Zacchaeus
- Michael Haldas
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
“The overwhelming grace of God shines through this memorable story. There is no record of Zacchaeus asking explicitly for the forgiveness and mercy of the Lord. All that he did was to climb a tree out of curiosity, but that was enough to begin to open himself to the healing divine energies of Christ…Zacchaeus passionately desired to see Christ. Such a longing on the part of a publican testifies that although according to God’s law his life is unworthy—unworthy of him as a human being—Zacchaeus preserved, in the depths of his soul, a sensitivity to truth, to beauty, to the human dimension of things; and therefore he was capable of meeting God, of encountering God’s dimension.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom)
“And so this Zacchaeus was, as it says in the Gospel, small in stature. He couldn’t see Jesus because of the crowd that had come to meet Him, and so he climbed a tree. If we were to transport ourselves to that time, we could imagine how the surrounding people, especially children, would have reacted….but Zacchaeus at that time was in such a state of blessed obsession that his desire to see Jesus made everything contradictory to this insignificant. At that moment he was not thinking at all about what impression he was making on people, or on Jesus Himself. If we look hard at ourselves, we will discover that we don’t have that kind of desire to meet God; for us it is always accompanied by various reservations. When a person bears the podvig of foolishness for Christ; or, not considering himself a fool-for-Christ in the least but out of love for God commits foolish acts, he is then in the rank of Zacchaeus. When calculations and comparisons begin, such as, “Will it be convenient, will it be decent, and what will people say about me?” it means that we have not reached the measure of Zacchaeus.” (Archpriest Alexander Geronimus)
“…with Zacchaeus there is such simplicity. Just to see Jesus is enough for him. He is so excited that Jesus wants to be in his home that he throws a party for Jesus. He invites his tax collector friends. And in the simplicity of his excitement, and probably after a few mugs of wine, he tells the itinerate rabbi Jesus (and everyone else in the room) all about his spiritual life, which consists in giving half of his income to the poor and refunding four times more those whom he overtaxed. Such simplicity. No pretensions to eternal life. He just did what seemed right and rejoiced to have Jesus in his home.” (Fr. Michael Gillis)
“I think that both the strength to bear shame and the strength to suffer are gifts from God. When I was a young and inexperienced spiritual father, Father Sophrony told me to encourage the young people to confess precisely the things of which they are ashamed, for if they learn to do so, shame is transformed into strength against the passions, and they will overcome sin. . . . And I understood that this is precisely what had occurred in the person of Zacchaeus. He bore shame voluntarily, and the Lord, Who was on his way to Jerusalem in order to suffer on the Cross of shame, saw Zacchaeus bearing shame for His sake and recognized in him a kindred spirit.” (Archimandrite Zacharias)
“…because the Zacchaeus narrative is read just before the Great Lenten cycle begins, Zacchaeus is now identified as a sinner who repents, Archimandrite Zacharias points out a different idea – Christ sees in Zacchaeus a kindred spirit, one who is willing to overcome shame. Zacchaeus was too short to see over the crowd, however, he was not too ashamed to climb the tree to see Jesus. Jesus too will climb a tree associated with shame – namely the cross. Jesus is saying Zacchaeus is behaving prophetically.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
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