The Story Of The Little Man Who Climbed A Tree
Stories
Stories Around The Baby
Sermons and Children's Lessons For Advent and Christmas
My name is Esther, and my husband is the chief tax collector in the city of Jericho. I'm sure you've heard of Jericho. You might know that it is one of the oldest cities in this land. It was a city long before our people came here. You remember - when they came from Egypt, the great signal to everyone living in this land was that the God of our people had helped them to capture the city of Jericho, by directing them what to do in order to cause the walls of Jericho to fall. Jericho was the key to the whole country. When Jericho was captured, everyone knew that this land belonged to our people.
And Jericho is such a lovely city. I never particularly enjoyed going up to Jerusalem, though that is the center of government, and it is looked upon as the symbolic center of our land. But Jerusalem seems new and almost bare, thrust up there on the hilltop, while Jericho nestles down in the lush valley, and receives the gentle breezes. Our palm trees and our gardens flourish, and the caravans pass through from east to west and west to east, letting their varieties of music fall upon our ears from places far and near. I love Jericho. I have never lived anywhere else, and I hope I never do.
But it's another matter whether Jericho loves me, and even more to the point, whether it loves my husband, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus has a big responsibility. He is in charge of all the tax collecting in our city. The taxes he collects go to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, and to Rome. I have always been proud that my husband has a part in supporting the government of our land, and the magnificent power of Rome. Among many of our people, the Romans are very unpopular, but I look at it this way - if the Romans were not in authority over us, some other power would be, and I do not think we would be so well ordered, by so just a power. Ours is a very small land. Only rarely and briefly in our history have we been a free and independent people - and when we were, we could not even hold ourselves together, but became after King Solomon a kingdom divided, Israel and Judah. No wonder that after that, the Assyrians and Babylonians came in and plundered.
When the Persians took charge of the world, they gave us some order. And then there were the Greeks, and now the Romans. From what I can see, we are about as well off as we can be now, for though Rome takes some taxes us from us, Rome gives us our lives otherwise to live as we wish. We maintain our own patterns of commerce, and we carry out our own religious rituals. We keep our culture intact, thanks, I'd say to Rome! If ever the anti-Romans become dominant among us, that's when things will be bad for our people. I know, women do not usually seem to think about this sort of thing, but I think. Maybe even my name has something to do with that. The great Esther was queen in the time of the Persians. She thought carefully, and saved our people from destruction. I will never save our people, but I do believe it's important for one to think about things like this, to have one's own opinions and judgments and not merely accept whatever is the popular mood of the moment.
And it's surely a good thing that I am as independent as I am in judgment, or else the general feeling of the people about tax collectors could ruin my life. I do not understand all the technicalities of my husband's business. I do not believe that that is my role, my business. My role is to be Zacchaeus' wife, to make and keep this home for which he so well provides, and to give him my love and my loyalty in answer to the love and loyalty which he so faithfully gives me. It would have been my role as well to direct the upbringing of our children, but we have not been blessed with children, which has been a matter of quiet pain to both of us. Yet sometimes I think that our loyalty to each other is, if anything, the more intense because we have only each other.
I said that I do not know all the details of my husband's business, but I know enough - and this is probably the greatest burden that I carry, that we carry - I know enough to know that there do not exist clear rules and laws about collecting taxes. That sounds strange when I have said how well ordered the Roman authority is. But that's one of the principles of its ordering, that it does not establish all the details of the system. The Romans simply let it be known what is important to them, and in the area of tax collecting, what is important is the minimum amount of tax that they require. How the funds should be obtained, they do not in detail direct. How much the local government may extract from the taxing system, how much the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem may demand - the Romans don't specify. Nor is there any standard about compensation for the tax collectors themselves. As far as I know, Zacchaeus himself does not even have a firm agreement with the men who work for him in Jericho about their own share of the taxes. They know what they must give him, and the difference between that and what they collect is their share. It's their responsibility to keep the people content enough so that the tax collecting process can continue to go smoothly. Zacchaeus has in some ways the most difficult position in the system because he depends upon those who work for him, but he never knows when some Roman or Jewish official will demand more than Zacchaeus expected to have to provide. Zacchaeus is in the middle, and if he were not so wise and so smooth, life for him and for us both would be a great deal harder.
