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| Thursday, About April AD 30 |
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| ����������� It is early spring.� The trees are beginning to bud with leaves.� The fruit trees are beginning to bud with flowers.� The sycamores are especially beautiful right now. |
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| ����������� It is mid-afternoon on a balmy day.� Zacchaeus hears loud excited talk downstairs.� |
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| ����������� "Hey, quiet down out there!" he warns. |
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| ����������� Someone pops his head in Zacchaeus' office. |
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| ����������� "But sir, Jesus is coming.� He's at the edge of Jericho now." |
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| ����������� Someone else comes in. |
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| ����������� "Sir, everyone is going out to see him." |
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| ����������� "What if I dock the pay of everyone of you for going?" |
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| ����������� The two look at Zacchaeus as though to say, "You'd better wise up.� He is going to be our new boss." |
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| ����������� "Oh, get out of here.� But I expect you to work extra tomorrow to make up for it." |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus thinks he might join them, but could not admit it.� Besides, he has that report to get out.� It is for King Herod himself.� It must be correct.� |
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| ����������� In an hour it is done.� Zacchaeus heads out the door.� He has probably missed it.� But he heads toward the center of the city.� Perhaps there is some speech making going on down there. |
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| ����������� Jesus is gradually working his way through the city on his way to Jerusalem.� Everyone knows what for.� It is not long before he hears it.� The wild cheering. [18] |
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| ����������� Louder!� Louder!� Closer and closer! |
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| ����������� The people are everywhere.� How can Zacchaeus get close to him?� Just what does this Jesus look like, anyway?� Is he tall and imposing like the perfect politician?� Is he muscular like a war commander?� Does he have a halo like a religious leader?� |
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| ����������� But there are people on all sides of Jesus.� He cannot approach from any direction.� He makes his way around the back edge of the crowd, but it is so far back, he would never have a chance.� Once more, as he has a thousand times before, he is frustrated at his short stature. [19] |
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| ����������� Okay,� now.� This is your chance.� You've been curious for three years.� Think.� Nothing ever stopped you from getting what you wanted before.� Don't let all these people stop you now.� Get that eccentricity working.� Think of something.� You can do it. |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus looks around.� He could bribe his way onto the roof of one of the buildings.� No, he wants a closer look.� But how?� He looks around again.� He sees a cart here and there, but they are already full of people.� Think.� |
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| ����������� Now the crowd is roaring out of control.� Jesus must be just a few feet away now.� He is about to pass by.� Then your chance will be lost, Zacchaeus.� Quick.� You must think of something before he is gone. |
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| ����������� That tree.� If he could just get to that tree.� But it is so large.� Can he even get up the trunk?� There is a cart at the bottom.� He could stand on the edge of the cart.� Okay, Zacchaeus.� You are a man of decision.� Decide now.����� |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus knows what he must do.� He gathers up the bottom of his linen robe with the gold threads intertwined and tucks it in his wide belt.� The belt with gemstone insets.� He forces his way over to the cart and, with some effort, climbs up onto the edge. |
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| ����������� "Hey!� Get off of here!� There's no room for you!" |
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| ����������� He says nothing.� Just keeps climbing.� He reaches for the lowest branch and catches hold of it.� He remembers how he used to climb trees as a youth.� He pulls with his hands and supports with his feet and knees. |
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| ����������� "Hail to the king!� Hail to the son of David!� Glory to God!" |
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| ����������� Up into the tree.� Don't worry about what anyone will say.� Climb, Zacchaeus.� Tug.� Pull.� Get up onto that branch.� He can see the tops of people's heads now.� Keep going.� One of the gold chains around his neck keeps getting caught. [20] |
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| ����������� He has made it.� As he pulls his leg over the branch to get into a sitting position, he feels his robe tear.� His imported robe. |
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| ����������� Closer!� More applause!� More shouting!� Closer! |
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| ����������� The plan works.� Zacchaeus can see it all.� The man slowly working his way up the street.� That must be Jesus.� Surely not.� There must be some mistake.� He is not tall or muscular or holy looking at all. [21] |
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| ����������� Suddenly the steady movement of applause and shouting down the street stops in place.� What is going on?� Jesus has stopped right in front of the tree. |
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| ����������� Then the unbelievable happens.� Zacchaeus hears his own name. |
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| ����������� "Zacchaeus!� Hey, you up in the tree!� Zacchaeus!" |
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| ����������� It's Jesus.� Jesus likes your eccentricities.� He's got a few of his own.� He is waving at you.� Wave back, Zacchaeus. |
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| ����������� How does Jesus know his name? |
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| ����������� The crowd turns to see who it is that Jesus has actually honored by stopping to talk.� They look up, expecting to see someone standing on a nearby rooftop.� But they do not see anyone waving.� Then, among the flowers that will later be figs, they see a man.� What in the world is he doing up there? |
