By WALTER ALBRITTON
RELIGION —
“Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. And as the Savior passed that way, He looked up in the tree, and He said, ‘Zacchaeus you come down, for I’m going to your house today!’”
That’s the song I heard happy children sing in Vacation Bible School. They had learned the story told in Luke’s Gospel of the wealthy tax collector who met Jesus while sitting on a tree limb. The little man must have been shocked when Jesus said, “I want to go home with you today.”
Luke does not describe Zacchaeus’ reaction, only that he welcomed Jesus “gladly.” But I can imagine Zacchaeus was seized with a moment of panic at the thought of Jesus entering his home. Were there things he would have hidden, things he did not want Jesus to see? And he had no time to warn his wife he was bringing a well-known preacher to dinner.
I don’t have to wait until Easter to remind you that ever since his Father raised him from the dead, Jesus is alive. And ever since his resurrection, Jesus has been wanting to go home with every last one of us. He wants to do for us what he did for Zacchaeus; he wants to change each of us into the person God destined us to become.
There is little doubt that Zacchaeus despised himself. And for good reason. He was a Jew who worked for the Romans collecting taxes from his own people; so the Romans had no respect for him. His fellow Jews loathed him for getting rich at their expense. Even worse, his greed drove him to swindle some of his own people.
Jesus changed all that. There in his home that day, Zacchaeus surrendered his life to Jesus, and Jesus transformed the greedy little man into a generous man. In that moment, Jesus was the “Truth” setting a man free from avarice so he could begin sharing God’s concern for the poor. He was so free that he was willing to repay those he had cheated four times the amount he had stolen. Now Zacchaeus could break free from self-despising and become a man who could affirm his worth as an unselfish steward of his resources.
Move on from Zacchaeus to yourself. Suppose Jesus, the living, redeeming Christ, said he wanted to go home with you today. Believe me, if you asked him to become Lord of your life, he would change you in every way you need to be changed. He would transform everything about you — what you say, what you do, where you go, what you read, what you allow into your brain, what you put in your mouth and what comes out of your mouth. He would transform your ugliness into kindness, your sadness into joy, your anxiety into peace, your bad habits into good habits.
His transforming power is so great that instead of fretting about our culture, you would get excited about living in the Kingdom of God. You would no longer live in the grip of fear and depression; Jesus would fill you with his living hope. You would begin shouting with Saint Peter, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!”
Here is the truth: The living Jesus wants to go home with you, and if you will let him, he will change everything about you from the inside out! The wisest decision I ever made was to accept Jesus’ invitation to go home with me so he could change me, my home and my family. If you have never said, “Come on, Jesus,” do it today. I promise you will never regret it!