If the winter is as wet and cold as predicted, this might be a good time to find a place to hibernate until next March or April. We can’t do that yet, though, because fi rst there is all our family gatherings for Thanksgiving. Immediately following that is Christmas shopping, parties, wrapping packages, decorating, programs, dinners, and Christmas cards. And all that has to be done within 6 weeks. Six weeks?! That wakes us up!

Next Sunday, the 11^th , is Veteran’s Day. I don’t know what is planned exactly, but we’re told that our church will be honoring our veterans at both the morning and evening services, so come join us and we will participate together in honoring these brave men and women we owe so much.

This Sunday morning we voted to call A. J. Arnold to be youth pastor at our church. If he accepts that call, we are looking forward to becoming better acquainted with A. J. and his fi ancée. They are seeking to follow the leadership of God in this ministry, and we are excited that God has sent them our way.

Rev. Brown’s sermon was about Zacchaeus and was based on Luke 19:1-10. It wasn’t very dignified for a rich man like Zacchaeus to be climbing up into a sycamore tree, but he felt compelled to see Jesus.

He must have talked to people and heard about others who had been healed by Jesus or had heard Him teach. They all told about this astonishing man called Jesus and what He had done for them. Zacchaeus, chief of the hated tax collectors that he was, couldn’t deny whatever it was that stirred something in his heart.

He was determined to get closer to Jesus, but the disciples and other religious people were in his way. The only thing left to do if he was going to find Jesus in that crowd was to climb up in the sycamore tree and wait for Jesus to come by.

Of course, we know the story. Jesus stopped when he got to the tree where Zacchaeus was and told him to come down. Not only did Zacchaeus meet Jesus, he had the opportunity to receive him into his home as his honored guest.

Zacchaeus was actively seeking Jesus, and neither obstacles nor false pride got in his way. He received Jesus into his heart as well as his home. He demonstrated a changed heart by determining to give half his goods to the poor. He gave restitution to those he had wronged by returning to them four times as much as he had wrongfully taken from them.

Jesus delivered many people who were physically crippled or ill, and it dramatically changed their lives forever. Zacchaeus was one whom Jesus delivered from having to live his life with a crippled soul. Amazingly, the change in him was just as dramatic and just as life changing.