As it is, we are not poor. We are able to live in considerable comfort. But we are not popular, for no one is ever satisfied that the tax is being fair to him. I've thought that if there ever is a significant rebellion against Roman power, it will be because of resentment at the tax system. I've wished the Romans could help us to work out a system more specific and fair, but I suppose that such a thing as that is impossible from so far away as Rome, and for so many different peoples as Rome now is administering. I tell you all this just to tell you how life is with us, where we are and who we are. And I chiefly tell you all this so that you may understand the beauty and the wonder of the great experience that Zacchaeus had, that we both had, with the new teacher Jesus when he passed through Jericho not long ago, on his way to Jerusalem. I sometimes think our lives will never be the same - it was that wonderful, that overwhelming an experience.
I don't think I had heard before about this Jesus, though it's strangely hard to remember what I knew and didn't know before he came. Zacchaeus apparently had heard enough about him to want to get a look at him. It seems that this Jesus had been unusually thoughtful of tax collectors. Having met him myself, I'd say now that he is unusually thoughtful of tax collectors and everyone else. But Zacchaeus knew that Jesus had not only eaten a meal more than once with tax collectors up in Galilee, which has for a long time been a socially unacceptable thing to do in our land - Jesus had not only eaten meals more than once with tax collectors, but he had invited the chief tax collector of Capernaum to become one of his close friends, or "disciples," as they seem to be called. Tax collectors have for so long been shunned by the so-called respectable group that it was a bold thing for Jesus to be in touch with them, let alone to bring one of them into his intimate circle.
In any case, Zacchaeus knew enough about this that when he heard the other day that Jesus was expected to be passing through Jericho, Zacchaeus decided he wanted to see him. Zacchaeus inquired when Jesus was expected, and he learned that Jesus was just outside the city. Jesus was apparently on his way to Jerusalem and would not be stopping in Jericho. Zacchaeus closed his office and hurried toward the north gate, where the main road from Galilee and Samaria enters the city to go through it. Zacchaeus found quite a crowd gathered, waiting for Jesus. Now a crowd does not willingly open itself up for my husband, the tax collector, and besides that, Zacchaeus is short, like myself, and always has a hard time seeing what is going on. But Zacchaeus has always been resourceful and agile. He had to develop those qualities in order to make up for being short, and those qualities have helped him to become successful in many things.
When Zacchaeus saw the crowd, he knew there was no point in his waiting at the edge of the crowd, because he would never see anything. But his eye fell on that old sycamore tree near the gate, and he concluded that that was the answer to his problem. He gave a few coins to a boy with a donkey and asked the boy to take the donkey to the tree so that he could stand on its back and reach the lowest branch. In that way, Zacchaeus climbed up into the tree, and had apparently just gotten himself into position when he heard some kind of commotion outside the gate. We learned afterward that old Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who has taken his position there at the gate each day for so many years, had recovered his eyesight as Jesus was coming into the city, and it caused a great stir. There were two or three of Jesus' special friends with Jesus, and by the time they all got to the gate, they had picked up a number of curiosity seekers from near Jericho, so that Jesus came into the city surrounded by quite a group. And then there was the crowd waiting inside the gate as Jesus and the crowd around him came into the city. If Zacchaeus had not been up in that tree, he would never have been able to see anything!
