Tuesday, November 18, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Three old men
I suppose, at age 76, that I ‘m about midway between Eleazar, age 90, and the middle-aged man Zaccheus. Reflecting on my own imprecise Matins wakefulness, I imagine their late-night thoughts, as they each consider what will probably happen the following day.
Eleazar, one of the foremost scribes, a man of advanced age and noble appearance, was being forced to open his mouth to eat pork.
Eleazar knew from long experience that governors and kings had little in common with the Lord of the Universe. They imagined themselves as creators; God did all the creating there was to do, and never stopped, yet humbled himself to leave his throne and love his children, those he made day after day, each one precious in his sight.
Eleazar no longer craved longer life on earth. He had taken earthly air millions of times into his lungs. The heart God created in him had beaten billions of times, and it beat now in the depths of the night just as it did at noon. He listened to his breath as the darkness began to break into dawn, and with each breath, his mind became still, settling into Eleazar’s virginal center, where only God could live.
Preferring a glorious death to a life of defilement, he spat out the meat and went forward of his own accord to the instrument of torture, as people ought to do, those who have the courage to reject the food which it is unlawful to taste even for love of life.
He would disappoint his younger brothers, refusing their request that he pretend to eat the pork he was commanded to eat, or die. He expected them later to be grateful that he stood up for Yahweh, choosing death rather than disobedience to God. He knew many of his friends and those who knew his situation already loved him for his words of love for God, and for his words of disdain for those who pretended to run his life from their stanchions outside God’s will.
“Send me at once to the abode of the dead,” he would tell them. “By giving up my life now I will prove myself worthy of my old age, and I will leave with the young a noble example of how to die, willingly and generously, for the revered and holy laws.”
“Caw, caw,” brayed the crows of illegitimate and brazen government. “Coo, coo,” sang the doves of God’s Holy Spirit, as yet unnamed but not unnoticed.
Eleazar sat on the side of his bed, hearing the birds greet the day, ready to die.
Then a few hundred years later, in a new Israel abuzz with stories of Jesus from Nazareth, a well-established “businessman” who years before had passed his tax collecting duties on to employees while he considered investments and the most profitable foreclosures, he too suddenly heard the birds. Crows and doves, black and blue birds, perching on the tiles of his roof, caught his attention. This was new. His mathematical mind stirred but then fell silent. The gears God gave him quit turning.
Clearly this man named Zacchaeus was in for something special. This did not come from his own thoughts, but still it found a home within his heart. He realized this place inside himself had always been there, but only now did he begin to care. Zacchaeus had never had much respect for the feelings of others, or even his own. Dickens would have had him say, “Humbug! Let’ get on with the Construction of Profit, and keep up appearances as best we can. If I don’t take care of myself, no one else will.”
Zacchaeus was seeking to see who Jesus was. But he was short in stature, and he could not see Jesus.
That night he tried to sleep but could not. In a midnight moment he realized his profit was meaningless. Jesus would be coming through his neighborhood tomorrow. Zacchaeus knew that he must meet him.
Zacchaeus ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus.
The birds showed him what to do. He followed them to a tree and climbed it, up to a perch where he could see Jesus, and Jesus could also see him. What a friend we have in Jesus. He had never heard the song, but he heard himself humming the tune.
Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, you come down! For I’m going to your house today.
In a flash, Zacchaeus stood there and spoke to the Lord.
Half of my possessions, I shall give to the poor. If I have extorted anything from anyone, I shall repay it four times over! Jesus looked at him and said, “Today salvation has come to this house. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what is lost.”
Let me join you, Eleazar, walking up to the executioner, hands outstretched. “Take me now!”
Let the moments when Jesus has once again restored my sight give me strength and will to climb a sacred sycamore with Zacchaeus. We will wait for Jesus to look up and to see what he will say.
Let me listen, let me hear. Open my ears Lord. Give my arms and legs strength for one more climb.
(2 Maccabees 6, Psalm 3, 1 John 4, Luke 19)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
