I just wanted a look. Without being pushed and jostled and spat at. But he looked straight at me, and the shouting started.
‘Don’t talk to him, Teacher, he’s scum!’
‘He’d steal the teat out of a baby’s mouth!’
‘Flaming tax collector!’
They left him and gathered round the foot of the tree. Getting me was more important than hearing what he had to say.
Someone started to shake it and more joined in. They threw sticks and stones up at me to get me down. The sweat started to pour off my face. Why had I risked it? What an idiot! What did I think would happen when the people saw me?
When they got hold of me they were going to rip me to pieces. The shouting grew louder as they could see I was starting to lose my grip.
Then –
‘Be quiet! he said.
And ‘Be quiet!’ again.
The crowd stilled and quietened – for a second I thought I’d gone deaf. Then it parted as he walked to the foot of the tree.
‘Zacchaeus, come down’ he said.
Oh hell! Did I have to? Talking to him suddenly seemed more frightening than falling into a crowd that wanted to kill me.
Stupidly, I looked the other way, as if my attention had been distracted by some distant speck in the sky somewhere. Silence.
‘Zacchaeus, come down.’
As I walked through the crowd there was a low mumble of threat. They would wait until he’d gone to grab me.
Then –
‘I’m eating with you tonight;’ he said. ‘Go and get ready.’
And now here I am again. Another day, another tree.
Thinking about the difference he made to everyone who chose to stop and look at him.
I wish I didn’t have to look at him today.
You can read about Zacchaeus here.
An interesting example of Jesus coming to save the Sinners. From this story, you can actually visualalise ‘Zacchaeus, straining and nearly falling from the tree, trying to get the best view of ‘the teacher’ who he recognised as the Messiah.
For someone in a position, where he was dispised by all for doing the Roman’s dirty work – he is given the highest to see perhaps heaven on earth, with Jesus in his house.
I love the thought of Zaccheus – small, disliked, humble insofar as he recognised and accepted the way his fellows felt about him – yet he recognised something that was more important than his reputation, his money and the contradictions of his life. He saw Jesus, and everything else just fell away.