On the Way to Jerusalem

171:6.1When the Mas­ter’s pro­ces­sion en­tered Jeri­cho, it was near­ing sun­down, and he was minded to abide there for the night. As Je­sus passed by the cus­toms house, Zac­cheus the chief pub­li­can, or tax col­lec­tor, hap­pened to be pres­ent, and he much de­sired to see Je­sus. This chief pub­li­can was very rich and had heard much about this prophet of Gal­i­lee. He had re­solved that he would see what sort of a man Je­sus was the next time he chanced to visit Jeri­cho; ac­cord­ingly, Zac­cheus sought to press through the crowd, but it was too great, and be­ing short of stature, he could not see over their heads. And so the chief pub­li­can fol­lowed on with the crowd un­til they came near the cen­ter of the city and not far from where he lived. When he saw that he would be un­able to pen­e­trate the crowd, and think­ing that Je­sus might be go­ing right on through the city with­out stop­ping, he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree whose spread­ing branches over­hung the road­way. He knew that in this way he could ob­tain a good view of the Mas­ter as he passed by. And he was not dis­ap­pointed, for, as Je­sus passed by, he stopped and, look­ing up at Zac­cheus, said: “Make haste, Zac­cheus, and come down, for tonight I must abide at your house.” And when Zac­cheus heard these as­ton­ish­ing words, he al­most fell out of the tree in his haste to get down, and go­ing up to Je­sus, he ex­pressed great joy that the Mas­ter should be will­ing to stop at his house.

171:6.2They went at once to the home of Zac­cheus, and those who lived in Jeri­cho were much sur­prised that Je­sus would con­sent to abide with the chief pub­li­can. Even while the Mas­ter and his apos­tles lin­gered with Zac­cheus be­fore the door of his house, one of the Jeri­cho Phar­isees, stand­ing near by, said: “You see how this man has gone to lodge with a sin­ner, an apos­tate son of Abra­ham who is an ex­tor­tioner and a rob­ber of his own peo­ple.” And when Je­sus heard this, he looked down at Zac­cheus and smiled. Then Zac­cheus stood upon a stool and said: “Men of Jeri­cho, hear me! I may be a pub­li­can and a sin­ner, but the great Teacher has come to abide in my house; and be­fore he goes in, I tell you that I am go­ing to be­stow one half of all my goods upon the poor, and be­gin­ning to­mor­row, if I have wrong­fully ex­acted aught from any man, I will re­store four­fold. I am go­ing to seek sal­va­tion with all my heart and learn to do righ­teous­ness in the sight of God.”

171:6.3When Zac­cheus had ceased speak­ing, Je­sus said: “To­day has sal­va­tion come to this home, and you have be­come in­deed a son of Abra­ham.” And turn­ing to the crowd as­sem­bled about them, Je­sus said: “And mar­vel not at what I say nor take of­fense at what we do, for I have all along de­clared that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.”

171:6.4They lodged with Zac­cheus for the night. On the mor­row they arose and made their way up the “road of rob­bers” to Beth­any on their way to the Pass­over at Je­ru­sa­lem.