"Zaqueo ginbaton si Jesus sa daku nga kalipay"

Ebanghelyo subong nga Adlaw (Lucas 19:1-10)

Martes (Nobyembre 19)

Si Jesus nagsulod sa banwa sang Jerico kag nag-agi man lang sia didto.

May pangulo sang manugsokot sang buhis didto nga manggaranon nga ginahingalanan kay Zaqueo.

Nagtinguha sia sa pagtan-aw kon sin-o ini si Jesus, ugaling indi sia makakita tungod sang madamo nga mga tawo kay putot sia.

Gani nagdalagan sia una sa mga tawo kag nagsaka sa kahoy nga sikomoro, agod makakita sia kay Jesus nga magaagi sa sadto nga dalan.

Sang pag-abot ni Jesus sa sadto nga duog nagtangla sia kag nagsiling, “Zaqueo, panaog ka sing dalidali, kay madayon ako sa imo balay karon nga adlaw.”

Nagpanaog si Zaqueo sing dalidali kag ginbaton niya si Jesus sa daku nga kalipay.

Ang tanan nga mga tawo nga nakakita sini nagkulomuron, “Ini nga tawo nagdayon sa balay sang isa ka makasasala.”

Si Zaqueo nagtindog kag nagsiling sa Ginoo, “Karon, Sir, ihatag ko sa mga imol ang katunga sang akon pagkabutang kag kon may gindayaan ako, bayaran ko sia sing apat ka pilo.”

Si Jesus nagsiling sa iya, “Ang kaluwasan nag-abot sa sining panimalay karon nga adlaw, kay ini sia kaliwat man ni Abraham.

Kay ang Anak sang Tawo nagkari sa pagpangita kag sa pagluwas sang nadula.”

Prayers:

"Lord Jesus, come and stay with me. Fill my life with your peace, my home with your presence, and my heart with your praise. Help me to show kindness, mercy, and goodness to all, even to those who cause me ill-will or harm."

***

Reflection of the Daily Gospel:

What would you do if Jesus knocked on your door and said, "I must stay at your home today"? Would you be excited or embarrassed? Jesus often "dropped-in" at unexpected times and he often visited the "uninvited" – the poor, the lame, and even public sinners like Zacchaeus, the tax collector! Tax collectors were despised and treated as outcasts, no doubt because they over-charged people and accumulated great wealth at the expense of others. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and was much hated by all the people. Why would Jesus single him out for the honor of staying at his home? Zacchaeus needed God's merciful love and forgiveness. In his encounter with Jesus he found more than he imagined possible. He shows the depth of his repentance by deciding to give half of his goods to the poor and to use the other half for making restitution for fraud. Zacchaeus' testimony included more than words. His change of heart resulted in a change of life, a change that the whole community could experience as genuine.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) urges us to climb the sycamore tree like Zacchaeus that we might see Jesus and embrace his cross for our lives:

Zacchaeus climbed away from the crowd and saw Jesus without the crowd getting in his way. The crowd laughs at the lowly, to people walking the way of humility, who leave the wrongs they suffer in God’s hands and do not insist on getting back at their enemies. The crowd laughs at the lowly and says, “You helpless, miserable clod, you cannot even stick up for yourself and get back what is your own.” The crowd gets in the way and prevents Jesus from being seen. The crowd boasts and crows when it is able to get back what it owns. It blocks the sight of the one who said as he hung on the cross, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing. … He ignored the crowd that was getting in his way. He instead climbed a sycamore tree, a tree of “silly fruit.” As the apostle says, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block indeed to the Jews, [now notice the sycamore] but folly to the Gentiles.” Finally, the wise people of this world laugh at us about the cross of Christ and say, “What sort of minds do you people have, who worship a crucified God?” What sort of minds do we have? They are certainly not your kind of mind. “The wisdom of this world is folly with God.” No, we do not have your kind of mind. You call our minds foolish. Say what you like, but for our part, let us climb the sycamore tree and see Jesus. The reason you cannot see Jesus is that you are ashamed to climb the sycamore tree.

Let Zacchaeus grasp the sycamore tree, and let the humble person climb the cross. That is little enough, merely to climb it. We must not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, but we must fix it on our foreheads, where the seat of shame is. Above where all our blushes show is the place we must firmly fix that for which we should never blush. As for you, I rather think you make fun of the sycamore, and yet that is what has enabled me to see Jesus. You make fun of the sycamore, because you are just a person, but “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”[Sermon 174.3.]

The Lord Jesus is always ready to make his home with each one of us. Do you make room for him in your heart and in every area of your life?