Wisdom 11:22 – 12:2 / 2 Thess 1:11 – 2:2 / Luke 19:1-10
For the past couple of days, most of us have been quite busy, in the spiritual sense.
We have been quite busy spiritually because we have been coming to church for the past couple of days.
Friday was the Feast of All Saints and being a day of obligation, we have to come to church for Mass.
Saturday was a memorial for All Souls, and although it was not a day of obligation, we would visit our departed loved ones at the columbarium or cemetery, and go for Mass and offer prayers for them.
And Sunday, of course, we come for the usual Sunday Eucharist.
So we have been spiritually busy, or spiritually occupied, for the past couple of days.
And with All Saints and All Souls coming one after another, that should make us do some thinking and reflection.
All Saints make us think a bit about heaven and that’s where we hope to go one day.
All Souls make us think about death and about the souls in purgatory. And also is that where we are quite like to go? So we better pray for the souls in Purgatory, because if we were to go there, then there will be others praying for us.
But maybe we don’t think about the afterlife that much and that often.
What is more real for us is our health, as we go on in years, especially in the sunset years.
A man was talking to his wife about health and old age. He said to her: My dear, never let me live in a vegetative state, totally dependent on machines and liquid from a bottle. If you see me in that state, I want you to disconnect all the contraptions that are keeping me alive. I would rather die.
The wife looked at him admiringly and said. Okay, I will do that.
And then she went to disconnect the TV, the cable, the computer, the laptop, smartphone, the PlayStation, and then she went to the fridge and threw away all the bottles of beer.
As for the man … he nearly died.
So the afterlife is a future concern and the present life is an immediate concern.
But if the future concern and the immediate concern has no connection whatsoever, then that is really a serious concern.
In the gospel passage, the senior tax collector Zacchaeus was a wealthy man. So his life was comfortable and his immediate concerns were taken care off.
So why was he anxious to see what kind of man Jesus was? He even climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass by that way.
So it wasn’t just curiosity. There was an anxiety. But what was the anxiety? Probably it was an anxiety that arose out of a feeling of being empty.
Zacchaeus was wealthy but maybe he was feeling empty. Zacchaeus had plenty, but maybe he was feeling hungry.
That empty hungry feeling made him climb a sycamore tree, so that he could quell his anxiety.
Whichever way we might want to look at it, in Zacchaeus, we see this reality, and that is, when it is not God’s time, you can’t force it. When it is God’s time, you cannot stop it.
So for Zacchaeus, the time had come. The crowd could not stop him. And climbing up a sycamore tree was not a problem, although it was very strange and even funny for a wealthy senior tax collector to be climbing a tree.
And Jesus also knew that the time for Zacchaeus had come, because when He reached the spot, He looked up and said: Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.
Yes, when God’s time has come, there will be no wasting of time.
So it was an anxiety that led Zacchaeus from his temporary concerns to an eternal concern.
We too have our temporary concerns, as well as our spiritual concerns. For example, we may have been offering prayers and Masses for our departed loved ones, and yet we do not know for sure whether they are already in heaven.
But that is not to be our concern. Our duty is to remember and pray and offer Masses for our departed loved ones. And if they are already in heaven, then they will offer up all our prayers to God, especially for the departed forgotten souls and also for our salvation.
So it is time for us to look beyond our temporary concerns to our eternal future.
Jesus came to seek out and save what was lost. And if today Jesus were to pass by our way, let us not waste any more time.
Let us ask Jesus to save us from our temporary concerns and to set our hearts on our eternal salvation.