Mike Mosby, Children’s Church Coordinator

Center yourself on today’s reflection by lighting a candle and reciting this breath prayer: 
Inhale – Answer me, Lord, for your love is kind
Exhale – in your compassion, turn to me. 

Luke 19:1-10
1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Reflection:
I have so many fond memories of the story of Zacchaeus. I remember thinking as a child, hey I’m a short little kid, if Jesus could see short little Zacchaeus, he definitely can see me!   

Of course, as I grew older, I realized that God and Jesus never stop seeing us. God never leaves us. In fact, he never even turns away from us. We are the ones who turn away from him when we sin. Sometimes when we sin, it requires little effort to correct our course and turn back to God. However, it can be far too easy to give up and let sin consume us to the point that we may not even realize we are sinning anymore. This is what I believe the story of Zacchaeus is about. A man, who has fallen into a lifestyle of sin, but finally turns back to God, whose eternal grace shines through in Jesus’ offer to eat with him at his house. Zacchaeus had a hard time finding his way to Jesus though. Even though the story says he was short and could not see Jesus above the other people, I like to think this is a metaphor for how large his sin was.  

Zacchaeus had sinned for so long that it probably had just become part of his daily life. He may have tried to justify the sin he was committing by lying to himself so he felt better. It afforded him a lifestyle that was easy, and probably very hard to turn away from. Therefore, Zacchaeus’ sin was so great, he could not see above all the other people. He had to really put some effort into seeing Jesus. Zacchaeus climbing that tree is akin to us finally realizing our sin and repenting. We climb the tree when we finally realize our sin, and not only decide to change, but follow through. This is what we must do to finally turn back to God. And when we do, his grace, just like Jesus’ in the story of Zacchaeus, is too amazing to believe. Even though we are sinners, when we repent, God immediately wants to celebrate with us.

Prayer:
Oh God, thank you for never turning away from us. Lord help us to realize our sin and give us the strength to rise above it. Help us to turn back to you, oh God. Amen.