Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

Saint Luke: The Gospel of Divine Mercy 29 this parable might mean, and he said, To you is granted to under­ stand the secrets o f the kingdom o f God; for the rest it remains in parables, so that they may look but not perceive, listen but not understand (Luke 8:8-10). The parables selected by Luke have more than one level of meaning and yet they have a simplicity, which allows the hearer, who, listens, to enter into them easily, making personal judgments and decisions very quickly.27 The parables that I will use to end this brief attempt at restudying the Gospel o f Luke as the Gospel o f Mercy are so powerful that most Bibles will subtitle the parables that begin Luke 15 as “Three Parables of God’s Mercy.” They are so well known that just using a key word from each is sufficient to make everyone sit up and respond “I know that one.” Feel your own response to these key words: “The Lost Sheep,” “The Lost Coin,” “The Prodigal Son.” You have already made an emotional response to them. Why? Because they strike an emotional chord in everyone. No one wants to feel lost. Everyone wants to feel special. Therefore, if we have a God that will leave 99 good sheep to find one lost one and you are the lost one, don’t you feel wanted and special? If God will not be satisfied with the coins that remain, but will look for the one lost coin to make his treasure complete again, don’t you feel special and wanted? Commenting on the parables in Luke 15, the great liberal Jewish scholar C. G. Montefiore held strongly that this is the one absolutely new thing which Jesus came to say. The idea of a God who will invite the sin­ ner back is not new; the idea o f a God who will welcome back the peni­ tent sinner is not new; but the idea o f a God who will go and seekfo r the sinner, and who wants men to do the same, is something completely new. Montefiore would find the very center and soul and essence of the Christian Gospel in Luke 15: 1-10, in the story of the shepherd searching for the lost sheep and the woman searching for the lost coin.28 Therefore Rabbi Montefiore writes: The picture in the Gospels both o f what Jesus did, and the society among which he moved, was not merely invented. It is in its main features historic. And the saying of Luke (Chap. 17) aptly