Gem of a story

This week will have seen Sotheby’s auction an exceptionally sized diamond weighing in at 26 carats and estimated to sell between £250,000-350,000. Now this would not be particularly newsworthy except that the owner has been wearing this massive diamond out and about daily for the past 30 years thinking it was just costume jewellery given it didn’t have the sparkle of a diamond and only had a “grubby” ring mount. What also made this story particularly interesting was the fact that the owner bought it at a car boot for the princely sum of just £10!! Not bad for a days work.

The story of this amazing ring has more than a few parallels to the Christian faith. For one thing, Jesus himself, in Matthew’s gospel, compared it to someone finding a pearl of great price and then going out and possessing it. For another, becoming a possessor of true Christian faith, does not come with some elevated price tag. Even better than you getting your hands on it for £10, the Lord Jesus Christ has stumped up the full price so you get it completely gratis.

Another facet of this “gem of a story” is that so many who look on Christian faith today truly believe that it is plainly too good to be true. No such thing as a free lunch, they say. Along with this, they argue from what they see in the people who wear the ring. They spot the presence of the rather “grubby” ring mount, that unfinished work of personal change, and then hastily surmise that it must, therefore, be a dud and not a gem. There is only one story yet more newsworthy, yes, the man who maybe minutes earlier handled the very same item and passed over that pure gem thinking it horribly dirty and thoroughly fake. Unbelievable, isn’t it?