For the Love of …

“Zacchaeus” is a one word time machine transporting me back to felt boards, animal crackers and Sunday school songs. Tell me you’re not singing the wee-little-man song. It’ll be stuck in my head the rest of the day. Zacchaeus. The mini-tax collector who collected more enemies than coins. And yet with a short adventure up a tree, the passing of a Savior and an invitation to dinner, the despised became the chosen. And a more profound tree transformation happened than even a fall’s changing leaves.

Zacchaeus was not in the “in” crowd. The religious believed he was heaped in sin. Even the irreligious hated him for who he represented: the oppressive Roman government. Their hate was well founded. After all, Zacchaeus built a career on business practices like swindling and coercion.

But in an instant, he became a new man altogether. How could a lying cheat heaped in sin change so fast? And so completely? By verse 8 Zacchaeus pronounces, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

I have a single note in my Bible next to Luke 19:1-10, written in blue ink and the familiar curve of my handwriting:

“Instant change because of the love of Jesus.”

A lying cheat became a loving philanthropist for one reason: the love of the Christ.

I may not be a crooked tax collector, but I’m heaped in sin just the same. Prison cells like unforgiveness and stubborn pride, spiritual practices like unbelief and worry. The key to my transformation is the love of Jesus, a Savior who said he wanted to be with me. At my house. Today.

And as for other tree-climbing Zacchaeus’ in my life, why would I think anything but the love of Jesus would change them?