And I guess we will never know whether it was his being up in the tree that drew the attention of Jesus to him, but it must have been that, and Jesus must have said to those nearby, "Who is that fellow up in the sycamore tree?" And someone must have replied, "Oh, him - that's Zacchaeus the tax collector!" In any case, the most remarkable thing happened, for Jesus looked up into the sycamore tree and cried out, "Zacchaeus, come down from that tree! I'm going to rest at your house today and have a meal with you if you are willing." Zacchaeus was so stunned that it apparently took him a few moments to gather his wits and come down and you can imagine how startled the crowd was. I think at first they were pleased that Jesus seemed to know one of them, and that he was going to stay in Jericho after all, but then when they realized who it was that he had recognized, and who it was that he was going to visit, their mood changed, and they grew angry and resentful. Zacchaeus of course was used to that mood, that reaction. But this time he did something about it, something that astounded the crowd and himself! The people of Jericho have not forgotten yet, and I believe they will think differently of Zacchaeus for a long while. But I think it was partly because he wanted no bad reflection from himself to fall on Jesus after Jesus had so graciously recognized him. Zacchaeus shouted out for all to hear, "Lord, half of my goods I will give to the poor, and if I have cheated any individual, I'll make it up to him four times!" The crowd was dumbstruck, but Zacchaeus meant what he said, and he has since figured carefully what our wealth is, and has begun to distribute to the needy what he calculates to be half of our savings. As far as the cheating part goes, there's been no more honest man at work in this whole tax collecting enterprise than my husband, so few if any could truly charge that Zacchaeus had cheated them. But Zacchaeus knows what the feelings of the people are, and this was his chance to put the burden of truth upon them. As far as I know, no one has come forth to make a claim against him. And as for half of our savings, I have seen no evidence so far that our standard of living will change much. As I told you, Zacchaeus and myself are wealthy - so wealthy that to give up half of what we have still leaves us not uncomfortable.
What a change all this has made in our relationships with people here in Jericho! Whether it was Jesus choosing our house to stay in for a few brief hours, or Zacchaeus' declaration prompted by Jesus' call to him, I do not know. But we are shunned no longer. People acknowledge us in the street. Other women speak to me in the market. Our servants seem proud and not surly and grudging about the fact that they work in our home. For the first time ever, we have been summoned to the great banquet held every year by the leading merchants of Jericho. The pattern of our lives has been transformed by the events of that brief day - we live in reconciliation with our fellow citizens now.
And something has changed within ourselves, as well. To tell you the truth, I can hardly remember any of the conversation between Jesus and ourselves while he was with us. When the messenger arrived from Zacchaeus telling me to get ready for a special guest for supper, I was startled - we so rarely have guests. And the time Jesus was with us seemed to fly by while I was busy with the food and serving. Of course we entertained as well as those friends of his who had come with him from Galilee - I think they were named Peter, and James, and John. They said that others of their group had gone on earlier to Jerusalem, and still others were yet to come from Galilee. This trip to Jerusalem seemed to be important to them all, and I could not tell whether they were looking forward to it or were fearful about it. We have not heard from any of them since they left us and went on. No doubt we will hear something sooner or later.
But it was not what Jesus said that made a difference in our lives - just that he was here in our home. His very presence seemed to bless us and to change us. I know I have been happier since he was here than I had ever been in my life - happier and more content. It is not just that we live in a different relationship with others now. It's that we live in a different relationship even with God. I cannot explain it - I just know that what I am saying is true.
