Our everyday friend

Jesus went on into Jericho and was passing through. There was a chief tax collector there named Zacchaeus, who was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was a little man and could not see Jesus because of the crowd. So he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus, who was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to Zacchaeus, ‘Hurry down, Zacchaeus, because I must stay in your house today.’ Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed him with great joy. (verses 1- 6)

Read Luke 19:1-10

On a particular Tuesday this year an amazing thing happened. At 7 am I went to the staffroom of the rural school at which I work. I’d left the door open and, having plugged in the coffee machine, turned around to head back to the office. Coming through the door was a snow-white bird, a cocky, startingly white, with blue-grey eyes. Surprisingly, it began talking to me. It said ‘Hello, Cocky’ and other mutterings that I couldn’t decipher, so of course I began talking back to it. I was intrigued and delighted. How did it get here? Where was it from? What an event in an very ordinary morning!

The bird reminded me of Jesus – snow-white Jesus – who walked into Zacchaeus’s everyday ordinary life and said, ‘I’m coming to your house today’. The cocky who visited my school eventually walked off into the trees, never to be seen again. When Jesus comes he is willing to stay in your heart, in your life, in your home. No wonder Zacchaeus welcomed him gladly!

I want to see you Lord; come visit me today. Come make me your home forever I pray. Amen.

by Eunice Freiberg in ‘Renewed Hope for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2000)

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