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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
I think it’s safe to say that people like high-value items. For example, the TV show Antiques Roadshow. People have old items, antiques even, and they bring them to somebody to be appraised, first hoping that they have value or maybe are even a hidden treasure. But an even better TV show that I want to bring up here is Storage Wars. It’s a show where people buy abandoned storage units. When a unit goes unpaid for some long period of time, it gets auctioned off. And whatever’s in the unit, the buyer gets. The buyers don’t know exactly what’s in a unit before they buy it, but they bid on it anyway, hoping that there’s some sort of high-value item in there. Then after they buy it, they dig through everything, looking for those high-value items and maybe even some kind of hidden treasure of some sort that makes the purchase worthwhile.
Well, in the Gospel reading today are the parables of the hidden treasure and a pearl of great value. Now, a way to look at these parables and apply them is that the treasure and the pearl are the kingdom of heaven itself. The treasure and the pearl are the kingdom of heaven, and it’s hidden, and it’s a high-value item to be sought. The man and the merchant in the story are looking for God. They’re looking for the kingdom of heaven. They’re looking for this pearl and this treasure, and no expense should be spared in looking for them. And if you’ve found the kingdom of heaven, then no expense should be spared in keeping that treasure or that pearl.
Now that’s not a wrong way to interpret these parables; in fact, it is a good way to look at it. The kingdom of heaven certainly is a high-value item. But here’s a little different view that I want to look at today: it’s not the kingdom of heaven that’s hidden. You are. We are hidden. In the parable of the hidden treasure, the field is the world, Jesus says, and the hidden treasure is you. In this world, you are hidden from the kingdom of heaven. You’re buried even. And I’m sure you’re familiar with the things that can seem to bury you in life, like responsibilities and expectations in your job, relationships, or at school. They can seem to bury you with pressure and stress and burdens, hiding you within yourself and distracting you from thoughts of God or His kingdom.
But even worse, you’re hidden and buried in your sin that separates you and hides you from the kingdom of heaven. And that’s a good way to describe sin’s effect on us. It can bury you. There are probably sins that you’ve done, said, or thought that bury you in sorrow and regret, maybe even bury you in guilt and shame. Sins that bury you in the field of this world make you feel unable to ever dig out of it. You’re hidden in the field of this world and not able to even look for the kingdom of heaven, much less find it.
Well, the good news is the kingdom of heaven comes looking for you. See, we’ve forgotten somebody in the parable here, or we’ve forgotten someone—that’s the man, the man who finds the treasure. That man isn’t you; it’s Christ. It’s Jesus who looks for and digs through your sin and finds you. It’s that Jesus digs for you, finds you, and digs you up, and then buys you. He bids on you and buys you as a high-value item. Despite being buried in your sin, Jesus still values you, looks for you, digs you up, and buys you with his life.
Jesus left his heavenly home, left the kingdom of heaven, as you will, to come into this world to look for you, find you, dig you up, and purchase you with all that he had—his life. You are his treasure. You are his high-value item. And it’s the same with the parable of the pearl. The kingdom of heaven isn’t the pearl; you are, and the pearl is hidden. See, I don’t see this parable as the merchant looking for pearls down at Jared’s, okay? He’s looking for pearls from where they come from, okay? Pearls come from bottom-feeding shellfish living underwater in muck.
And in that muck, something irritating gets inside of the shell and begins to form a pearl. It takes hard work to look for, find, and collect these shellfish. A person digging for them has to dig through the muck and pull them up from out of the water into a boat and then has the hard task of opening up the shellfish. Not even all of them have pearls in them, and when a pearl is found, the pearl is sitting in something muckish, we can say, all right? Some people like to eat that. Guilty as charged. But pearls are high-value items. But they’re hidden. Hidden in muck. And as a pearl, you’re hidden from the kingdom of heaven in the muck of your sin. Some of your sins might be best described as the actions of a bottom feeder, but the merchant still values you, and he looks for you, and he finds you, and he picks you up off of the bottom, cracks you open, and digs you out of that muck and buys you with his life. Yes, this merchant is Jesus, and he values you.
I want you to understand that today, that you’re a high-value item to God. You’re a treasure, a pearl of great value. And even though you’re buried and hidden in the muck of your sin, the kingdom of heaven, Jesus, is looking for you, to find you, to dig you up, and buy you. Like Storage Wars, Jesus digs you out of the valueless items of the storage bin and gives you value. Luke chapter 19, verse 10, Jesus said there, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Jesus came to save the hidden, the buried. He came to find you and to save you.
No matter what you’ve done, no matter your sin, no matter how buried you are in shame or guilt, you are highly valued. Maybe you don’t feel that way, but God does. And no matter what’s going on in your life—virus, pandemic, uncertain, unprecedented times—and you may feel isolated and lonely, hidden, and maybe even afraid during these times, God, no matter that, you are highly valued. And again, maybe you don’t feel that way, but God does. There is nothing you can do, or be, that will make you less valuable to God than you are right now. I guess a way to say it could be, God puts the “you” in value.
The Old Testament reading today from Deuteronomy has a beautiful portion where God says, “the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession.” God possesses you as a treasure, as something of great value. See, unlike Storage Wars, Jesus knew exactly what He was getting when He bought you. When He died on the cross to save you from your sins, He knows what He’s buying. He knows what He’s getting. He got a mucky, sinful, lonely person who still is a high-value item—one that he bought with his life to forgive you.
Again, people like high-value items, but so does God. And He sent His Son for you to give you the kingdom of heaven. A pastor friend of mine named Reed Lessing once said, “a treasured possession isn’t loved because it’s valuable. It’s valuable because it’s loved.” That’s you, and that’s me with Jesus Christ. We’re valued because we’re loved by Him. And He’s given us the Kingdom of Heaven to prove it. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus as his possession. Amen.