And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. — Luke 19:3 & 4
It was not so long ago that I heard a story about someone in Hollywood who wanted a celebrity to appear at their birthday party. The person had a lot of money and they paid a large amount of money to have this specific celebrity comedian to come to their birthday party. It was something extravagant, to the tune of millions of dollars that they paid for this person to appear.
That is not the first time that I have read or heard such stories, but it reminded me of one thing. In our world, it seems that money has the ability to buy you a lot of things. Even for those people who are rich and famous, money will drive them to do things that they may not normally do.
Here in Luke 19, we learn about a rich man named Zacchaeus, who no doubt had a lot of money and could probably buy anything he wanted. He could probably convince the stars of his day to come to his house and do anything he wanted. He wanted to see Jesus, but you find that it was not something that he could buy. In fact, he had to make the decision to go to Jesus and attempt to see Him.
He couldn’t see Jesus for all the people as Jesus passed by, so he went ahead on the path and climbed the sycamore tree. The most important thing to Zacchaeus at that moment in time was Jesus and seeing Jesus. We are no doubt all familiar with the remainder of Zacchaeus’ story about when Jesus passes by.
As Christians, there are some important lessons that we can learn from the story of Zacchaeus. One really strikes me though, in how far Zacchaeus was willing to go to see Jesus. He was willing to climb a tree, just to see Jesus, let alone talk with Him.
We find that Zacchaeus went looking for Jesus, and when he went looking for Jesus, Jesus met Zacchaeus in a special way. I have no doubt Zaccheus did not know that Jesus would end up at his house that same day.
How far are we willing to go for a special relationship with God? How far are we willing to go to experience God in a way we never imagined?
Zacchaeus’ relationship was more than just a simple glance of Jesus. Jesus met with Zacchaeus in a personal way. If we are diligent in our desire for Him, He will do the same for us!