I cannot think that the woman lighting a candle and sweeping the house
represents the Saviour. She is generally, and I think correctly, thought
to represent the Church. If this be the case it may serve to teach how
the whole Church of Christ ought to be entirely engaged in carrying out
the sacred mission of our Blessed Lord. It is not the Spirit alone that
is to say “Come,” {15} but the Bride and all that hear the message. He
has become man and died for us, but we are to light the candle, sweep the
house, and seek diligently till we find the lost ones. We are to spare
no effort for their recovery: we are to search them out; we are to let
them know that there is a Christian friend anxious for their safety, and
that there will not only be joy amongst the angels of God, but a hearty
welcome amongst His people on earth for any poor lost one brought in
lowly repentance to the feet of the Blessed Saviour, there to find pardon
and recovery.
And what are we to say of the third parable, for we find no mention of
the seeking there. But we find the divine act most remarkably
represented, for there we may see how God Himself seeks the wanderer. We
do not see the father doing it in the parable, but we do see how God
Himself does it in fact. We there see the work both of His providence
and of His Spirit. Of His providence, for the Father in heaven both
sought and found him, just as He is doing with thousands now. He took
from him one thing after another till all hope was gone, and he envied
even the swine their meal. God was seeking him, so He broke him down and
crushed him on purpose that He might save.
But God did much more than bring him into trouble, for trouble very often
does nothing but harden. But in this case the Spirit of God was seeking
him, so that it was a trouble blessed by the Spirit, and he was led with
a broken heart to say, “Father, I have sinned.”
See how God Himself sought him and brought him to true repentance. He
was far away from the hand of man. He was lost to his father’s home.
But he was never lost sight of by God. There was a loving eye watching
him, and a loving care seeking him, so that though lost to man he was not
lost to God, and his father with a full heart was able at length to say,
“This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”