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| ����������� "Zacchaeus!� Come on down!� I'll wait for you!" |
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| ����������� Hey, Jesus.� Do you realize just who you're talking to?� For starters he is a crazy man.� He just climbed a tree in that outfit.� Watch him tear it on his way down now.� Or hang himself with some of those gold chains around his neck. |
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����������� But, instead of climbing back down, Zacchaeus works his way over farther toward the end of the branch.� Where it thins enough that it bends, Zacchaeus stays with it, then throws his leg over it, grabs the branch with his hands, lets go, and jumps down to the street. |
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| ����������� "Step aside," he hears.� "Step aside!"� The voice sounds familiar.� "Step aside!� Let the man through!" |
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| ����������� "Matthew?" |
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| ����������� "Hi, there, Zacchaeus.� We've been expecting you." |
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| ����������� The two turn and face the Deliverer. |
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| ����������� "Zacchaeus, I'd like you to meet Jesus, the next king of kings." |
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| ����������� The crowd is not believing what they are seeing.� Doesn't Jesus know this man is not even allowed to worship with them in the synagogue?� How can Jesus dirty himself like that? |
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| ����������� Jesus approaches and the two clasp hands.� Outcast with outcast. |
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| ����������� "I'm going to spend the night at your house tonight," Jesus announces to him. [22] |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus smiles.� Eccentric through and through.� He likes that. |
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| ����������� "I'd be honored.� I live just up the street in the direction you're going." |
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| ����������� "I know."� Jesus knows everything. |
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| ����������� So Zacchaeus joins the parade.� Now it is Zacchaeus in the middle with Jesus on one side and Matthew on the other. |
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| ����������� The crowd changes its mood.� The crowd becomes angry.� How fickle the crowd. |
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| ����������� "Booooo!" someone shouts. |
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| ����������� "Hey, cut it out!� Show some respect!" |
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| ����������� "To a man who is going to the house of a traitor?" he shouts back, making sure everyone around him hears. |
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| ����������� "Who is he, anyway?� The short one?" |
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| ����������� "He works for the Romans.� He collects our taxes!" |
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| ����������� "See how rich he is!" |
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| ����������� "You mean he doesn't even believe in God?" |
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| ����������� "Excommunicated!" |
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| ����������� "Booooo!" [23] |
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| ����������� Jesus and his aides let the crowd complain.� It does not matter what they think. |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus is confused.� What a fickle crowd.� One minute they love him, the next minute they hate him.� Zacchaeus senses they are only using Jesus.� He knows the feeling. |
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| ����������� The crowd begins to thin out.� Some are not so sure they want a king who associates with tax collectors and other sinners like them. [24] |
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| ����������� What Zacchaeus feels is not what he expected.� He had thought he would feel pride in gaining the attention of such an important man - the next king.� Instead, what he feels is a sense of wonder.� Jesus is not at all what he expected.� Jesus is friendly and down to earth and accepts everyone, just as Matthew had said. |
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| ����������� As they get closer to the mansion, Zacchaeus has a burning question he must ask. |
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| ����������� "Jesus, why did you choose me?" |
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| ����������� "Why not?� You're a descendant of Abraham just like everyone else in the crowd." [25] |
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����������� "But the synagogue excommunicated me for association with the kind of people they don't approve of." |
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����������� "Jesus is the true judge," Matthew explains.� "Listen to him.� Not the people.� They don't know.� He does." |
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| ����������� "Don't know what?" |
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| ����������� "Your heart." |
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| ����������� "I don't even know my heart, Matthew." |
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| ����������� "Yes, you do.� Remember you told me you used to go to synagogue?" |
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| ����������� "A long time ago.� In another life." |
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| ����������� "It's in you.� Inbred in you.� You know what is right.� You want to do it." |
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| ����������� For the first time since Matthew and he visited a couple years earlier, Zacchaeus allows himself to recall those more innocent years of his childhood.� They were good years.� He had thought his true friends were in the synagogue.� But eventually they turned on him. |
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����������� "Here it is," Zacchaeus announces. |
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| ����������� A doorman is standing by and immediately opens the gate for Zacchaeus and his new friends. |
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| ����������� They enter a large courtyard.� Columns of marble encircle it.� The pavement is of pink granite.� There is a tree in the middle of the courtyard in full bloom.� It is a sycamore tree.� He escorts them up a long staircase and personally shows them their rooms.� Two servants follow them to take over in helping the guests get settled.� |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus goes back downstairs and gives instructions for the evening.� There will be fourteen for dinner.� They are to be given the best of everything. |
