What is just one sheep?

        I lost one of my favorite lapel pins a few months ago.  (Well, first I should say that it isn't really my pin to begin with, it is a tie tack that I commandeered from my husband.  He received it as a confirmation gift but in the nine years we've been together I've never seen him wear it.  Granted I have had it in my own jewelry box for the last two, but I think the seven previous were good enough!)  Anyway, it is a dove with a cross, the Holy Spirit and Christ.  I used to wear it when I preached, or when I was doing something official as a seminarian.  Then one day, I couldn't find it. 
        I didn't have a lot of time to look and thought I must have left it at school.  When I got to school I looked and still couldn't find it, so I tore my dorm room to pieces, literally, taking apart my bed, dresser, and computer desk looking for it.  Not there.  When I got home that week I tore the house apart, taking every shirt out of the closet and drawers looking to see if I'd left it on something I wore.  I took all the clothes out of the rest of my drawers, in case in one of my senior moments I'd put it somewhere it doesn't belong.  (I do that more than I'd like to admit.)  Checked every single suitcase, even if I hadn't used it in over a couple years.  The washer and dryer.  The vent grates.  I said a prayer and asked St. Anthony of Padua, the Roman Catholic patron saint of lost items, to intercede for me.  Praying to the saints is not something I do on a regular basis, and I did it because a priest friend of mine suggested it.  I was desperate.  And then I remembered I'd gone through my jewelry and given some away to Goodwill.  What if I accidentally put it in that pile?!?  It was gone.  Just gone.  I'd given up.  I hadn't looked for it in over two months because one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  It was simply gone. 
       And then?  Praise be to God!  I got a sweater out to wear and there it was!  I know I looked at that sweater a million times when I was looking but there it was!  I raced downstairs shouting Russ' name ecstatically jumping up and down holding this pin like a precious trophy, rejoicing that I had found it!  And just in time for my ordination!  Double bonus!  Triple bonus because I had counted it as lost!  Quadruple bonus because it meant that I hadn't really lost my pin that is actually Russ' tie tack and that he's never officially said I could have!  Quintuple bonus because...I think you get the point.
       The gospel lesson for this coming Sunday comes from Luke 15.5-10.  Verses 8-10 I can understand perfectly.  The woman lost a coin and tore her house apart looking for it, just like I tore my house and dorm room up looking for this pin.  It is the first part that is a mystery to me.  Verses 5-7 set up the scene: Jesus talking with tax collectors and sinners.  Pharisees muttering under their breath about how Jesus welcomes them.  Eats with them even.  Then Jesus tells the story about the shepherd who watches 100 sheep but one got away.  He then goes on to ask, in what I can only hear as an incredulous tone, "which of you does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?"
        Um, excuse me?  Jesus?  I am raising my hand ever so bashfully.  "I would not leave the 99 others.  In fact, I would be giving thanks that I still had 99 of them and had only lost one!"  I'd like to be able to lie, especially when Jesus is asking this question like it is the only natural thing to do, go looking for the lost one.  But I can't.  First because Jesus is asking and I can't lie to him and second because I'm just not as forgiving or gracious or good as I'd like to be.  I'd cut the losses and move on. 
        But not Jesus.  Not God.
        God's grace and love is so extravagant that not even one sheep is worth the loss.  Not even worth the loss of going to find the one and then having to round all other 99 back up before God can rejoice.  No amount of work is too much for God to go looking for that one.  That lost one.  Even more crazy is that one lost sinner causes more joy than do 99 righteous ones.  This to me is a mystery.  And I do value life, and I do understand about being happy over someone who repents and lives in the light of God's grace because I've done it!  But, in my human limitedness, I cannot for the life of me fathom, what is just one sheep?  Yet, we, all of us, are that important to God.  So important, in fact, that Jesus died for you.  And you.  All of you.  And me.  Me?  Yes, you.  God's grace is so unfathomable that thinking about it for too long makes my head hurt.  It is so big, enormous, all-encompassing, crazy, joyous, welcoming, loving, merciful, mind-boggling, wide, deep, mysterious.  After all, what is just one sheep?