(43.) X is for X Marks the Spot

(43.) X is for X Marks the Spot

Any avid reader of pirate stories can tell you the meaning of that familiar phrase. Wherever there are rare treasure maps, there will be a much anticipated X. As we all know, the X reveals the general placement of the valuables, the hidden booty, the sole reason adventurers work such long hours. Okay, if the Christian school was a map, where would one find the X?

Since educators are adventurers on a quest for truth, on the hunt for the buried chest of life’s precious valuables, where do we find that heart-thumping X? Good old Job has an idea, and he puts it poetically, poignantly, in Chapter 28. He says that wisdom is the greatest treasure, and it is buried by God himself in secret. Job compares the search for wisdom to the miner’s search for jewels in a mountain. He says that wisdom is a sublime mystery, and all the mining in the world will be fruitless unless he goes first to the king of the mountain. God alone knows where the X is located.

“Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell? It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, concealed even from the birds of the air. Destruction and Death say, ‘Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.’ God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells, for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.” (Job 28:20-24).

As it happens, God supplied the key to the map… Himself. There is in the Greek alphabet the letter chi, spelled X. And in early Christianity, since X was the first initial for the name of Christ, X was often used as the shorthand symbol for anything Christian, especially for Christ himself. And here, fellow miners, is the secret key, and the location of the ultimate buried coffer of riches. X marks the spot, and that spot is Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3). By his grace, the more we dig at that spot, the richer we will become in wisdom, in understanding, in all that really matters.