A worn-out antique painting hung in Basil Hendry’s old plantation style home in Baton Rouge for decades. His family would walk by it regularly and not pay much attention to it. Upon his death, no one in his family desired to have the old painting, so it was sold at an estate auction for around $1,100.
The painting was taken to Dianne Modestini, a painting conservator in New York City, to be restored. She slowly began to take acetone and remove varnish and paint that others had used to touch up the painting through the years, and then sat back in disbelief as the original work of art began to appear before her eyes.
In just a few years following this, it would be sold for the highest price of any painting in the history of the world: $450 million. That old worn-out painting was believed to be The Salvator Mundi, painted by the hand of the master himself, Leonardo Da Vinci. The value of a masterpiece is in the hands of its creator.
Jesus determined that human beings are of high value to Him when He was willing to lay down His life. According to Psalm 139, we were wonderfully made. In Ephesians 2:10, we are considered to be His workmanship or His masterpiece. This masterpiece is not because of anything we have done or our charming wit. We are masterpieces only because of the artist who created and redeemed us.
Yes, that means people different than you. Sometimes it is easy to look in the mirror and agree with God that He did a pretty good work when He created you. It may be harder to think the same for those who are different than you.
If God Himself made others, died for them, and deems them priceless, how should we treat them? Will we just let them go unnoticed by us? Will we simply walk on the other side of the street to avoid them? Will we demean them on our social media in comments and sly posts?
If Jesus valued others so much that He was willing to lay His life down for them, we should show we value them by noticing, listening, loving, and bringing them to the foot of the cross to fix their eyes on the Salvator Mundi — Savior of the World.