1 Tim 4.9-15

Luke 19.1-10

Coming into the ancient city of Jericho on this Sunday of Zaccheus, we know that the opening of the Lenten Triodion is near, but two weeks distant. We look up the road now toward Jerusalem where the LORD is going, and we can see the gates of Great Lent beginning to rise above the horizon, and we know that Great Lent is but five weeks – five ‘stadia’ – away.

If you came to Church this morning ‘seeking to see’ Jesus, well, you are Zaccheus. And here in the Church, you hear the LORD Himself say: ‘Today’, He has come seeking you because ‘Today’ He wants to save you.

You came through those doors this morning, and you left the world behind you. When you stepped into the Temple you ran on ahead, and you began climbing the sycamore tree; and you are now sitting on a branch waiting for the LORD. For He has come out of Heaven seeking you, and He is drawing near to you, and He is about to pass this way.

Through His prophet, Isaiah, the LORD, as He comes seeking us, is crying out to us: ‘Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while He is near.’ (Isa 55.6) For, ‘the LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit (Psa 34.18). ‘He is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth (Psa 144/145.18). For He loves those who love Him; and those who seek Him diligently find Him (Prov 8.17).

The Heavenly Spirit is everywhere present and fills all things, but note that He draws near only to those who draw near to Him; He seeks only those who seek Him, for God is love and He does not force Himself on anyone. He ‘gives us our space’ to choose freely, without coercion, what god we wish to seek and draw near to – either Jesus Christ, the Icon of the invisible God (Col 1.15), or an idol.

But know from the Psalmist that the heavens are proclaiming His Glory, and the earth the artistry of His handiwork. Know that their voice, though it is unheard, goes out as a cosmic hymn singing from day to day and from night to night the knowledge of the LORD, and that its melody sounds throughout the whole earth even to the ends of the universe (Ps 19.1-4).

So, when the LORD from below calls to Zaccheus up above: ‘Zaccheus, Come down quickly, for Today I must abide in your house!’ we recognize Him immediately as the Wisdom of God now incarnate, for it is what Wisdom has been crying out from the beginning: ‘Come, eat of My Bread, and drink the Wine I have mingled for you!’ (Prov 9.5)

Except that now we see Wisdom in the form of a man, clothed in our human nature (Phil 2.7-8), and we recognize Jesus as the Wisdom loved by Solomon: ‘I loved Her, and I sought Her out from my youth. I longed to make Her my Bride for I was a lover of Her Beauty; yeah! Even the LORD of all things Himself loved Her! (Wisd 8.2-3). In a mystery beyond our ability to comprehend – even beyond the ability of His own Virgin Mother to comprehend! – we see that Wisdom has become flesh of our flesh, bone of our bones as the Heavenly Bridegroom, the LORD of Israel.

And with His Bride, which is our deified human nature, the Church redeemed and sanctified and made spotless and pure by His coming and abiding in Her as in His House, He is crying out on this, the Last Day, not just to Zaccheus but to all of us who have come out seeking Jesus the Heavenly Bridegroom who has come out seeking us. And at the foot of the sycamore tree, here in the Temple of St Herman’s, Jesus, the Tree of Life, has found us Today, here at the Midnight hour – that hour when the last days of creation are passing over, in the Tomb of the LORD’s Sabbath Rest, into the New Day of the New Creation.

He is calling out to us as He called up to Zaccheus: ‘Behold, I stand at the door (at the foot of the sycamore) and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.’ (Rev 3.20) He is calling out with His Bride to all who are thirsty and who are seeking the LORD Jesus, the Fountain of Life (Prov 16.22): ‘Come! Let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires, take the water of life without price! (Rev 22.17)

Except that the Bread and Wine that Wisdom would give those who love Her and seek Her Today is the Living Bread of His Body in which He was crucified and risen from the dead. And the mingled Wine He would give us Today is His Blood mingled with the Living Waters of His Holy Spirit in which He has destroyed our death by His death (Heb 2.15), mingled in the Living Cup of the Holy Eucharist of His Body, the Church, in which He has come in His Resurrection seeking us in order to save us. (Jn 6.51)

From this, we learn how the LORD would come and abide not just in Zaccheus’ house way back then, but in our house Today, and what this salvation is that He would give to us when with Zaccheus we receive Him into our house Today. The LORD’s word to Zaccheus, ‘Today I must abide in your house,’ and: ‘Today salvation has come to this house,’ are but what He says in another place: ‘I am the living bread come down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. But he who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. (Jn 6.51-56)

Zaccheus came out seeking Jesus, expecting, apparently, nothing more than to see Him. For he knew he was an unworthy sinner. And lo, far beyond all expectation, Jesus not only calls out to him by name – for He is the God who knows each one of us even from our mother’s womb; He is the God who formed our inward parts, and who knitted us together in our mother's womb (Ps 139.13) – but He calls to him to come down so that He can come and abide in his house, and give to Zaccheus, an unworthy sinner, the eternal life of His own Body and Blood in the sacramental mystery of the Holy Eucharist of His Church, His own crucified, dead and buried and deified Body by which He has destroyed our death and given life to those in the tombs, to all those who seek Him and draw near to Him in the fear of God, with faith and love. In Holy Eucharist, Zaccheus receives the LORD’s salvation, as do we, for in Holy Eucharist, we become members of the LORD’s crucified, risen, and glorified – i.e., deified – Body. We become members of His Church, the Bride of God, for we become one Spirit with Him who became flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones.

I see this Gospel of Zaccheus as an image of what Great Lent is all about. Through the Lenten discipline of prayer and fasting in the humility of the woman of Canaan, the dark and alien spirits who abide in us, working disobedience in us and making us children of wrath (Eph 2.2), are driven out. The tomb of our heart, where we were dead in our sins and trespasses, becomes empty – emptied of dark spirits and the stench of death. It is filled with the fragrance, the light, the life, the joy of the Heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, not just in our imagination but in concrete flesh and blood reality. For we do not receive Him into our house as an idea, but as our food and drink in the Holy Eucharist of His Church, His Body, risen from the dead and glorified!

Therefore, let us climb the sycamore tree seeking this Jesus who is seeking us; let us climb the steps into the Temple of His Holy Church and begin preparing ourselves to receive Jesus into the house of our mind, our soul, our body. Let us come down from pride with haste by taking up the cross of the Lenten disciplines of prayer and fasting to follow the LORD into the Lenten Triodion and Great Lent. And by means of the Great Fast, let us receive the Heavenly Bridegroom into our house that we may follow Him into Holy Week and into the life-giving Tomb of His Sabbath Rest and into the eternal joy of His Resurrection. Amen!