the woman searching for the coin. In the same way God searches for his lost children, not giving up until he finds them. Because what a tragedy and disaster it would be if he couldn’t find them!

God is not only the woman in the story, but he is also the light by which the woman finds the symbol of her marriage covenant. We are like the woman when we lose our way and we forget our marriage covenant with Christ. But God’s light shines through the Holy Spirit and shows us the way back.

And the party at the end of the story – it’s a wedding!