In the blessed Injeel (Luke 19:1-10) we read about the time Hazrat Isa ( ع ) came to Jericho city.
Hazrat Isa ( ع ) entered Jericho and was passing through. The detested chief tax collector was there. His name was Zacchaeus. He was rich.
He tried to see Hazrat Isa ( ع ) , but he could not see him because he was short and there was a crowd. He ran to a sycamore tree by the way Hazrat Isa ( ع ) was coming and climbed it to see him.
When Hazrat Isa ( ع ) sa reached the tree, he looked up to him and told him: “Zacchaeus, come down quickly. I must stay as a guest with you in your house today.” So he came down quickly and received him gladly.
Everyone murmured at what they saw: “He has gone to be a guest with a sinful man!”
Zacchaeus got up and said to our mawla: “My mawla, I will give half of what I own to the poor. I will repay the money I have gotten unjustly four times as much!”
Hazrat Isa ( ع ) told him: “Today saving mercy has come down to this household, because he is a son of Ibrahim also! Sayyid Al-Bashar came to search for the lost and to save them.”
What do you think about this story?
- Is there something you like in the story?
- Or something in it that doesn’t seem right?
- Does this story remind you of the way people sometimes behave?
- Maybe it starts you thinking about God.
- What does this story seem to suggest you do? (I think you know that God will bless you read the teaching of Hazrat Isa ( ع ) and obey and copy him.)