This week, we’ll continue telling the story of Jesus’ time on earth. We’ve broken it into the following broad categories:

Birth/early life
Miracles of Jesus
Parables of Jesus
Sermon on the Mount
Encounters with Jesus
* Sinners
* Religious sinners
Passion/Resurrection
Final teachings

We are currently teaching through the ‘encounters’ section, and this week’s encounter is with a man named Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). This is a well-known story of a (short) hated tax collector who was shown grace by Jesus and also demonstrated a heart of repentance.

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

Handout: Zacchaeus meets Jesus

Craft: Zacchaeus in a tree

Narrative:

Jesus continued to gain popularity among the people because he performed many miracles, and taught with authority. So it was common when Jesus came to a place people would rush to see him.

One day, Jesus was entering Jericho where a man named Zacchaeus lived. He was the chief tax collector in this place and had lots of money. People of that day did not like tax collectors, because they were known to cheat. They would go house to house and demand that people pay money to the government (which the tax collectors had to then turn over to the leaders), AND THEN they would often demand EXTRA for themselves!

So the people from Jericho didn’t like Zacchaeus very much, especially because he had lots of money and a big house. They figured he had taken some of the tax money for himself.

Zacchaeus had heard a commotion and soon realized that Jesus was in Jericho, so he rushed like everyone else to see Him. When he got to the crowd he couldn’t see anything because he wasn’t very tall. So Zacchaeus saw a sycamore tree in the corner of his eye and decided to climb it so he could see Jesus.

When Jesus reached the spot Zacchaeus was he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down right away and welcomed him gladly.

This is amazing! First, Jesus knew Zacchaeus’ name without asking him first. Second, Jesus didn’t care that other people didn’t like Zacchaeus, he wanted to visit with him at his house anyway. Third, Jesus said that he MUST stay at his house today. This means that Jesus knew that God wanted him to go there and Jesus obeyed.

Jesus asked to go to Zacchaeus’ house in front of everyone and as soon as they heard this they all started talking among themselves. They were shaking their heads and saying “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.'”

I’m sure they both knew what people were saying but Zacchaeus jumped out of the tree and said to the lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my money to the poor, and if I have cheated or stole anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

The important part about this is that Zacchaeus had a change of heart. I don’t know if he was already thinking about repaying people back or he just knew what he should do when he saw and talked to Jesus.

He also said that he would pay back people four times the amount. So if he owed someone one dollar he would pay them back four extra dollars! Zacchaeus didn’t have to do this but he wanted to make things more than right.

When Jesus heard this he said, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”