What's In a Nickname?

Men love nicknames. What is that all about? And they don't hold back when it comes to awarding someone a new moniker. They will call a buddy Cross-eyed Cole in a New York minute. And Cole will think it's great! Imagine being known throughout history as Fat Jack or Rick the Stick. When it comes to evaluating others, however, we love to think we are above passing judgment based on the wrapper God gave them; we're really not. If you owned a factory, would you hire the tall, thin, athletic-looking guy, or the guy who's as wide as he is tall? Chances are you'd hire the athlete. Why? Heavier people are characterized as being lazy, or sloppy in their work. If you searched a crowd for someone to hang out with, would it be the little, skeezy-looking guy rubbing elbows with the politicians? I doubt it.

We just started a devotional called Nobody Left Out: Jesus Meets the Messes, by Michael Murray. The author was born with cerebral palsy; he is no stranger to being judged and he knows God uses whom He chooses. The first encounter is Jesus' call to Zaccheus. You know the guy -- "Zaccheus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he..." Yep, that's him. Now, the first thing Luke tells us about him is that Zaccheus was a chief tax collector, and his job had made him rich. Tax collectors in those days worked for Rome. The Roman government set the prices and the people who collected the taxes added on their own surcharges. Essentially, Zaccheus was gouging his own people. I'm sure he didn't get invited to a lot of backyard barbecues. The second thing Luke reveals is that Zaccheus wanted to see who Jesus was. Why? He saw the crowd? He'd heard the stories? Maybe something was pricking his conscience. Luke doesn't say. And the third thing is the thing that has probably stuck with Zaccheus longer and more vividly than anything else -- at least among us, the patently superficial -- he was short. Luke's point is that because of Zaccheus' disadvantage, he had to climb a tree. Jesus saw this grown man, hated by his own people (and maybe well-deserving of their hatred), possibly having a "Napoleon complex" before even Napoleon, perhaps picked on all his life, willing to risk further ridicule just to see who He was. Jesus invited Himself to Zaccheus' house and what a blessing came upon that place! Zaccheus pledged half of his wealth to the poor and committed to paying the victims of his shady dealings back fourfold! What a transformation! 

Now, I get it, Zaccheus wasn't despised simply because of his stature; he didn't have the popular vote either. But, what if his choice of occupation was a first-century way of overcompensating? Perhaps he'd been slighted all his life and decided to get back at the tall, thin, athletic-looking crowd. Despite his size, Jesus chose him. Maybe because of his size. After all, Zaccheus didn't let that stand in the way of satisfying his curiosity. That took some moxie. And the people watching, particularly those who may have been repaid fourfold because of Zaccheus' transformation, probably never looked at him the same way again. Maybe in that part of town, Zaccheus' height became less of an issue and the size of his heart was more the focus. Whatever the long-term results, Luke ends the record with the fact that truly matters: "And Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.'" Zaccheus may have gone down in history as a wee little man, but he went down in eternity as a blood-bought child of the King.