Lost Together

One of the persistent dangers in Christianity is that we think of the lost as “those other people.” The lost are the ones who don’t come to church, who don’t accept Jesus as their personal saviour, as the heathen, the pagan, the atheist. They are the people who take a different point of view on social media on the latest trending issue. The lost are the “fallen women” and the “degenerate” men, those who don’t fit into our boxes of the respectable and virtuous. That approach overlooks that each of us is also one of those weary wanderers who are lost, and in need of rescue.  

Because one of the basic concepts of Christianity is that we are, all of us, lost, and we are, all of us, in need of God’s redeeming grace. To think about the lost as those other guys is to miss the point. We are all lost, unsure where we are or where we are going. We are, all of us, on the wrong path, and our hope is not so much that we get on the right path as it is that we come to accept being lost as our normal condition, and welcome other lost souls as our companions in that condition.