And I must tell you about the amazing conversation I had with a strange woman at the market yesterday. As I said, people greet us now who never before acknowledged us in any way, so I was not totally surprised when this young woman approached me and said, "I believe you're Esther, and your husband is Zacchaeus the tax collector. Jesus of Nazareth was in your home the other day. My name is Mary. I grew up in Bethlehem, and my father is an innkeeper there. When I was a little girl, during the time of the great census, we, too, had some special visitors. A man named Joseph and his wife Mary wanted a room in our inn. The inn was full, but my father could see that Joseph's wife was just about to have a baby, and he offered the barn. That very night their baby was born in our barn, and it was the strangest and most wonderful thing how everyone knew about it and wanted to see that baby. The Bethlehem villagers came, shepherds from the nearby countryside came, even some foreign noblemen with a rich looking camel train came. They all wanted to see that baby. That baby grew up to be Jesus of Nazareth. His parents returned to Nazareth not long after he was born, and we lost all track of him until recently when we began to hear stories about him and his teaching and travels. I heard about Zacchaeus wanting so much to see Jesus that he climbed the sycamore tree, and it reminded me of how the doves had come into the barn and sat in the rafters looking down at that baby! No one who saw Jesus when he was a baby ever forgot the experience. Somehow, just seeing him seemed to change their lives. I wish that I had seen him when he was in Jericho. How wonderful it must have been for you to have him in your home. I can imagine you'll never forget it!"
I appreciated so much Mary telling me her story that I asked her to come home with me and tell Zacchaeus, too. She did. I think we have a new friend there. And when she told Zacchaeus about how they all had come to see the baby in the barn, Zacchaeus' eyes filled with tears so moving was her story, and so close was it to his original experience of wanting to see Jesus.
And all this has been my story, and there is no more now, but if ever you should have the chance to see Jesus, then, oh, you must see him! You will never know such joy as when you see him, and your very heart will be changed and made new when you have seen him! Amen.
Advent 3
Children's Lesson
Do you ever get tired of being smaller than grownups? I think every child has that feeling sometimes. But children can look forward to growing bigger. It might be harder if one were already grown up and was short in comparison with other people. There was a man once who wanted very badly to see Jesus, but he was short, and there was a big crowd around Jesus, and this man had to figure out a way to get himself above the crowd so that he could see over the heads of the other people. Do you have any idea what he might have done?
He climbed a tree. And much to his surprise and to the surprise of everyone else, Jesus saw him up in that tree and called him down. Zacchaeus was the man's name. Jesus called out, "Zacchaeus, come down from that tree!" And if that wasn't a big enough surprise, Jesus added, "I'm calling you down because I'm going to have supper in your house tonight." Well, this was a thrill far beyond anything Zacchaeus had hoped for - and it changed his whole life. I'm going to be telling more of the story of Zacchaeus in a few minutes. Listen and see what happened when Jesus announced before the whole crowd that he would have dinner at the house of Zacchaeus.
And Jericho is such a lovely city. I never particularly enjoyed going up to Jerusalem, though that is the center of government, and it is looked upon as the symbolic center of our land. But Jerusalem seems new and almost bare, thrust up there on the hilltop, while Jericho nestles down in the lush valley, and receives the gentle breezes. Our palm trees and our gardens flourish, and the caravans pass through from east to west and west to east, letting their varieties of music fall upon our ears from places far and near. I love Jericho. I have never lived anywhere else, and I hope I never do.
But it's another matter whether Jericho loves me, and even more to the point, whether it loves my husband, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus has a big responsibility. He is in charge of all the tax collecting in our city. The taxes he collects go to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, and to Rome. I have always been proud that my husband has a part in supporting the government of our land, and the magnificent power of Rome. Among many of our people, the Romans are very unpopular, but I look at it this way - if the Romans were not in authority over us, some other power would be, and I do not think we would be so well ordered, by so just a power. Ours is a very small land. Only rarely and briefly in our history have we been a free and independent people - and when we were, we could not even hold ourselves together, but became after King Solomon a kingdom divided, Israel and Judah. No wonder that after that, the Assyrians and Babylonians came in and plundered.
When the Persians took charge of the world, they gave us some order. And then there were the Greeks, and now the Romans. From what I can see, we are about as well off as we can be now, for though Rome takes some taxes us from us, Rome gives us our lives otherwise to live as we wish. We maintain our own patterns of commerce, and we carry out our own religious rituals. We keep our culture intact, thanks, I'd say to Rome! If ever the anti-Romans become dominant among us, that's when things will be bad for our people. I know, women do not usually seem to think about this sort of thing, but I think. Maybe even my name has something to do with that. The great Esther was queen in the time of the Persians. She thought carefully, and saved our people from destruction. I will never save our people, but I do believe it's important for one to think about things like this, to have one's own opinions and judgments and not merely accept whatever is the popular mood of the moment.
