THE HIDDEN TREASURE.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Matthew 13:43-45

In one of the dusty Kampala suburbs,It's a common scenario to see young boys in their tens carrying heavy sacks stacked with metallic items ranging from aluminum kettles of old,to used saucepans,cutlery and utensils,they scan the ground in pursuit for these items which they later on sell at a fee to the metal merchants,who later sell them to engineering industries to be recycled into new metallic elements,To the young stars,they perceive their findings as a treasure hidden in the ground.

In our days, we can store treasure in the bank or in a safe deposit box,or invest it in real estate or in investment instruments such as bonds and stocks,but in the early years of our Lord Jesus, burying treasure was an extremely common way of safeguarding it,burying a treasure was the most secure way of protecting it. One's treasure might have been stolen by thieves or plundered by foreign invading armies. But if it were hidden skillfully,rarely it would be detected.

But people often died in such invasions or passed on without disclosing the location of the treasure to a relative. In that case, a hoard of coins or jewels buried in a pottery jar might be discovered that would make its finder rich. Today people dream of getting rich by winning the lottery, but ancient literature is full of stories of people finding buried treasure and becoming fabulously wealthy.

Jesus' story along this theme would have captured the imagination of his listeners.
In Jesus' story, a man found the treasure in a rural field,-Perhaps he was employed as a laborer and his plow hit the container. Or perhaps erosion had uncovered a portion of the treasure. We just don't know.
But when the man finds the treasure he is overcome with joy. He buries the treasure again so that no one else can find it. Then he sells everything he has and buys the field.

The honesty exhibited by this man who picked the treasure baffles me to this day,apparently,according to rabbinical law, it might have been possible to claim ownership of personal property that had been found on another's land,the man bearing the law in his mind,didn't take the treasure, but reburied it to hide and protect it, and then purchased the land,possibly the original owner of the treasure had died decades or centuries before but if this man wanted he would have taken the treasure without any one ever finding out,this therefore brings to the fore the importance of Jesus teaching on this subject. There are two keys to understanding this parable:

"In his joy..." and "sold all he had and bought that field."

Jeremias observes:

"When that great joy, surpassing all measure, seizes a man, it carries him away, penetrates his inmost being, subjugates his mind. All else seems valueless compared with that surpassing worth. No price is too great to pay."

In the parable, the man's joy is in his good fortune of finding a huge treasure that will possibly make him rich for life. Anything he spends to gain possession of that treasure is worth it, since the value is so exceedingly much greater. The emphasis here is on the importance of parting ways with everything we have and own in order to obtain something inestimably greater.

The Kingdom of Heaven is more valuable than anything else we can have, and a person must be willing to give up everything to obtain it. The man who discovered the treasure in the field stumbled upon it by accident but knew its value when he found it.

The treasure of the kingdom. We don't find it. It finds us and buys us. But once we are found and bought, we are willing to give it our complete and total devotion. Therefore if the land is heaven,then Jesus Christ is the treasure.