If you pause to reflect, he really does kind of capture the imagination. The guy’s a shrimp . . . just a little squirt . . . I also imagine him as being kind of out of shape . . . or in shape if you consider a pear a shape. You know he’s not liked very much . . . and I wonder which came first, being disliked because he was a tax collector, or becoming a tax collector because nobody ever liked him anyway. And I also sense that he’s not someone overly concerned with maintaining the status quo . . . that he had a bit of brass about him . . . not afraid to make a bit of scene if that’s what he felt he wanted to do. And, given the reputation of tax collectors of the day, the irony is not lost on me that this guy’s name literally means “pure” . . . I don’t think he was too pure. But what does surprise me as I form this Zacchaeus image in my mind is that this guy climbed trees.

And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for He was about to pass that way.   (Luke 19:2-4 ESV)

Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree. This small statured rich guy hoisted up his garment and shimmied his pudgy little body up one of the large branches/trunks emerging from the ground. This enemy of the people who had been lost in the crowd draws attention to himself as the leaves fall and the bark flakes off. He climbed a tree . . . because he wanted to see who Jesus.

That’s what Zacchaeus wanted . . . he wanted to know who Jesus was. From a human perspective, that set the ball rolling . . . that was the starting point to an encounter with Jesus which would change his life forever. And it occurs to me what a disservice we do this portion of God-breathed holy writ, if we think of it as only a kids’ story or we apply it only to salvation.

Now to be sure, it is a great salvation story . . . the coming together of one wanting to know Jesus and the Son of Man coming to seek and save the lost(Luke 19:10). It’s a great illustration of Jesus’ promise that for those who seek they will find (Matt. 7:7). But why would we think that this stops at salvation . . . that once we’ve seen Jesus, we don’t need to seek to see Him more? Shouldn’t the saved be climbing trees too?

Shouldn’t I continually be like Zacchaeus, seeking to see Jesus? Shouldn’t that be one of my priority life pursuits . . . to want to know the Son of God more and more? Couldn’t Zacchaeus be a daily inspiration? Even though I may be “too short” to see Him on my own, my desire to want to know Him should propel me to climb whatever tree I can find to see Him and interact with Him. And if I have the seeking heart of a Zacchaeus wouldn’t I expect that Jesus would be just as faithful to me as He was to ol’ Zach . . . that if I ask, and seek, and knock, then Jesus will answer and reveal and open . . . and the Jesus I seek to know more and more, I actually will know more and more?

How can I comprehend the width and length and depth and height of the love of Christ . . . if I don’t, like Zacchaeus, seek Jesus? Why wouldn’t I make the effort to “go out on a limb” every so often in order to seek to know the one who personifies that love which surpasses knowledge? Why wouldn’t I take God at His word and pursue knowing the un-knowable because God promises that He “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” (Eph. 3:17-20)

That’s what happened to Zacchaeus that day. He climbed a tree in pursuit of knowing Jesus . . . and, it turns out, Jesus already knew him . . . and they connected . . . and they communed . . . and that pudgy little guy was never same from that day forward. And it all started with climbing a tree . . .

Who knows what encounter I’ll have with the living God, manifest in His Son, residing in me through His Holy Spirit, if I but seek to see Jesus . . .

Maybe I’ll climb a tree today . . .