If you are a bibliophile, like me, you probably,
have had this kind of experience at a book store, as I have.
In the book store, you found a book you are dying to
get. However, you realized that its price was out of reach. Darn! The book was too good to give up, even
you could not afford. Then, you decided
to come back to purchase it when you have enough money. Until then, you wanted
to make sure that the book would not be taken by someone else. So, you hid the
book behind other books in the bookshelf, hoping that nobody would see it.
While saving money to buy the book you hid, you are
anxious if someone with enough money would get it, even he or she may not
appreciate the book as you do. Perhaps,
you may have gone back to the book store, even you were still saving money,
just to check if it was still in the hidden place.
Finally, you saved up enough money to buy the book,
and you know how joyful you would be to purchase the book you have wanted.
You worked very hard to save just enough money to
buy the book, while hiding it to make sure that it would not be taken by
someone else. In order to save, you have made many sacrifices. Because you love books and wanted that
particular book at any cost, all the sacrifices were well worth.
Perhaps, this is how my fellow book lovers can
appreciate Jesus’ parables to liken the Kingdom of Heaven to the hidden
treasure (Matthew 13:44). Through this
parable, Jesus teaches his disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven can be
understood as we appreciate the treasure that we want to purchase even though
we may have to sell everything we have.
The man who found the hidden treasure in the field
sold everything he had in order to purchase it. In the mean time, he made sure
that the treasure remained hidden.
In fact, hiddenness is a very important concept not
only in this short parable but also in the entire Gospel. To understand this,
think of how the divine identity of Jesus was revealed. At first, it was veiled
in his human appearance. Because of this, those whose hearts were compared to
the path, which the seed was not accepted to sprout, in his parable of the
sower (Matthew 13:4-9) were not able to recognize him as the Son of God. His
divine quality was gradually revealed only to those whose hearts were like the
good soil, where the seed grows to its fruition, in the parable of the sower.
Those whose hearts were likened to the rocky path, where the seed may sprout
but dies soon, and the thorny ground, where the seed’s growth is choked to
death, in the parable of the sower, were comparable to those who followed Jesus
physically out of curiosity but eventually abandoned him because they were not
able to recognize his divinity within.
Those who do not realize the divine quality in Jesus
cannot realize the Kingdom of Heaven. The goodness of the Kingdom, as well as
the divinity and the messianic quality of Jesus, remains hidden to them.
Through the parable of the hidden treasure, Jesus compares the Kingdom to the
treasure kept hidden to those who cannot seek and find but revealed only to a
person, who appreciate it enough to sell everything he has.
To my fellow bibliophiles throughout the world, the
Kingdom of Heaven is also like the precious book you are willing to sell
everything you have to get, while hiding it from those who do not appreciate it
as much as you do.
Because the man in the parable bought the whole
field where he found and hid the treasure, rather than digging it out of the
field to buy just it, actually, I would need to buy the entire books on the
shelf, where I hid the book of my desire! Or, better yet, buying the entire book
store! Boy, it sure would cost me a whole lot more than buying the book. However, seeking to attain the Kingdom is
just like this, and we shall willingly bear any cost, no matter how far beyond it
goes from our original estimate.
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