Some astonishing and valuable treasures have often been uncovered purely by chance.
Person with a metal detector. Photo: Cosmin Gavris, pexels.com
One such incident occurred near a village in Suffolk, England in 1992. Eric Lawes had recently retired and was gifted with a metal detector for the occasion. A farmer friend of Lawes had dropped a hammer somewhere in a field, so Lawes headed to his mate’s farm thinking he would help to locate the lost hammer. He was completely unaware that his ‘mission’ would uncover the biggest cache of Roman treasure ever found in Britain.
Murray Smith
The metal detector soon picked up a strong signal in the earth, leading Lawes to start digging. After bringing up a few shovel-fulls of silver spoons and gold coins it quickly became apparent that he had unearthed significant treasure. He stopped digging and called both police and a local archaeological society. The next day, the archaeologists carefully excavated the area containing the treasure. By the time everything had been removed from the dirt, the archaeologists had nearly 60 pounds of gold and silver objects, including 15,234 Roman coins, dozens of silver spoons and 200 gold objects.
The discovery of this 1200-year-old Roman hoard was of extraordinary historical importance. It also proved to be an extraordinary windfall for Eric Lawes. He received £1.75 million from the British government for finding the gold and leaving it intact, which he split with the farmer on whose land the treasure haul was uncovered. He also eventually found the hammer, which became an exhibit in the British Museum.
This interesting account reminds me of a story in the Bible. It’s known as, “The Parable of the Hidden Treasure.” Jesus is speaking: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44)
How, we might imagine, could a treasure end up being buried in a field? Perhaps back in history, invading enemies were sweeping through the region and someone afraid of losing their possessions hastily buried their riches planning to recover them at a later stage. Who knows what happened next? Maybe that owner was swept off by invaders, never getting to return – leaving the treasure buried in the field. Years later another man comes along and discovers the treasure. Telling no one, he goes and buys the field as if it were just an ordinary property. Possessing the field, he owned its riches.
There’s various ways of understanding parables. One way I’d suggest is that the man who bought the field is Jesus. A ‘field’ in parables is always indicative of the ‘world’. Jesus paid the price for the whole world – but it’s not the world He wants primarily but the treasure in the field. That treasure is people. Jesus was willing to pay the price in order to get the treasure, which is you and me. He ‘sold’ everything, laying aside divine privilege, reputation and His glory, He died on a cross paying the price for us by His sacrifice. You are the treasure God gave everything to secure – it’s your move how you’ll respond to this.
Hidden treasure. Photo: Stefan Petrov, pexels.com
