Title: The Field of Life with Hidden Treasures
Sunday, October 19, 2008 Sermon
Bible Verse: Matthew 13:44
Sermon Title: Life's Field with Hidden Treasures
The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a person finds it, he hides it in its place, and when he returns home with joy, he sells everything he has and buys the field. (Matthew 13:44, New Standard Version).
<The Bible Story>
Yesterday morning, while I was waking up at dawn and reading the Bible, I came up with a very interesting interpretation that made my knees wrinkle. An inspired interpretation of the Bible! Today I would like to talk about it.
To keep the complicated situation out of the way, the priest Zacharias met an angel in the Most Holy, and it was so surprising and moved that he was unable to speak. He was the priest of Zacharias, the silent saint who lost his language by intoxicating with amazing emotions and mysterious encounters.
<Poetry Story>
As I read this Bible story, I suddenly remembered Han Yong-un's poem 'Your Silence'. Especially the end of the poem came to mind. “Ah, you didn’t go, but I didn’t send you. A love song that can't beat my tune surrounds your silence and turns around."
What was the reason for the silence of the priest Zacharias? The writer of the Gospel of Luke suggested an 'interpretation', saying, “The priest Zacharias did not believe the prophecy of the angel Gabriel, so he silenced it as a token of the certainty of the prophecy.” I do not think so. The interpretation of the Bible that I am imagining today is ‘silence from the fresh shock of the mysterious encounter itself’. In other words, to put it in Han Yong-un's way, the priest Zacharias had no choice but to fall into silence because he had a surprising and mysterious encounter that could not overcome the tune of his own life.
Let me tell you one more poem by Yongun Han. One of his poems that goes well with ‘Your Silence’ is ‘I Don’t Know’. “Who is the footsteps of paulownia leaves that fall silently with vertical ripples in the windless air? / Whose face is the blue sky at first glance through the cracks in the terrifying black clouds rushing in the west wind at the end of the boring rainy season? / Through the green moss on the flowerless tree, whose breath is the unknown fragrance that brushes the still sky above the old pagoda? / Whose song is it that comes from a place unknown to the source and makes a sound of a beak, and a slender brook meanders? / Whose poem is the evening sunset that graces the falling sun while stepping on the boundless sea with your heels like a lotus flower, touching the endless sky with your hands like jade? / Burned ashes become oil. Whose night is my heart that burns unstoppably?”
There are many interpretations of Han Yong-un's poems, but in my opinion, at least these two poems are almost perfect 'spiritual poetry'. In other words, it is a “very beautiful religious poem” that can only be sung by spiritual people who seek and meet mysterious divine beings.
"Life in Heaven"
Now, to close the story, let's look at the Bible. 【The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a person finds it, he hides it in its place, and when he returns home with joy, he sells everything he has and buys the field. (Matthew 13:44, New Standard Version).]
These words were spoken by Jesus. What is heavenly life like? Is it a life where everyone can achieve their dreams and enjoy all kinds of honor and wealth? It's not like that. What is heavenly life like? Is it a life where justice flows like a river in this land? Is God's justice a life that will be realized on this earth? Carefully speaking, it's not.
A life in heaven is a life with ‘hidden treasures’. It is a life with ‘treasures hidden in the field’. The life you can live with excitement because you know the “treasure hidden in the field,” that is the life of heaven. In other words, the life we live in admiration for the amazing fact that there are hidden treasures in the field of our lives, that is, in the field of anyone's life, there are hidden treasures that cannot be seen from the outside but can be seen by digging, that is the kingdom of heaven. is the life of
<End of sermon>
Now let's finish the sermon. I took the title of today's sermon as “the field of life where the treasure is hidden”.
Everyone, without exception, has a hidden ‘wonderful treasure’ in the field of each person’s life. Always, with no exceptions, there is a hidden treasure in every hour of every hour of life. The Spirit of God resides in everyone we meet. So we are seeing angels every day. What an amazing, delightful and thrilling thing to do. Also, in the big and small things we experience in life, there is a wonderful mystery hidden by God, who is a “holy prankster” (?). That is, the wonderful mystery of God is hidden in every time, every space and every event of life. Those who know and feel it are happy, and those who do not know and feel it are unhappy. Jesus reminded us of that.
I hope you and I will meditate deeply on the sermon titled “The Field of Life where Treasures Are Hidden” at this time today. I will pray.