Dear Children,
Hello again from Gramma and Grampa. As most of you know, Gramma and I get out of bed every morning between 6:00 and 7:00. The first thing I do is take Chelsea, our dog, for her morning walk. Then Chelsea and I open the barn doors and go into the barn to get bird seed to fill up the bird feeders.
One morning we found a blue jay flying around inside the barn. It sure didn’t sound too happy! It was screeching like it was trying to say, “Thief! Thief!” and it was trying to get back outside through the skylight in the roof of the barn.
I knew that the blue jay would never get back outside that way, because those skylights are made out of fiberglass. The only way that jay was going to escape was by coming down out of the rafters and flying out through the open door!
As Chelsea and I stood there watching and listening to the noisy jay, I got to thinking about a man in the Bible who had to come down from where he was sitting. Can you guess who it was?
If you said, “Zaccheus,” you are RIGHT!
Poor Zaccheus, he wanted so hard to see Jesus, but he was a short man. And perhaps he wasn’t strong enough to push his way through the crowds that were following Jesus.
Have you ever had that problem? Sure you have. Remember that last parade you went to and the people were packed together so tightly that you just couldn’t see anything, until your daddy picked you up?
Well, Zaccheus had that very same problem, but he didn’t have a daddy there to pick him up. So he got to thinking about that big sycamore tree that was just down the road.
He ran as fast as he could ahead of the crowd and climbed up into that sycamore tree. He found a big branch to sit on and waited there so he could see Jesus when He came by.
Soon Zaccheus heard the crowd coming, and he probably got excited because he was about to see Jesus! As Jesus passed right under the tree where Zaccheus was sitting, He stopped. Then He looked up right at Zaccheus and called him by name and said, “Zaccheus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house” (Luke 19:55And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zaccheus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. (Luke 19:5)). Zaccheus was so happy to hear those words that he came down from the tree very quickly and received Jesus into his house joyfully!
What a happy meeting that was, right under the sycamore tree! Jesus told Zaccheus that “the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:1010For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)). Zaccheus did not care who saw him or anything else. He was just too happy to know that Jesus had found him!
And now I need to get back to my story about that blue jay sitting up there in the rafters all by himself. I spoke to the blue jay and said, “Mr. Jay, if you don’t come down and save yourself, you are going to die of thirst or hunger. Chelsea and I have opened the doors for you to fly out, but you must come down!”
I know what you’re asking: “Grampa, is this the end of the story?”
No. A little while later we went back out to the barn, and Mr. Blue Jay was gone! He finally came down out of the rafters and flew out the open barn doors to freedom!
Gramma and I hope that all of you children, and grown-ups too, who read this letter will receive the Lord Jesus as your Saviour joyfully, just like Zaccheus did.
Lots of love,
Grampa