Gospel Meditation

Luke 19:1–10

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1.         The old city of Jericho had been replaced, mostly through Herod the Great, who died about four years before the birth of Jesus, and it was a magnificent built. Only 14 miles away from Jerusalem, the road to it was well travelled and at Jericho would be a taxing booth or table.

2.         A wealthy and chief tax collector was one Zacchaeus, a Jewish man, who would have been greatly despised by most others. He must have heard about Jesus, and when learning that He was passing through the town, wanted badly to see Him.

3.         Being small of stature, he climbed upon a sycamore tree (a fig mulberry tree, branches low to the ground) because he could see over the crowds lining the path Jesus and His disciples were walking on.

4.         Jesus spotted Zacchaeus, called him to come down and invited Himself and His disciples to come to Zacchaeus’ house. When the locals saw this, Luke tells us “they all grumbled” because being a tax collector, he would he hated.

5.         Zacchaeus, a terrible sinner in the opinion of others, announced that he would give half his goods to the poor and promised to give back fourfold to anyone he had cheated.

6.         Jesus thereupon announced that salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house, and He affirmed that he was a “son of Abraham.”

7.         Jesus then said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Zacchaeus was one of these.