Luke 19:2-5
- "And, behold, there was a man named Zachaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus, who He was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, "Zachaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house.""
I must admit that I don't that I have ever read this story and realized what a beautiful picture this is of how our relationships with Jesus should be; How we should be pursuing our Lord. I would think that this is a story in the Bible that almost everyone has heard of and that we all read and see the Love of Jesus and how He even eats with the cheating tax collectors; How no matter what we have done will matter to Jesus, as long as we choose to turn away from those things and pursue Him. I believe that Jesus knew the heart of Zachaeus, when He saw him and told him He would dine at his home. As we read past these verses, we see that Zachaeus turns from his wicked ways and has this big "Grinch That Stole Christmas Turn Around" giving back his cheated money back to the people as well giving to the poor, but what really touched my heart while reading this story this morning was found in these verses above. First off we read that this Zachaeus guy was chief among the publicans, which automatically made my mind switch over to where Paul admits to be the "chief of sinners" in 1 Timothy 1:16. Now I'm not trying to put Zachaeus on blast or anything, but Paul with a changed heart tells us that he was the "chief of sinners" which, in my mind, when someone admits that they are the worst at something I usually think, "ehh, they're probably not that bad." But here we see that he, Zachaeus is known for being the chief of these publicans (tax collectors), who were known for cheating people out of their money, which is, in its on way, stealing. So Zachaeus is the "Leading Thief" we can call him, so the next part of that sentence becomes a little obvious, "and he was rich." Then it says that "he sought to see Jesus..." That hit me. Like I can't lie, this verse is what hit me and spoke to me and why I felt like I had to write this down. "He sought to see Jesus..." why?, for "who He was..." Zachaeus with all of his money and "power" that he probably had over these people, heard about who Jesus was, from somewhere, I don't think it really matters where, but he heard of Him and went to see Him. Why did he go to see Jesus? Well, It's my assumption that he liked what he heard of Him! He heard something that sparked in his head and thought, "Ya know, I should probably go see this Jesus guy." Then we see the part that kills me because I realize how much I DONT do this my walk with Christ... he, while being super short, unable to see Jesus through the crowd, ran AHEAD of the crowd, which by the way, if there's a crowd so big that you can't see through it, then there was probably a lot of people in it, meaning he had to work his way to the front of that crowd to get where he made it to. Then, it says he climbed into a tree, to see the Lord for he was to "pass that way." So we have Zachaeus, this wicked man, who hears of Jesus, wants to see Him, why? don't know, but I would assume it's because he heard something really good. Then he gets to the crowd, he's too short and says, "Bump that I'm going home"? NOPE, he drops his shoulder, forces his way to the front of the crowd, then waits for Jesus to walk past him"? NOPE, then he climbs into a tree... to make sure he gets a complete view of Jesus as He walks past. All this effort in hopes that he would be able just to SEE Jesus. Then Jesus looks up, sees a midget in a tree and says, "Oh now I've seen everything." No, however that would be quite a sight. But no He looks up and says "Hey! Zachaeus! get down here quick! I'm going to eat at your house today!"
Ya know, I feel like Jesus always has had a knack for finding the person in the crowd who stands out a little more. We have all these people who went to see Jesus just like Zachaeus did, they all went, but they all stood in the crowd. It's in some ways a little strange to me, because, I don't think that's a bad crowd to be in, ya know? That crowd was all there to see Jesus because either they heard of Him, maybe some of them really loved Him, they were all there to see Jesus yet, we have this one guy, Zachaeus, a well known sinner, putting forth all this effort just look upon Him as He passed by. And I believe that this is a great example how we should be striving to see our Lord as Christians but this also reminds me of one of my favorite lines ever in a movie. It's from God's Not Dead (I know a lot of people didn't like it, I personally didn't like it all that much), It's not out of the Bible so I'm just going to paraphrase, but it's the part where the jerk son visits his dying mother with Alzheimer's and she tells him, That sometimes the Devil allows people to live in a life of sin where they feel like nothing is wrong so that they stay in their sin, but in actuality, they are just paving their way into an eternity of Hell. This is how I feel Zachaeus' live was like before Jesus. I feel like he was just like those of us who didn't get hurt from their sins initially, but then He heard of Jesus, that there was something better for him in Jesus, and so he went to see Him and went beyond these other "Christian" people to see Him because he knew that he needed Him. We all can get very comfortable in our sins, and think we don't need to be working so hard just to see Jesus, we just need to stand in the crowd with the others and heck there are times when we have this annoying little man push us out of the way to get in front of us, to be the first up there, then we watch him climb a tree and we sit there and judge him and murmur at the situation as it says the crowd did in verse 7; but we didn't know the heart of the person "On Fire" for Jesus. How about we all just be the ones on fire for Jesus.
I have a lot of friends who are in sin, who are Atheists, who are living "great" lives, who feel they don't need God that they live lives the way they want to because that's all life is. I continue to pray for them, not that they would have to go through some traumatic experience to make a turn around, but that they would realize themselves that Christ is Life and run to Him.
