So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” Luke 19:4-5
Jesus came to the place…the place.
Maybe 100 years before these events, that place was barren. Perhaps a bird flew by and dropped a seed from its beak. That seed nestled atop the earth. Days later, a passerby stepped on top of it, never noticing that his sandal drove the seed further into the earth. Eventually, the rains came and that dormant seed began to sprout. A small shoot raised its head up into the desert heat.
A few years pass and that shoot has now become a gangly tree. The next year it will produce three small figs: not a bad harvest for such a young sycamore.
Twenty years pass and that tree has developed a thick trunk. Children from the village play games around it, finally collapsing under the shade it affords them from the pounding sun.
Thirty, forty, maybe fifty years pass and this once small sycamore has become a mighty tree – not mighty because of its age, not mighty because of its durability or its ability to bear fruit. It was mighty because God had chosen that place long ago to ensure this tree’s well-being. For it rested on the place, the very place, where the Messiah would stop to have God-talk with someone.
This was no ordinary tree and this was no ordinary place…this was the place.
It’s no different with us. God prepared long ago the place where He first wanted you to meet Him. For some of you, it may have been at a Christian camp. For others, perhaps that sacred place was a friend’s home. Maybe for some, it was in a quiet hotel room as you thumbed through a Bible left for you in the nightstand.
And, Lord willing, Montage Bible Church will be the place where many people will finally come to meet the Savior as well. Please take a moment to pray with us that many who enter our doors would come to know the Savior.
(Photo credit: Bernard Gagnon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27935134)