Walk Of Life – Day 30, April 2022 – Thoughts From The Words Of Jesus Christ

Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. ” (Matthew 13:45-46).

Note that this links very closely with the one preceding it, the parable of the treasure hidden in the field which the man found and covers up again and then went and sold all that he had and bought the field and that was our yesterday’s meditation and today we see that the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. and this merchant resembles our Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to only ask ourselves, “What other great treasure does God value in this world?” — in order to discover what this pearl means. For what has Jesus given all that he has in order to obtain it? The obvious answer is: The church. I am sure that Paul had this very parable in mind when he wrote to the Ephesians:

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25b, 5:27)

Why did our Lord choose the symbol of the pearl for the church? Why didn’t he use the ruby or the diamond, or any other jewel? The answer is that the pearl is the only jewel which is the product of living matter. A pearl is the response of an oyster to something which causes it injury. A pearl grows out of hurt. You probably know how a pearl is formed. A little particle of sand or some other irritating substance gets inside the shell of the oyster and it is like cracker crumbs in bed — constantly irritating. The oyster has no hands with which it can brush the irritant out, no means of defense except to transform that thing that is injuring it. What an apt and beautiful symbol our Lord has chosen here for the church! I was tempted in thinking through the subject of this parable to label this “The Case of the Irritated Oyster” because the response of an oyster to that which irritates it is to transmute it and transform it into something which is no longer a source of irritation. This is what our Lord came to do, and, in order to accomplish it, he gave all that he had.

Nothing we have considered up to this point has begun to exhaust the implications of that vast phrase: “he gave all that he had and bought it.” In order to gain us, in order to form the pearl which he so desperately wants and loves and cherishes, he came and gave all that he had. That means that he took our place. He came where we are. He came into the place of hurt and agony and heartache and loneliness and sorrow and shame and darkness, and became what we are.

There is no greater commentary on this phrase than that in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 21: “He who knew no sin was made sin for us.” Sin is merely a label by which we gather up all the terrible wrongdoing and the aching, hurting, lonely misery of mankind. When Jesus came, without making any contribution to this on his own part (“he who knew no sin”), nevertheless in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross he entered fully into what we feel. He felt the hurt. He knew the aching loneliness, the heartache, the misery, the rejection, the sense of despair, of self-loathing, of emptiness and worthlessness and meaninglessness, and the awful hostility that sin engenders. He felt the condemnation of a righteous God. He entered into all of that.

“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience through the things which he suffered,” (Hebrews 5:8). Thus he gave all that he had so that he might heal the hurt of humanity.