So, what Christmas memories do you have? What grand tales of a Christmas long, long ago! As for Advent stories, well…
 
Probably because Advent, rather than a celebration, is all about preparation, taking stock of our lives, and taking stock of our relationship to God and to others. It’s not really easy or fun, nor does it necessarily lead to great joy. 

Instead, it is all about thinking about what we need to do to get our lives back on track!

So, while today’s scripture lesson doesn’t seem on first blush to be very Christmas-y , it is actually very appropriate for Advent!

Because it continues to push us along with the process of confession: seeing sin, confessing sin, repenting of sin, and now, repairing the damage sin has caused to us, to others, and to our relationship with God.

And the story of Zacchaeus fits right in, because:
Zacchaeus, was a wee little man,
A wee little man was he! 
He climbed up in a Sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see. 
And as the Savior passed by that way
He looked up in that tree
And he said, Zacchaeus, you come down
For I’m going to your house for today
For I’m going to your house for today!

Zacchaeus, you understand, was a tax collector who had evidently decided that meeting Jesus was something he really needed to do. 
The scripture doesn’t explain his motivation. It could just have been curiosity about this person Jesus all kinds of folks were talking about.

What we do know is that he needed to climb a tree to be able to see Jesus when the crowd gathered around the man from Galilee, because as the scripture notes, Zacchaeus was a short man. 

Others have noted that as a tax collector, he may have also intentionally come late to the event and perhaps wanted to stay pretty much out of view so as to not be harassed! Remember, tax collectors were not thought of as good people! Sinners, in fact!

None-the-less, they are regularly in the list of “sinners” who came to see Jesus, talk with Jesus, eat with Jesus, and even in the case of the Matthew, become a disciple of Jesus! Why, because Jesus loved sinners!

And why were tax collectors thought so poorly of? 

Well for one, it was believed that most tax collectors were cheaters. That they demanded and took away way more tax money than was owed by people. And they did that by lying about the taxes owed and by using intimidation.

In many cases, at least with Roman taxes, the tax collectors were told how much tax they needed to collect from their region. Then the tax collectors made their money by what they were able to collect in addition to that amount, a commission of sorts.

Any commission would have been resented by those who had to pay taxes no matter what. But tax gouging was deemed straight up evil.

And it is Zacchaeus, a tax collector, who wants to see Jesus!
So, I think it is reasonable to suspect that Zacchaeus was nervous about his plan. It could all go so wrong! So up in the tree he went.

But when Jesus saw Zacchaeus and asked him to climb out of the tree and then invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house, Jesus completely flipped the script - as Jesus so often did. 
And it is in the relative safety of Zacchaeus’s house, with his friends and family gathered, that the process of seeing sin, confession it, repenting and repairing takes place.
It is there that Zacchaeus declares that “I will give half of my property to the poor. And I will now pay back four times as much to everyone I have ever cheated.”
And then and there Jesus declared to Zacchaeus, “Today you and your family have been saved, because you are a true son of Abraham. The Son of Man came to look for and to save people who are lost.”
And why a “true son of Abraham”? Because the “sons of Abraham” the true children of God, take seeing sin, confession, repentance and repair and restitution seriously.
And in Advent, we too become the children of God when we prepare - by making sure we are ready for the King: heart, mind, soul, and strength. 
So, come to the Lord and celebrate his arrival…
in you…
and in the manger in Bethlehem. 
Amen.