The Pearl of Great Price

The Pearl of Great Price

Blaise Pascal, the brilliant French mathematician and physicist, had a mystical encounter with God on the night of November 23, 1654. He later sewed a description of it into the lining of his coat, where it was found after his death. The document, called the Memorial, begins: 'Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.' He described finding something so surpassingly valuable that from that night onward, his mathematics and science — brilliant as they were — became secondary. He had found the treasure. He had sold everything else.

The parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price are two parables with the same punch line: when something of incomparable value is found, everything else is gladly sold to secure it. The man with the treasure doesn't reluctantly part with his possessions — he sells 'in his joy.' The merchant doesn't grudgingly trade his pearls — he gives up all for the one. This is the nature of genuine encounter with the kingdom of God: it reorganizes the value hierarchy. Things that were precious become negotiable; the kingdom becomes non-negotiable. The question Jesus is posing with these parables is not whether we have found the treasure — it is what we have done with the finding. Have you sold everything for what you've found?