And it's surely a good thing that I am as independent as I am in judgment, or else the general feeling of the people about tax collectors could ruin my life. I do not understand all the technicalities of my husband's business. I do not believe that that is my role, my business. My role is to be Zacchaeus' wife, to make and keep this home for which he so well provides, and to give him my love and my loyalty in answer to the love and loyalty which he so faithfully gives me. It would have been my role as well to direct the upbringing of our children, but we have not been blessed with children, which has been a matter of quiet pain to both of us. Yet sometimes I think that our loyalty to each other is, if anything, the more intense because we have only each other.
I said that I do not know all the details of my husband's business, but I know enough - and this is probably the greatest burden that I carry, that we carry - I know enough to know that there do not exist clear rules and laws about collecting taxes. That sounds strange when I have said how well ordered the Roman authority is. But that's one of the principles of its ordering, that it does not establish all the details of the system. The Romans simply let it be known what is important to them, and in the area of tax collecting, what is important is the minimum amount of tax that they require. How the funds should be obtained, they do not in detail direct. How much the local government may extract from the taxing system, how much the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem may demand - the Romans don't specify. Nor is there any standard about compensation for the tax collectors themselves. As far as I know, Zacchaeus himself does not even have a firm agreement with the men who work for him in Jericho about their own share of the taxes. They know what they must give him, and the difference between that and what they collect is their share. It's their responsibility to keep the people content enough so that the tax collecting process can continue to go smoothly. Zacchaeus has in some ways the most difficult position in the system because he depends upon those who work for him, but he never knows when some Roman or Jewish official will demand more than Zacchaeus expected to have to provide. Zacchaeus is in the middle, and if he were not so wise and so smooth, life for him and for us both would be a great deal harder.
As it is, we are not poor. We are able to live in considerable comfort. But we are not popular, for no one is ever satisfied that the tax is being fair to him. I've thought that if there ever is a significant rebellion against Roman power, it will be because of resentment at the tax system. I've wished the Romans could help us to work out a system more specific and fair, but I suppose that such a thing as that is impossible from so far away as Rome, and for so many different peoples as Rome now is administering. I tell you all this just to tell you how life is with us, where we are and who we are. And I chiefly tell you all this so that you may understand the beauty and the wonder of the great experience that Zacchaeus had, that we both had, with the new teacher Jesus when he passed through Jericho not long ago, on his way to Jerusalem. I sometimes think our lives will never be the same - it was that wonderful, that overwhelming an experience.
I don't think I had heard before about this Jesus, though it's strangely hard to remember what I knew and didn't know before he came. Zacchaeus apparently had heard enough about him to want to get a look at him. It seems that this Jesus had been unusually thoughtful of tax collectors. Having met him myself, I'd say now that he is unusually thoughtful of tax collectors and everyone else. But Zacchaeus knew that Jesus had not only eaten a meal more than once with tax collectors up in Galilee, which has for a long time been a socially unacceptable thing to do in our land - Jesus had not only eaten meals more than once with tax collectors, but he had invited the chief tax collector of Capernaum to become one of his close friends, or "disciples," as they seem to be called. Tax collectors have for so long been shunned by the so-called respectable group that it was a bold thing for Jesus to be in touch with them, let alone to bring one of them into his intimate circle.
