Luke 19
This week Kristen VanDerWeide is commenting on the readings. Enjoy her thoughts! – Pastor Will
I’m pretty sure Zacchaeus is not as short as we make him out to be. We get the kids to squat down on the floor as we start the Zacchaeus song, calling him a “wee little man”. The Bible calls him short but does not say he was only 22 inches tall. The point of the children’s song is first of all to teach them the story and also to have a lot of actions to use up their energy. The focus of Zacchaeus should not be on his height, but on his persistence. He was probably not a young man, because he was the chief tax collector and was wealthy. Both of these attributes take time, wealth has to accumulate and the position has to either be bought with said wealth or be awarded by seniority. So, for Zacchaeus to climb a tree, at his age, says a lot about his character. You find over and over in the gospels, people who wouldn’t give up on their chance to see Jesus. The blind men yelling at the top of their lungs, friends of the paralyzed man who put a hole in the roof, lepers coming into public places, and now a short old man risking life to get on a limb.
What do I risk to see Jesus? Have I stopped everything to spend time with Him? Have I turned my schedule upside down, been late to an appointment or even turned down invitations because I wanted to read what He said? Jesus is already in my house, I just need to get out of the tree.
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