A Glimpse Of Jesus - Zacchaeus

He [Zacchaeus] tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

Luke 19:3-4

In the classic holiday movie A Christmas Story, little Ralphie Parker, a kid living in 1940s Indiana, is a perfect picture of desperation. More than anything, he wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, and he’ll stop at nothing to make sure that his parents know what he wants. Eventually, Ralphie reaches out to his last option: a surly department store Santa Claus.

Desperation can cause a man to go far out of his way to get what he wants or needs!

Zacchaeus, a shady tax collector, is a first-century illustration of this principle. Zacchaeus understood his wretched condition well. He knew better than anyone how desperately he needed forgiveness. He sensed that he could obtain that forgiveness by making contact with an itinerant preacher named Jesus.

Zacchaeus had another problem: We might call him “stature challenged.” The crowds mobbing Jesus made it all but impossible for him to get close enough to see the Master. Many of us would have given up and gone home, but not Zacchaeus. This little man used his head and found a good vantage point from which to get Jesus’ attention. He went up a tree that was next to the road where Jesus would pass by.

Zacchaeus’s willingness to do whatever it took to see Jesus paid off. Jesus recognized the man’s desperation and gave him what he wanted—and a whole lot more. Jesus called him down from the tree, invited himself to a home-cooked dinner, and changed Zacchaeus into a new man.

Are you desperate to see and hear from Jesus? To what lengths would you go if you knew the Master had scheduled a trip to your city, but his route would take him into a neighborhood where no one would welcome you? How uncomfortable are you willing to be to spend some time with Jesus?

Jesus will never disappoint you when you go out of your way for a glimpse of him. Of course, you don’t have to climb a tree to see him; you have only to open your Bible and read. How desperate are you for a fresh touch of the Master’s hand?