It was the custom, when a festive band passed through a place, that the inhabitants gathered in the streets to bid their brethren welcome. And on that afternoon, surely, scarce any one in Jericho but would go forth to see this pilgrim-band. Men - curious, angry, half-convinced; women, holding up their babes, it may be for a passing blessing, or pushing forward their children that in after years they might say they had seen the Prophet of Nazareth; traders, soldiers, a solid wall of onlookers before their gardens was this crowd' along the road by which Jesus was to pass.' Would He only pass through the place, or be the guest of some of the leading priests in Jericho; would He teach, or work any miracle, or silently go on His way to Bethany? Only one in all that crowd seemed unwelcome; alone, and out of place. It was the chief of the Publicans' - the head of the tax and customs department. As his name shows, he was a Jew; but yet that very name Zacchæus, Zakkai,' the just,' or pure,' sounded like mockery. We know in what repute Publicans were held, and what opportunities of wrong-doing and oppression they possessed. And from his after-confession it is only too evident, that Zacchæus had to the full used them for evil. And he had got that for which he had given up alike his nation and his soul: he was rich.' If, as Christ had taught, it was harder for any rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, what of him who had gotten his riches by such means?
And yet Zacchæus was in the crowd that had come to see Jesus. What had brought him? Certainly, not curiosity only. Was it the long working of conscience; or a dim, scarcely self-avowed hope of something better; or had he heard Him before; or of Him, that He was so unlike those harsh leaders and teachers of Israel, who refused all hope on earth and in heaven to such as him, that Jesus received - nay, called to Him the publicans and sinners? Or was it only the nameless, deep, irresistible inward drawing of the Holy Ghost, which may perhaps have brought us, as it has brought many, we know not why or how, to the place and hour of eternal decision for God, and of infinite grace to our souls? Certain it is, that, as so often in such circumstances, Zacchæus encountered only hindrances which seemed to render his purpose almost impossible. The narrative is singularly detailed and pictorial. Zacchæus, trying to push his way through the press,' and repulsed; Zacchæus, little of stature,' and unable to look over the shoulders of others: it reads almost like a symbolical story of one who is seeking to see Jesus,' but cannot push his way because of the crowd - whether of the self-righteous, or of his own conscious sins, that seem to stand between him and the Saviour, and which will not make room for him, while he is unable to look over them because he is, so to speak, little of stature.'
Needless questions have been asked as to the import of Zacchæus' wish to see who Jesus was.' It is just this vagueness of desire, which Zacchæus himself does not understand, which is characteristic. And, since he cannot otherwise succeed, he climbs up one of those wide-spreading sycamores in a garden, perhaps close to his own house, along the only road by which Jesus can pass - to see Him.' Now the band is approaching, through that double living wall: first, the Saviour, viewing that crowd, with, ah! how different thoughts from theirs - surrounded by His Apostles, the face of each expressive of such feelings as were uppermost; conspicuous among them, he who carried the bag,' with furtive, uncertain, wild glance here and there, as one who seeks to gather himself up to a terrible deed. Behind them are the disciples, men and women, who are going up with Him to the Feast. Of all persons in that crowd the least noted, the most hindered in coming - and yet the one most concerned, was the Chief Publican. It is always so - it is ever the order of the Gospel, that the last shall be first. Yet never more self-unconscious was Zacchæus than at the moment when Jesus was entering that garden-road, and passing under the overhanging branches of that sycamore, the crowd closing up behind, and following as He went along. Only one thought - without ulterior conscious object, temporal or spiritual - filled his whole being. The present absolutely held him - when those wondrous Eyes, out of which heaven itself seemed to look upon earth, were upturned, and that Face of infinite grace, never to be forgotten, beamed upon him the welcome of recognition, and He uttered the self-spoken invitation in which the invited was the real Inviter, the guest the true Host. Did Jesus know Zacchæus before - or was it only all open to His Divine gaze as He looked up and saw him?' This latter seems, indeed, indicated by the must' of His abiding in the house of Zacchæus - as if His Father had so appointed it, and Jesus come for that very purpose. And herein, also, seems this story spiritually symbolical.