The Conversion of Zaccheus.
By Geikie
Jericho was a Levitical city, and hence the residence of a great many priests; its position as the center of an exceptionally productive district, and also of the import and export trade between the two sides of the Jordan, made it, also, a city of publicans. It had much the same place in Southern Palestine as Capernaum—the centre of the trade between the sea-coast and the interior, as far as Damascus—held in Galilee. The transit to and fro of so much wealth brought with it proportionate work and harvest for the farmers of the revenue. Hence, a strong force of customs and excise collectors was stationed in it, under a local head, named Zaccheus, whom, in our day, we might have called a commissioner of customs. In a system so oppressive and arbitrary as the Roman taxation, the inhabitants must have suffered heavily at the hands of such a complete organization. To be friendly with any of their number was not the way to secure the favor of the people at large. Zaccheus, especially, was disliked and despised, for, though a Jew, he had grown rich by an infamous profession, and was, in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen, not only an extortioner, but, by his serving the Romans, a traitor to his race, and to their invisible king, Jehovah. His personal character, moreover, seems to have been bad, for he owned to Jesus that he had, at least in some cases, wrung money from his fellow-townsmen by swearing falsely against them before the magistrates. Jesus had seldom passed that way, and hence his person was little known, though report had spread his name widely. Among others Zaccheus was anxious to see him, and, being a little man, he had run before the caravan with which Jesus was entering the town, and had taken his station in one of the evergreen fig-trees—a sycamore—of which some grew at the wayside, of great size—a few even fifty feet in circumference. They were easy to climb, from their short trunks and wide branches, forking out in all directions. He had never seen Jesus; but he was not the less known to him, and must have astounded when the Great Teacher, as he passed the spot, looked up, and, addressing him by name, told him to make haste and come down, as he intended to be his guest that night. A divine purpose of mercy, as yet known to Jesus alone, had determined this self-invitation. Though all others shunned the chief of the publicans as specially disreputable, he was chosen in loving pity by Jesus, as his host. The word was enough; in an instant he was on the ground, and pressingly welcomed Christ to his hospitality. That he, the hated and despised one, should have been thus favored, in a moment won his heart, and waked the impulse of a new and better life; but it also raised the hostile feelings of the multitude. Voices on every side were heard murmuring that "He was gone, in defiance of the law, and of public feeling and patriotic duty, to lodge with the chief publican." They little knew the mighty change his having done so had, in a moment, wrought in a soul hitherto degraded and lost, not less by an ignoble life, than by the social proscription which barred all hope of self-recovery. Christ had completely overcome him, for he had treated him as a man, with respect, and shown him that the way still lay open, even to him, to a new and better future. The two had meanwhile, apparently, reached the court of Zaccheus' house, and the crowd pressed closely around as Jesus was about to enter a dwelling, the threshold of which no respectable Jew would think of crossing. He was braving a harsh public opinion, and incurring the bitterest hatred of the Jewish religious leaders, by openly disregarding the laws of ceremonial defilement, and by treating with respect one whom they denounced as accursed. Zaccheus was overpowered with a sense of the unselfish magnanimity which could prompt such treatment of one who had no claim to it. He would signalize the event by an open and public vow. Standing before the crowd, therefore, he addressed Christ—"Lord, I feel deeply the honor and loving service you do me, and I hereby vow that I shall give one-half of my goods to the poor, to show how much I thank thee. And, still more, if, as I lament to think has been the case, I have ever taken any money from any one by false accusation, I promise to repay him four-fold—the highest restitution that even Roman law demands from one guilty of such an offense." "This day is salvation come to this house," said Jesus, as he heard such words, "for this man—sinner though he be—is, nevertheless, a son of Abraham, and now shows himself humbled and penitent. I came to seek and to save that which was lost, and I rejoice to have won back to the fold of God, a child of Israel, who had wandered so far from him." He had foreseen the whole incident, by his divine power, and calmly ignored all recognition of caste or class when a human soul was to be won.—Geikie.