In 1958 an art collector acquired a Renaissance painting of the Salvator Mundi (“Saviour of the World”) which had been heavily “restored” and acquired it for an amount worth about $1,800 today. It was thought to be by a minor artist after the style of Leonardo da Vinci. Recently, after extensive cleaning, it was authenticated as a genuine da Vinci and sold for $80 million! A treasure had languished for centuries as an unremarkable minor Renaissance painting. Recently, it was exhibited along with most of the other 23 existing da Vinci paintings for the first time at London’s National Gallery. I was excited to see it. The piece is very moving.


As we meditate on the Scriptures with its references to walls, Jesus becomes clearer and clearer to us in all His loveliness. He is indeed the hidden treasure which we have found, by His grace. He was the hidden treasure of the entire Old Testament, gloriously revealed in the New. He is indeed worth giving up everything else for. After all, isn’t that what He did for us?