Oysters & Pearls

Precious pearls…

Pearls are one of my favorite stones. They are so beautiful, elegant in their simplicity. And for all their delicate beauty, they have been transformed from a grain of sand to precious stone through resistance to constant pressure and being covered over and over again by the oyster.

In Matthew 13:45-46, Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a precious, costly pearl. Like a merchant who sells all that he has in order to buy that one precious pearl – God did the same for us.

Ugly oysters…

In stark contrast to the beauty of the pearl is the ugliness of the oyster from which it came.

When God created the world, He made everything beautiful, perfect and pure – even man. But when Adam and Eve (the first man and woman) sinned they were no longer pure and therefore He had to banish them from the beautiful garden He had created. They were turned out of the Garden of Eden into a stark world. The world was their oyster – difficult, painful and full of pressure. The ease of Eden was only a precious memory.

But God did not leave them hopeless. He promised that one day, He would send a Savior. Yes they would have difficulty – they were now the sand in their “oyster” world. But God would make them able to withstand the pressures of sin and be layered over and over again with forgiveness as they lived a life of obedience to Him.


Purchasing the pearl…

Part of the price of any pearl is the cost of the oyster. You can’t buy the pearl without buying the oyster first. Not only that, but you can’t buy the pearl without buying the oyster it came in as well as other oysters that hold no pearls. When harvest comes, everything is harvested at once – pearl or no pearl.

God illustrated this through the gift of our Savior, His one and only Son, Jesus. God “sold all that He had”, His perfect and sinless son, Jesus to purchase each and every one of us - a world of “oysters”.

When Jesus gave His life to pay the price for us, He knew that He was paying for both those who would choose to accept Him and live for Him (pearls) and those who would reject him (empty oysters).

Romans 5:6 says,

⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Retrieving the pearl…

No one purchases a pearl just to let it sit on the water’s floor hidden in an oyster. Neither did God purchase us to leave us in this oyster of a world forever. God sent Jesus to purchase us so that we could be reunited – restored to a pure and perfect relationship with Him, the Garden of Eden relationship He once had with Adam and Eve. Walking and talking together in the cool of the day – seeing Him face to face – never separated again.

1 Thessalonians 4

¹⁶For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Dear God,

Oh I thank You for sending Jesus, your most precious Son to purchase me. Thank you for your forgiveness that covers over my sin and makes me new in You. Thank you for not giving up on us and leaving us separated from you forever. I look forward to your coming again so I can walk with you, hand-in-hand, never to be separated again.

Amen.