"Zacchaeus come down quickly", Jesus said, "for today I must stay at your house". Luke declares in his gospel that this was indeed shocking to all those observing, also imagine how shocking it might have been for Zacchaeus. Do you think he wondered how much he should have picked up his living room that morning, vacuumed or dusted? It doesn't seem like he is bothered by it as he receives Jesus with joy, and I doubt Jesus is bothered by the clutter he finds, I'm sure he expects to find it.
This last November I hastily put Christmas lights on my house, as you never know how many more days of pleasant weather there will be in South Dakota. I pondered the idea of decorating. I recalled the internet memes of peoples Christmas lights featuring a cutout of "The Grinch" and a single half hung string of lights he appears to be stealing. Very creative I admit, and I'm sure I laughed the first time I saw it. Of course it spread with popularity as people could have an easy out to their holiday decorating and cut way down on the time it took. As creative and funny as it was, it gets me thinking, why do we decorate in the first place?
Yesterday a priest friend of mine was coming to my house for supper. Unlike Zacchaeus I was expecting him. I had some free time and the house was a mess and in need of some tidying up. Like Jesus, my friend probably would not have minded a mess; he would have understood it comes with the territory of having a one and half year old in the house. But I wanted to clean the house and prepare it for him. And as I was scrubbing the kitchen I pondered all this work once again.
I believe if Zacchaeus knew who Jesus was and how He was going to change his life, He would have cleaned his house top to bottom and decorated it. We decorate our homes at Christmas time as we recognize we have something great to celebrate. I feel we don't want to decorate and we take the easy way out because we are so blessed in this society we live in, we celebrate and feast all the time; to decorate for Christmas is just another chore. To be expecting a guest that you feel the desire to get everything in order that they are received with the very best, is a wonderful thing; how blessed are we. However we start to avoid these blessings because we have made them just another chore, another expense and it is easier just to sit at home alone. Jesus came so that we might have life and have it to the full.
Zacchaeus didn't know Jesus, only enough that he wanted to see Him, but he received Jesus into the mess in his life anyway. Jesus knows there will be a mess when He walks into our hearts. It is up to us to welcome Him. Zacchaeus immediately recognized messes that couldn't stay if Jesus was going to reside in his heart; he repents of those ways, immediately beginning to clean up his home for Christ. We too can take a look at our own lives and see, what doesn't belong here if Jesus is going to continue to reside here? Admitting that our home isn't tidy to begin with, our pride maybe the first to go.
This last November I hastily put Christmas lights on my house, as you never know how many more days of pleasant weather there will be in South Dakota. I pondered the idea of decorating. I recalled the internet memes of peoples Christmas lights featuring a cutout of "The Grinch" and a single half hung string of lights he appears to be stealing. Very creative I admit, and I'm sure I laughed the first time I saw it. Of course it spread with popularity as people could have an easy out to their holiday decorating and cut way down on the time it took. As creative and funny as it was, it gets me thinking, why do we decorate in the first place?
Yesterday a priest friend of mine was coming to my house for supper. Unlike Zacchaeus I was expecting him. I had some free time and the house was a mess and in need of some tidying up. Like Jesus, my friend probably would not have minded a mess; he would have understood it comes with the territory of having a one and half year old in the house. But I wanted to clean the house and prepare it for him. And as I was scrubbing the kitchen I pondered all this work once again.
I believe if Zacchaeus knew who Jesus was and how He was going to change his life, He would have cleaned his house top to bottom and decorated it. We decorate our homes at Christmas time as we recognize we have something great to celebrate. I feel we don't want to decorate and we take the easy way out because we are so blessed in this society we live in, we celebrate and feast all the time; to decorate for Christmas is just another chore. To be expecting a guest that you feel the desire to get everything in order that they are received with the very best, is a wonderful thing; how blessed are we. However we start to avoid these blessings because we have made them just another chore, another expense and it is easier just to sit at home alone. Jesus came so that we might have life and have it to the full.
Zacchaeus didn't know Jesus, only enough that he wanted to see Him, but he received Jesus into the mess in his life anyway. Jesus knows there will be a mess when He walks into our hearts. It is up to us to welcome Him. Zacchaeus immediately recognized messes that couldn't stay if Jesus was going to reside in his heart; he repents of those ways, immediately beginning to clean up his home for Christ. We too can take a look at our own lives and see, what doesn't belong here if Jesus is going to continue to reside here? Admitting that our home isn't tidy to begin with, our pride maybe the first to go.
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