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We do not generally remember that the scene with Zacchaeus was within about a week of the Crucifixion. Our Lord was on that last journey to Jerusalem to die, during the whole of which there was over His demeanour a tension of holy impatience, altogether unlike His usual manner, which astonished and amazed the disciples as they followed Him.
The sycamore implies curiosity, from Zacchaeus, who climbed up into this tree to witness the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem; and from time immemorial the violet has been the emblem of constancy: "Violet is for faithfulness, Which in me shall abide, Hoping likewise that from your heart You will not let it hide."
The Zealot pointed to a tree over their heads. "Look!" A man was standing on a heavy lower limb of one of the sycamore trees that grew at the side of the street. The whole crowd gaped. Jesus spoke with someone in the crowd for a moment and then called to the man in the tree: "Zacchaeus, come down here! I want to visit your home." Judas turned to a man beside him. "Who is that fellow?"
If any of these marks be upon you, God's word singles you out and drags you to the bar of Divine justice to hear your doom in the text, 'The wicked shall surely die. Oh, see your danger; repent and make restitution! Why should you meet the unjust steward in Hell, when you may yet follow Zacchaeus into Heaven?...
Did the business of Zacchaeus remain, after the visit of Jesus, a contemptible one still? Could not mine be made Christian? Was there no corner in the temple where a man might buy and sell and not be driven out by the whip of small cords? I heard a step in the shop, and lifting my head, saw a poor woman with a child in her arms.
Thy faith hath saved thee, and that 'Go thy way' will not be dismissal from the Presence of our Benefactor, but our 'way' will be the same as Bartimaeus' was, when he received his sight, and 'followed Jesus in the way. 'And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house. LUKE xix. 5.
There was another man in Jericho who stopped Christ, on that same journey; for not only the petition of Bartimaeus, but the curiosity which was more than curiosity of Zacchaeus, stopped Him, and He who stood still, though He had His face set like a flint to go to Jerusalem, because Bartimaeus cried, stood still and looked up into the sycamore tree where the publican was the best fruit that ever it bore and said, 'Zacchaeus; come down, I must abide at thy house. Why must He abide?
"Master, think of our task in Jerusalem!" he exclaimed. "What will the best people think of us? They will never believe we come to do God's will if we act as though we approved of lawbreakers!" "Judas," answered Jesus, "the Son of Man has come to seek and to save those who are lost. Zacchaeus was waiting for someone to summon him to repent and submit himself to God.
But the consciousness of being encompassed by universal hatred would induce the object of it to put on an extra turn of the screw, and avenge upon individuals the general hostility. So we may take it for granted that Zacchaeus, the head of the Jericho custom-house, and rich to boot, was by no means a desirable character. What made him want to see Jesus Christ?
With the tax-gatherer Zacchaeus he would go home, if but to deliver him from the hopelessness of his self-contempt; but what occasion was there here? It was all right here. The centurion was one who needed but to go on. In heart and soul he was nearer the Lord now than any of the disciples who followed him.
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