Looks like today we are getting a double feature.
Last Sunday (über letzte Sontag) I was teaching Gospel Doctrine in my family ward to adults and they made fun of my pronunciation of the name Zacchaeus. I have always said it was Zah-kay-us which is how google told me to pronounce it, but one of the people in the class thought it was pronounced Zah-key-us. I advised it didn’t really matter, as you know it doesn’t, but about 10 mins later a different person on the other side of the class raised their hand and brought the name pronunciation issue back up. This was a bit frustrating to me as it kinda broke the really cool spirit we had in the class.
For some reason this has been on my mind for the last week or so and I can’t seem to shake it. It occurred to me today that perhaps there is something can be learned here. So I did the natural thing and looked up the Greek spelling of the name. There is a lot less ambiguity in the pronunciation of things in Greek as their letter, at least in Koine Greek, are always said the same unlike English.
The spelling in Greek is as follows Zakcaios though that is not the right sigma at the end but my computer won’t let me put the right one in. anyway as I looked at that I noticed a couple things. First, we were all saying it wrong the c is pronounced with a hard H from the back of your throat, like you are clearing some phlegm. Second this name is actually 3 parts: Zak cai os written in Latin-script it looks like this: Zak chai os as any student of biblical languages could tell you “os” sometime rendered as “us” is the Greek ending to mail names. We can ignore this as it is a literary ending, but the other two parts are very interesting.
Zak and Chai stood out to me as they are Hebrew words. Zak means “God remembers” or “Pure” and Chai mean “Living” or “Alive”
His name literally means “God remembers the Living” which is cool but becomes incredible when you look at our little friends’ story.
He is a tax collector. An out cast from his people, the chosen people of God. So despised by his fellows they will not even make room for him to see Jesus as He comes into Jerusalem. He climbs a tree to get above and over the crowd and then the incredible happens. Jesus Sees him! But not only sees him, but knows him. Calls him by name, calls out the words that any who understands Hebrew (you know like the vast majority of Jews at the time did) would hear as the words “God remembers the living” and in what must have been the greatest joy of his life he comes to the Savior. But how quickly that joy must have turned to worry.
The whole of the crowd calls out that Jesus is going to eat with a sinner. They know Zak also can mean pure and in direct mockery of that they point out to Jesus the impurity of the little man before him. How much that must have stung, how scared he must have been. Would Jesus turn from him? Would He reject him too? Ridicule was part of our little friend’s normal life, but never before the Savior, never before one who’s purity it the very whiteness your scarlet is judged against.
What could he do? He knew who he was, he knew how broken, how dirty, how scarlet, how unworthy he was. He knew it better than anyone in the crowd save Jesus alone. “But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much”” Can you hear the pleading in that? Lord please don’t let me go, I know I am so scarlet, but please I’m trying my best here, please don’t cast me out as The Chosen people have”
“Then Jesus said to Him “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the Lost”
Jesus is clear He is the God who remembers the living. He makes clear that this man was sought and found, that though he was lost he is not forsaken and though he be red as scarlet thought Jesus he can be made white as wool.
God remembers the Living Brothers and Sisters! The Lost will be found and Salvation comes!
Be not afraid, you are not forgotten. You will be seen in your proverbial tree and called by the Lord, and though the throngs deride you He will stand by you.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even though we were dead in transgression, made us Alive together with Christ, by grace you are saved! And he raises us op with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus”
Zak Chai Us
God Remembers the Living
As always Im praying for thee; please pray for me.