In any case, Zacchaeus knew enough about this that when he heard the other day that Jesus was expected to be passing through Jericho, Zacchaeus decided he wanted to see him. Zacchaeus inquired when Jesus was expected, and he learned that Jesus was just outside the city. Jesus was apparently on his way to Jerusalem and would not be stopping in Jericho. Zacchaeus closed his office and hurried toward the north gate, where the main road from Galilee and Samaria enters the city to go through it. Zacchaeus found quite a crowd gathered, waiting for Jesus. Now a crowd does not willingly open itself up for my husband, the tax collector, and besides that, Zacchaeus is short, like myself, and always has a hard time seeing what is going on. But Zacchaeus has always been resourceful and agile. He had to develop those qualities in order to make up for being short, and those qualities have helped him to become successful in many things.
When Zacchaeus saw the crowd, he knew there was no point in his waiting at the edge of the crowd, because he would never see anything. But his eye fell on that old sycamore tree near the gate, and he concluded that that was the answer to his problem. He gave a few coins to a boy with a donkey and asked the boy to take the donkey to the tree so that he could stand on its back and reach the lowest branch. In that way, Zacchaeus climbed up into the tree, and had apparently just gotten himself into position when he heard some kind of commotion outside the gate. We learned afterward that old Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who has taken his position there at the gate each day for so many years, had recovered his eyesight as Jesus was coming into the city, and it caused a great stir. There were two or three of Jesus' special friends with Jesus, and by the time they all got to the gate, they had picked up a number of curiosity seekers from near Jericho, so that Jesus came into the city surrounded by quite a group. And then there was the crowd waiting inside the gate as Jesus and the crowd around him came into the city. If Zacchaeus had not been up in that tree, he would never have been able to see anything!
And I guess we will never know whether it was his being up in the tree that drew the attention of Jesus to him, but it must have been that, and Jesus must have said to those nearby, "Who is that fellow up in the sycamore tree?" And someone must have replied, "Oh, him - that's Zacchaeus the tax collector!" In any case, the most remarkable thing happened, for Jesus looked up into the sycamore tree and cried out, "Zacchaeus, come down from that tree! I'm going to rest at your house today and have a meal with you if you are willing." Zacchaeus was so stunned that it apparently took him a few moments to gather his wits and come down and you can imagine how startled the crowd was. I think at first they were pleased that Jesus seemed to know one of them, and that he was going to stay in Jericho after all, but then when they realized who it was that he had recognized, and who it was that he was going to visit, their mood changed, and they grew angry and resentful. Zacchaeus of course was used to that mood, that reaction. But this time he did something about it, something that astounded the crowd and himself! The people of Jericho have not forgotten yet, and I believe they will think differently of Zacchaeus for a long while. But I think it was partly because he wanted no bad reflection from himself to fall on Jesus after Jesus had so graciously recognized him. Zacchaeus shouted out for all to hear, "Lord, half of my goods I will give to the poor, and if I have cheated any individual, I'll make it up to him four times!" The crowd was dumbstruck, but Zacchaeus meant what he said, and he has since figured carefully what our wealth is, and has begun to distribute to the needy what he calculates to be half of our savings. As far as the cheating part goes, there's been no more honest man at work in this whole tax collecting enterprise than my husband, so few if any could truly charge that Zacchaeus had cheated them. But Zacchaeus knows what the feelings of the people are, and this was his chance to put the burden of truth upon them. As far as I know, no one has come forth to make a claim against him. And as for half of our savings, I have seen no evidence so far that our standard of living will change much. As I told you, Zacchaeus and myself are wealthy - so wealthy that to give up half of what we have still leaves us not uncomfortable.
What a change all this has made in our relationships with people here in Jericho! Whether it was Jesus choosing our house to stay in for a few brief hours, or Zacchaeus' declaration prompted by Jesus' call to him, I do not know. But we are shunned no longer. People acknowledge us in the street. Other women speak to me in the market. Our servants seem proud and not surly and grudging about the fact that they work in our home. For the first time ever, we have been summoned to the great banquet held every year by the leading merchants of Jericho. The pattern of our lives has been transformed by the events of that brief day - we live in reconciliation with our fellow citizens now.
