19:1
Remember that Jesus is closing in on the time when He will be crucified in Jerusalem, yet He has just healed a blind beggar, and now will meet with a tax collector, Zacchaeus. Although the most climactic event in history was about to happen, in the meantime Jesus continued doing the day to day stuff that He was sent to do. We need the same approach to the return of Christ. Clearly the return of Christ is an important event, to put it ever so-mildly! But our reaction to this is not to be indulging in idle speculations, but to continue obeying Christ today.
19:2-4
The “hero" of the story is Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector. We have already seen why tax-collectors in general were despised, so the chief tax-collector would be doubly despised. He was wealthy, and that wealth would have come largely from unjustly taking money from people, as is confirmed later in the story. He was also a rather small man, so normally would have not been able to see Jesus in the crowds, and no one would have made way for this despised figure. So he exercised initiative and climbed a tree in order to get a better view.
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