I often feel very insignificant in this world. The world population has just reached about 7 billion people and it’s very easy to feel like one doesn’t matter in this huge complex world. Looking up at the stars is majestic for sure, but it’s also a reminder of our “smallness” in such a vast universe. Even driving in traffic can create a sense of insignificance in the world. I was stuck at a traffic light on 90th and Dodge the other day and it took 3 light changes for me to get to make my left turn. In a world of so many people, and in such a vast universe, do I really matter at all? I believe that’s the way Zacchaeus felt.

In Luke 19 we read the story of this “little man.” He couldn’t see over the crowds to get a glimpse of Jesus. Verse 3 says it’s “because he was too short…” The word for “too short” is actually one used of a physical disability. It’s used in non-biblical concepts for the extreme short people who have the malady of dwarfism or are called midgets. Zacchaeus had an overwhelm sense of his insignificance in a world of people who were all bigger than him. He was a little person in a huge world.

The story goes on to tell us that this little guy climbed up into a sycamore tree with branches that arched over the spot where Jesus was going to walk in order to see what the crowds were all fascinated by. Verse 5 says, “but when Jesus got to that place, he looked up…” I imagine Jesus eyes meeting his eyes! What a wonder! Of all the “big” people in the crowds, Jesus noticed him. I believe God moved the writers of the Bible to give us this story to teach us one of the most important lessons about God and our insignificance in a vast world. That principle is, “no matter how small I am, or not matter how small I feel, Jesus notices me!” I love the old hymn based on Luke 12, where Jesus tells his listeners that God doesn’t overlook a single person. In verses 6 and 7, it says in the Message translation, “God never overlooks a single sparrow. And he pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail – even numbering the hairs on your head.” Jesus made this apparent to Zacchaeus and God wants to communicate this same truth to us. The religious leaders in the crowd were disturbed that Jesus was going to be with a sinner, but Jesus explains that it is for people like Zacchaeus, the small, lost, insignificant people in the world, that he came into the world.

Chuck
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10