Value

Setting a Price

Lauren and I have been in the market for violins since last October, hunting and searching for two perfect specimens in our price range. At a shop last week, considering one prospect, Lauren asked, as one always does in such situations, if the price was negotiable.

"No, it's not," began the owner. "You see, it's a new instrument, and you'll rarely find new instruments with much wiggle room in their price." At this point, he lapsed into a monologue too long for this post to contain about the economic strategies of pricing instruments. He ended by saying, "So when the maker is still alive, he sets the value of the instrument by how much he charges the shop. If he lowers his selling price to any shop or any customer, then he has undermined his own integrity, because no one can trust the value of his creations anymore."

 

 

 

Setting a Precedent: True Love

Hosea was on the receiving end of his wife's unfaithfulness. He had every right in man's eyes to be bitter, angry, and vengeful. She did not come to him on her hands and knees begging for forgiveness, offering great gifts. No--he found her at a slave auction, helpless, hopeless, and undesirable. And yet he paid fifteen shekels of silver and one and one-half homers of barley to buy her back and redeem her to himself. Some say he paid everything he had, judging by the motley assortment of money and food he scraped together. In the eyes of many, she had no value. Hosea gave Gomer her value when he paid his livelihood for her.

 

 

 

Seeing the Paradigm: Undeserved Value

And so I realized. Just as the violin maker sets the value for his violins--just as Hosea gave value to Gomer, so Jesus gave value to you and me. It was the most unfair trade in the history of commerce. Jesus would give His life for my life? Jesus would give His life for your life? All the times I have wronged Him, all the times I have betrayed Him, all the times I have used Him--I should be the one paying Him, and yet what do I have? I was but a slave, my hands shackled by my sin.  

 

Jesus redeemed you and me with His life. He gave everything He had at a price too extraordinary to comprehend. In so doing, He gave us a name, a hope, a future--value. He gave what was priceless for what was undesirable. Because my Savior gave His life for me and rose again on the third day and lives in heaven, I have value, and so do you.

Take time to soberly reflect Jesus' pain on Good Friday, to solemnly mourn Jesus' death on Saturday--and to joyfully celebrate on Sunday the resurrection of our Lord and Savior! We love because He first loved us. We have nothing worth giving, and yet because Jesus set our value so much higher than we ever would, we can be confident that we can have a place in His kingdom and in heaven--if we but ask and believe.

Photo Credit: Clearly Ambiguous

Photo Credit: Christopher JL