Martin Madalai Muthu csc –
Readings: Wis 11:22-12:2; 2Thes 1: 11-2:2; Lk 19:1-10
Today’s liturgy highlights the need for preparing ourselves to welcome Christ and get transformed by his presence. In today’s Gospel, we see the desire and the longing of Zacchaeus just to see Jesus because -he had heard about Jesus as a special person who is famous, heals and performs miracles. Zacchaeus was making lots of efforts to meet Jesus by running ahead and climbing the sycamore tree in the right direction and place so that he could see Jesus clearly. Jesus took the next step and looked up and saw Zacchaeus on the tree. Jesus surprised and shocked Zacchaeus by saying, ‘hurry down, today I must stay at your house.’ When Jesus entered his house, Zacchaeus was transformed.
Through encountering Christ he experienced a change of heart in his life and brought salvation to his house. This passage invites us to look into our personal life. We are attached to the worldly things which are momentary and at the same time which are stumbling blocks to come closer to God. We often forget that it is God who gives and who takes. I am sure that we all want to meet and experience Jesus in our life. However, experiencing Jesus is challenging, for it requires a lot of effort.
Experiencing Jesus means not just standing in the crowd but having a person-to-person encounter with him. Moreover, to have personal communication with Jesus, we are invited to shed our ego and worldly attachments, especially from the usage of social media which is one of the evils of our time if we do not know how to use it positively. Today we need to ask ourselves, do we have the desire from within to encounter Jesus in our life? Are we ready to face challenges and struggles in reaching Jesus to meet him in person? Once we encounter Christ in our life, transformation will take place automatically. Let’s stop wasting time and start spending time with the Lord.