Brown's Daily Word 8-25-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the way we can came to Jesus just as we are, with all of our bloopers and blunders, our hopes and fears, our sins ands our sorrows, our defeats and our triumphs. Jesus seeks us even before we seek Him. This is called prevenient grace. This is the Good News.
In Luke 19 we read the account of a man whose life received an extreme make-over by Jesus our Lord, who makes all things glorious and beautiful. Jesus was in Jericho, the oldest city on earth. There was a contagious crowd surrounding Him. Zacchaeus, a notorious personality in that city, was in the crowd. He was too short to see Jesus over the heads of the people in the crowd, but Zacchaeus, consumed with his desire to see Jesus, took off running. In that day, grown men didn't run in public. It was degrading. Worse yet, Zacchaeus, a prominent member of Jericho society, actually had the gall to climb a tree in front of all those people. He climbed a sycamore tree so that he could better see this Jesus. Then a most amazing thing happened. Far down the road, the noise of the crowd got louder. . . Jesus must finally be coming by.
Everyone forgot about the Zacchaeus, looking expectantly down the road, looking for Jesus as he made His way toward them. People must have cried out to Jesus and clambered around Him, trying to touch Him. As Jesus made his way through Jericho, he saw, up in a sycamore tree, a grown man, clinging to the branches, looking towards him. Then Jesus reached the foot of the sycamore tree, looked up at Zacchaeus, and called him by name! “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down! For I must stay at your house today!”
Can you imagine? Jesus knew him by name. Jesus knew Zacchaeus’ deepest wrongs and knew his deepest desires. He knew Zacchaeus. Furthermore, the rumors were true, that Jesus did eat and hang out with sinners and people no one else liked. Zacchaeus couldn’t believe his ears. Jesus had just said he was coming home with Zacchaeus today.
What sort of images come to your mind when you hear that word - home? I still think of my childhood home as I was growing up in Orissa, India. I visited the site during my trip to India. Sometimes I still dream about it and I'm back there remembering a place that is so much a part of who I am.
Home also brings to my mind this home, here in Union Center. I think of the family we have discovered here. I think of the joy we have discovered here, the love from the people who have become our family, and the deepening love that comes from Christ Jesus, a love that is present with us.
Many people today are up a tree looking longingly, expectantly down the road, hoping beyond hope that what they have heard about Jesus is true. When Zacchaeus took Jesus home with him, a transformation began. Jesus changed the person Zacchaeus was and changed the way in which Zacchaeus interacted with other people. Zacchaeus became a very generous person and a person of integrity. Where Zacchaeus had become an outsider and a despised individual, Jesus gave him back his worth and his dignity.
Jesus put it this way: “Today, salvation has come to this house.” Zacchaeus, who was lost to the world, was found and saved by Jesus.
Zacchaeus’ story reminds us of that part of who we are. His story reminds us that someone is always in the sycamore tree, hoping and praying not to be an outsider anymore, hoping to find meaning and purpose to life. Zacchaeus’ story reminds us to be looking for those individuals. As Christ’s disciples we are called to invite them down from the tree, to travel to their home as Christ’s representative, and to invite them to find a home here amongst ourselves as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Brown
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