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| ����������� One by one the apostles and Jesus return down stairs and join Zacchaeus in a large room, cedar lined with tall narrow windows all along one wall up by the very high ceiling.� Brass lamp stands scattered around the room are lit.� Chairs in the Roman style are grouped together for conversing and conferring. |
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| ����������� While they await dinner, they talk.� Jesus tells Zacchaeus that God loves him.� How can that be?� The synagogue doesn't. |
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| ����������� The love that Zacchaeus suddenly feels is uncomfortable at first.� For it has the power to chip away at the hardened shell he has built around himself all these years.� He does not like being left exposed.� And vulnerable.� He could get hurt again. |
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| ����������� Still they talk.� About each person being responsible only to God.� About each person doing what is right regardless of what others say or do.� About each person being willing to stand up and be counted, even if others try to knock him down.� Zacchaeus understands being knocked down. |
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| ����������� A butler enters the room and announces that dinner is ready.� They adjourn to another room.� There a large, low table is set with matching brass plates and goblets.� In the center are dishes of onyx and various other kinds filled with an abundance of food in a variety the apostles do not ever remember seeing.� They are amazed.� Zacchaeus is pleased. |
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| ����������� By each place is a set of lavish pillows of velvet.� Red, green, yellow, blue, orange, violet, with gold fringe on each one. Jesus starts to take a seat at the far end. |
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| ����������� "No, no, Jesus.� Not there.� You need to be at the head of the table.� I would be honored.� Please go to the head." |
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| ����������� As they eat, Zacchaeus has more questions.� "Tell me about your new kingdom, Jesus.� I understand you are going to take over as soon as you get to Jerusalem.� Is there anything I can do to help?� I'm good with finances.� Will they call you royal highness, his majesty, or what?� Which do you prefer?" |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus has the same misconception as everyone else.� Jesus will try once again to straighten it out. |
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| ����������� "Let me tell you a story." |
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| ����������� His apostles brighten up.� They never get tired of Jesus' stories. |
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| ����������� "A king took over another country and went to declare himself their king.� They did not want him to be king and refused to cooperate with him, so he made other plans to rule them. |
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| ����������� "While he was gone he gave his ten most loyal assistants a year and a half worth of wages. [30]� 'Use this money to run the kingdom while I'm gone,' he told them. |
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| ����������� "When the king came back, one of his servants said, 'I knew you expected a lot of us, so I did all I could.� I have invested your money and doubled it.' |
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| ����������� "'You have proven yourself very well.' the king replied.� 'I am going to send you to my new kingdom and put you in charge of ten cities.' |
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| ����������� "But one scoundrel reported to him with the same money he had been given in the first place.� 'What's this?' the king asked.� |
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| ����������� " 'I was afraid of you.� You are harsh and cruel.� I thought you might punish me if I did the wrong thing, so I did nothing.� I buried your money.� Here it is back.' |
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| ����������� "Of course the king was angry and replied, 'So you decided I was harsh and cruel.� Well, then, I will live up to your expectations.� You are no longer part of my kingdom here or anywhere else.� Get out of my sight.' " |
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| ����������� The room became silent.� It always does after one of Jesus' stories.� It takes some figuring out.� Maybe later they will bring it up again and give Jesus their ideas on what it means. |
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| ����������� "But what title do you want me to call you by?� I can honor you any way you want.� Tell me how." |
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| ����������� "God has really blessed you, Zacchaeus," Matthew says. |
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| ����������� That is part of the answer.� Zacchaeus has not yet figured that out. |
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| ����������� He had never thought of it that way.� A special blessing from God? |
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| ����������� "You mean God notices me?" |
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| ����������� "He not only notices you," James Junior adds, "but he thinks about you all the time." [31] |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus especially likes James Junior.� |
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| ����������� "In fact," Judas adds, "God knew you even before you were born." |
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| ����������� "He even knows you by name." [32] |
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| ����������� "That's how Jesus' knew my name?� I thought you told him, Matthew." |
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| ����������� "You'd be surprised what Jesus knows." |
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| ����������� A little at a time Zacchaeus allows that shell to be melted away.� By a king who wants loyalty, not titles.� Who can give far beyond what he asks.� |
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| ����������� A little at a time he recalls the scriptures he thought he'd forgotten so long ago.� A little at a time he becomes vulnerable to the kingdom of God.� He begins to want that kingdom.� lWhat had Matthew said in that letter?� Give up tteasures here for treasures in heaven? |
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| ����������� They are through eating, and follow Zacchaeus to another room.� As they go, they admire his beautiful things. |
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| ����������� "Jesus, people say I've cheated to get where I am.� But I've always treated everyone equally." |
