THIS TOO IS THE SON OF ABRAHAM.
TUESDAY 16th NOVEMBER, 2021. TUESDAY OF THE THIRTY-THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B.
READINGS; 2 MACABEES 16:18-31, PSALMS 3:2-7, LUKE 19:1-10.
Today Jesus recognises Zacchaeus, a tax collector, a public sinner as a son of Abraham, why? To the Jews, the Pharisees and the Scribes, who were listening this may seem to be an insult to call a sinner like Zacchaeus a son of Abraham.
Abraham is known as our father in faith, but do we see an element of faith in Zacchaeus? Yes his faith is seen in his desire to want to see Jesus, he is an example of all those people who have this unquenchable desire for Christ.
Zacchaeus went an extra mile by climbing a tree in order to see Jesus. Knowing his stature, that he was short and the crowd was huge he decided to climb a tree, this should be an embarrassing experience for a respectable man of his age to climb a tree.
This my brothers and sisters is amazing, it is an amazing expression of faith. Jesus recognizes this gesture by asking him to get down, and invited himself to the house of Zacchaeus. This is a very wonderful experience for Zacchaeus to know that he whom he desired to see is now coming to his house.
One amazing thing is how Jesus treats sinners, he is fond of sinners, he associates with them, he eats and welcomes them in order to bring them back to the father’s house. And he is saying that ” they too are children of Abraham”, in short they too belong to our family, the family where each and every baptised person belong.
The question that we need to ask ourselves today is how is our attitude towards sinners? Is our attitude life-giving or killing? The gesture of Jesus to Zacchaeus is something that we need to embrace, we need to love sinners in order to help them come out of their situation.
Jesus does not love the sin but he loves the sinner and it is this love, how he treated Zacchaeus that made him to repent, he was able to see salvation coming to his house, the love that Jesus showed to sinners is life-giving, it builds, it is this love that brings back to the father’s house all those who are lost, the lost sheep are only brought back to the sheepfold by this kind of love.
TODAY LET US PRAY THAT WE MAY TREAT OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS ESPECIALY THE SINNER AS MEMBERS OF OUR OWN FAMILIES WHO NEED GOD’S LOVE.
Dominus Illuminatio mea:The Lord is my Light
