I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.
Luke 15:7 (NET)
Heaven Is Loud Over One
At noon the line through the factory canteen moves fast. The cook at the steam table knows things about the people in it that their own families have forgotten. The man near the end won’t take anything with onion in it. The woman behind him leaves the bread every time, so the cook quit putting it on her tray months ago.
Jesus is partway through a story when he says this. A man has found the sheep he’d lost, and he goes home and calls his friends and his neighbors together so they can be glad with him about it. “Rejoice with me,” he tells them. “I have found my lost sheep.” Then Jesus says heaven does the same, and does more of it over one person who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need to.
Most people I know hear that as a complaint about the ninety-nine. I hear a man who can’t stop telling the neighbors what he found.
God is glad over one. In the story the gladness is a man going door to door because he can’t hold it in, and Jesus puts that same reaction in heaven, only larger. It’s real whether or not the person it’s about ever feels a thing.
If the cook turns back to God, heaven is loud about it. The trays keep coming. Her shift still ends at two, and the floor still has to be mopped before she goes, and the gladness is hers through all of it. Heaven is that glad over one person turning back, and that includes you.
By one o’clock the trays are stacked and the room has gone quiet enough for her to hear one conversation at the window table. She knows which of those two takes his coffee black and which one won’t touch the fish. Neither of them has ever asked her name.
A Prayer to Remember
You have been glad over people who had stopped expecting it of themselves, God. Make me glad about the same ones. When someone I gave up on turns back, let the first thing I say be the true thing. I’ve stood outside that party before with my arms folded. Bring me in this time.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
