Where Is The Love?

Luke 19:5-7 (NIVUK) 
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ 6So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.’ 

Talk about hopeless isolation - Zacchaeus would have understood this well. As a tax collector he was seen as a traitor and someone the community couldn’t trust. He would have been excluded from everything. 

As we are created to need social acceptance, imagine for a moment how this might have affected Zacchaeus. He would have been cut off from his own people. Everywhere he went people whispered about him, turned away from him. At some point all of us may have had a taste of this: living it day to day takes its toll.  

What Jesus did here was big. Suddenly, the teacher everyone is talking about is speaking directly to Zacchaeus Picking him out of the crowd and inviting himself round for dinner! Hesed love - Jesus sees Zacchaeus is on the outside, desperate to be welcomed in, and he offers him love and acceptance. 

Before I became a Christian, I was a goth. My emotional walls were always up, and I let no one in. My mum took me to Spring Harvest that Easter. While there, I realised I didn’t fit in with the other teens. They weren’t dressed like me, and I probably scared some of them. However, the leaders running the youth were cool people. I remember thinking the coolest one would never talk to me. How wrong I was! She made a point of talking with me often throughout the week. I met Jesus that week.  

We all encounter Zacchaeus’s in our life, perhaps we feel like Zacchaeus. Where can we be the hope in hopeless situations? If we feel like Zacchaeus, are we able to see the hope on offer?  

Prayer - Father, help me to look with your eyes for those who need hope. Where I lack hope, Father, would you bring hope back. Help me to recognise that hope in Jesus.