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Coins
By Scott Harrup | April 17, 2009
Austin went with his second-grade class to a Springfield Cardinals game this week, and the kids each picked up this season’s commemorative team coin. Austin’s been toting his around the house in its protective plastic sleeve, occasionally taking it out and buffing it with a “microfiber” cloth his sister gave him, an extra one of the type she uses on her computer screen.
Austin’s coin is a nice piece of numismatic art, with the Cardinals’ distinct red accenting it and a decent heft when you hold it. In contrast, the one coin I bought from a “museum servicing” company whose name I no longer remember looks abysmal. It’s a dingy, far from round, tiny penny sort of thing that I paid about $30 for years ago. The hand-scrawled explanation card that came with it in the mail says it was minted during the reign of Constantine. One of these days I need to take it to a coin shop and see if an expert thinks it’s genuine. In the mean time, I assume it is and it sits near my Gibbon books on Roman history and fires my imagination whenever I read a selection.
Yesterday I interviewed Pfc. Lukas Shook of the 110th Military Police Company. His miraculous story of God’s protection during a rocket attack in Iraq is scheduled for the Evangel’s June 28 “Welcome Home” edition for veterans. Pfc. Shook was awarded the Purple Heart by President Bush at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 22, 2008. While at Walter Reed, Shook also received an array of commemorative coins from the president, several generals, special units representatives, government leaders and other distinguished visitors.
Coins have done much more than serve as pocket change through the centuries. They capture and communicate key events, concepts and ideals with an economy of space perhaps unrivaled in human expression.
Jesus and a coin intersected at a key point in His ministry. It was the week before His crucifixion. Jerusalem’s religious leaders were trying to trap Him. They asked whether or not it was lawful to pay taxes. Jesus asked for a coin, pointed out Caesar’s likeness stamped upon it, and offered the now-famous observation that people should “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mark 12:17, NIV).
Perhaps a suitable thought for “tax week,” if a tad past the filing deadline.