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| ����������� Jesus knows that is true. |
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| ����������� "Maybe I shouldn't have," he adds after a moment.� "The widows.� I should have gone easier on them.� The families with no father.� I should have made them exempt from the commission." |
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| ����������� Jesus knows that also is true. |
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| ����������� Zacchaeus looks up and notices the apostles admiring his marble, the teak wood furniture, the ivory carvings, the tapestries on the wall, the gold urns. |
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| ����������� "You know, I don't need all this.� Not really.� Where has it got me?� I sit here alone anyway." |
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| ����������� Jesus is smiling.� He knows what Zacchaeus is about to say. |
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| ����������� "You know what?" |
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| ����������� Jesus does. |
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| ����������� "I am going to sell this big house and give half the proceeds to the homeless, and people needing medical treatment they can't afford, people needing to get into a house but don't have the deposit money, and poor children wanting to apprentice.� And anyone else I can think of. |
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| ����������� Everyone is smiling.� Now Zacchaeus is beginning to feel really good.� He does not remember feeling this good since his carefree childhood.� He is beginning to think of some really worthwhile things he can do with his life.� Retirement is just around the corner.� There are things he can do with all that free time. |
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| ����������� "Furthermore," Zacchaeus continues, as he leads them into the large room where they were before dinner, "I am going to have an audit done on my accounts since I took over this position.� And if anyone was charged taxes that should not have been, I will repay them out of my own pocket four times what they had to pay." [33] |
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| ����������� Now Zacchaeus is really getting eccentric.� Isn't he going overboard?� And feeling very good about it.� Now that the shell is gone, now that he does not have to act hardened any more, he can go with his heart again.� Man, this is living. |
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| ����������� The evening is a good one.� The meal.� The talks.� The prayers.� Before they retire for the night, Jesus has something special to tell Zacchaeus. |
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| ����������� "You have shown proof of your love for God with what he has given you.� Your particular gift is wealth.� You've proven it with your wealth.� You have used his gift well.� He will reward you." |
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| ����������� "Thank you, Jesus.� Thank you.� It helps me know I am on the right track." |
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| ����������� In the morning Zacchaeus has breakfast with everyone, then has the servants bring down the belongings of Jesus and his apostles.� He has given each of them a supply of food for several days and enough money to keep them going for a month.� He will send more later. |
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| ����������� Jesus and his apostles pick up their belongings.� They walk with Zacchaeus to his gate.� They open it and are surprised.� The street out front is full of people. |
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| ����������� "So you're going to finance your new government with cheats and frauds, are you Jesus?" |
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| ����������� "What kind of king are you, anyway?" |
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| ����������� "No wonder the Sanhedrin is after you." |
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| ����������� "So, defend yourself, Jesus.� What do you have to say about all this?" |
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| ����������� "This home has been given the blessing of God," Jesus begins.� "This home has been saved.� Zacchaeus, this man who works for the foreign occupation government, is a descendant of the same Abraham all of you are." |
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| ����������� "Well, if Abraham were alive, he'd disown him." |
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| ����������� Jesus continues.� "I search everywhere for the lost.� This man was ready to search out his sins, admit them, and eliminate them so he could be forgiven for them.� This is the type person who can be saved.� Those who never admit they sin cannot, cannot forgive what is never acknowledged." [34] |
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| ����������� What are you saying, Jesus?� We obey the laws.� We don't kill or rob people.� We go to synagogue every week.� Not him.� You're all mixed up, Jesus.� Who wants you for a king anyway.� You'll ruin our religion.� You'll ruin our government.� You'll ruin everything.� Go away, Jesus.� We don't want you after all. |
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LIFE APPLICATION |
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| 1.�������� Think about a time and place where you felt everyone was against you.� How did you try to compensate for it?� How will knowing that God loves you despite what people say give you an edge in such situations over people who do not believe in God? |
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| 2.�������� Are you a thief?� Figure up the number of photocopies you make in an average year at work and multiply that by a nickel (ink cartridges are expensive!).� Figure up the number of times you used company postage during the year and multiply that by the current postage rate.� Figure up the number of times you made personal long-distance phone calls on the company phone and estimate how much they cost.� Figure up the number of items you took home with you because they would not be missed or because you did not think you were paid enough.� Now add all this up.� Do you still say you do not rob people?� I Corinthians 6:10 says that thieves will not be accepted into the kingdom of God.� What will you do about this? |
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| 3.�������� God gives everyone something that they are good at, whether it be making money, making crafts, making friends, making inventions, etc.� God has no hands or feet or mouth except ours.� Think of some talent God has given you.� How will you use it to show God's love for mankind?���� |
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