Word to the Wise
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - Tuesday in the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
[Revelation 3:1-6; 14-22 and Luke 19:1-10]Zaccheus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.
Guess who's coming to dinner? Yesterday we had a blind beggar who could not see Jesus but wanted to. Today we have Zaccheus who is too short to see over the heads of the crowd. The beggar just yells louder and louder. The people tell him to shut up. Zaccheus can't get through the crowd, so he runs ahead and climbs a tree so that he can see Jesus! Jesus can recognize the desire in this rich hated tax collector! So he invites himself to dinner! The result, Zaccheus vows to make restitution four times more than necessary and to give half his possessions to the poor! Jesus proclaims him one of those whom Jesus has come to save!!! That's an amazing encounter! In both the case of the beggar and Zaccheus, the physical inability to see Jesus is overcome by the desire in faith to "see" Jesus! I find that very encouraging. If I have the right desire, the Lord will find a way to get through the obstacles to reach me, especially when the obstacles are not my fault in the first place (blindness, shortness). I don't care if the others say that Jesus is going to the house of a sinner to eat! If so, I surely hope he comes to mine! AMEN