And something has changed within ourselves, as well. To tell you the truth, I can hardly remember any of the conversation between Jesus and ourselves while he was with us. When the messenger arrived from Zacchaeus telling me to get ready for a special guest for supper, I was startled - we so rarely have guests. And the time Jesus was with us seemed to fly by while I was busy with the food and serving. Of course we entertained as well as those friends of his who had come with him from Galilee - I think they were named Peter, and James, and John. They said that others of their group had gone on earlier to Jerusalem, and still others were yet to come from Galilee. This trip to Jerusalem seemed to be important to them all, and I could not tell whether they were looking forward to it or were fearful about it. We have not heard from any of them since they left us and went on. No doubt we will hear something sooner or later.
But it was not what Jesus said that made a difference in our lives - just that he was here in our home. His very presence seemed to bless us and to change us. I know I have been happier since he was here than I had ever been in my life - happier and more content. It is not just that we live in a different relationship with others now. It's that we live in a different relationship even with God. I cannot explain it - I just know that what I am saying is true.
And I must tell you about the amazing conversation I had with a strange woman at the market yesterday. As I said, people greet us now who never before acknowledged us in any way, so I was not totally surprised when this young woman approached me and said, "I believe you're Esther, and your husband is Zacchaeus the tax collector. Jesus of Nazareth was in your home the other day. My name is Mary. I grew up in Bethlehem, and my father is an innkeeper there. When I was a little girl, during the time of the great census, we, too, had some special visitors. A man named Joseph and his wife Mary wanted a room in our inn. The inn was full, but my father could see that Joseph's wife was just about to have a baby, and he offered the barn. That very night their baby was born in our barn, and it was the strangest and most wonderful thing how everyone knew about it and wanted to see that baby. The Bethlehem villagers came, shepherds from the nearby countryside came, even some foreign noblemen with a rich looking camel train came. They all wanted to see that baby. That baby grew up to be Jesus of Nazareth. His parents returned to Nazareth not long after he was born, and we lost all track of him until recently when we began to hear stories about him and his teaching and travels. I heard about Zacchaeus wanting so much to see Jesus that he climbed the sycamore tree, and it reminded me of how the doves had come into the barn and sat in the rafters looking down at that baby! No one who saw Jesus when he was a baby ever forgot the experience. Somehow, just seeing him seemed to change their lives. I wish that I had seen him when he was in Jericho. How wonderful it must have been for you to have him in your home. I can imagine you'll never forget it!"
I appreciated so much Mary telling me her story that I asked her to come home with me and tell Zacchaeus, too. She did. I think we have a new friend there. And when she told Zacchaeus about how they all had come to see the baby in the barn, Zacchaeus' eyes filled with tears so moving was her story, and so close was it to his original experience of wanting to see Jesus.
And all this has been my story, and there is no more now, but if ever you should have the chance to see Jesus, then, oh, you must see him! You will never know such joy as when you see him, and your very heart will be changed and made new when you have seen him! Amen.
Advent 3
Children's Lesson
Do you ever get tired of being smaller than grownups? I think every child has that feeling sometimes. But children can look forward to growing bigger. It might be harder if one were already grown up and was short in comparison with other people. There was a man once who wanted very badly to see Jesus, but he was short, and there was a big crowd around Jesus, and this man had to figure out a way to get himself above the crowd so that he could see over the heads of the other people. Do you have any idea what he might have done?
He climbed a tree. And much to his surprise and to the surprise of everyone else, Jesus saw him up in that tree and called him down. Zacchaeus was the man's name. Jesus called out, "Zacchaeus, come down from that tree!" And if that wasn't a big enough surprise, Jesus added, "I'm calling you down because I'm going to have supper in your house tonight." Well, this was a thrill far beyond anything Zacchaeus had hoped for - and it changed his whole life. I'm going to be telling more of the story of Zacchaeus in a few minutes. Listen and see what happened when Jesus announced before the whole crowd that he would have dinner at the house of Zacchaeus.
