Grandma's House

Zacchaeus

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Joyce Neal

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Series Code: GH

Program Code: GH000015


00:01 How are you kids doing are you about finished
00:03 on the boxes? Yeah let's get them dry.
00:07 Alright what you can do then is paint doors and windows
00:11 on the boxes with other colors.
00:14 I bet you're wondering what I'm doing with this big
00:17 old box aren't you?
00:19 Well I happen to have gotten a letter from a young lady.
00:22 I believe she lives, yes in Green Bay Wisconsin.
00:27 You know I told you if you would write to me and ask for
00:30 certain programs we would do them.
00:32 Well Madeleine is this girl's name and she is eight years
00:36 old and in the third grade.
00:41 Ah, she wrote me a poem too and it says,
00:44 grandmas are worth more than a Pearl,
00:46 more than a dove and gold.
00:49 They are worth more than a princess
00:51 but worth a friend or a sister and God loves
00:55 grandmas very, very much.
00:58 I'm so glad she wrote to tell me that, she wrote that poem
01:01 herself but what she wanted us to do on one of our shows
01:05 was what we are doing behind us.
01:07 Dear grandma, I would like to see you have a play about
01:11 Zacchaeus the tax collector who was small.
01:14 I want wee little grandpa to play wee little Zacchaeus
01:19 up in the tree.
01:21 Maybe he could stand on a chair and maybe you could have
01:24 a beauty contest for the prettiest dog who gets dressed
01:28 up in dog clothes.
01:30 I wrote you a poem, I love you grandma with love from
01:34 Madeleine. Well I love you too Madeleine.
01:37 Because you asked us to do this, this is what
01:40 we are doing today.
01:41 We are painting the buildings of Jericho behind us and we
01:45 are going to do the play about Zacchaeus.
01:47 We are even going to have wee little grandpa get up in the
01:50 tree and play wee little Zacchaeus.
01:53 So come along with us guys, come and play with us.
01:56 As we build a town and have fun, here we go.
02:18 I am putting the colorful paint in here to decorate our
02:21 houses, we are going to put flowers and doorways.
02:26 I think I should have shook that a little more don't
02:28 you think? It's a little glumpy.
02:30 It's going to make some gorgeous flowers though.
02:37 It's like making pancake batter.
02:39 Alright let's try this again.
02:42 Hey kids who wants to see grandpa jump in the tree?
02:45 - I do - I do - I do,
02:47 Yeah I think we'll have him be Zacchaeus.
02:50 Wow Kristen that is gorgeous.
02:53 Oh, you need some more paint though don't you?
02:56 You are about to run out, ah that is lovely.
03:00 Is this the front door? (child shaking head yes) beautiful
03:03 I bet no house in Jericho was that beautiful before.
03:09 I don't know, how did you get in there?
03:10 I just tipped it over. - you did?
03:14 This is fun.
03:17 Hey, we have got the prettiest houses in Jericho and
03:20 we are ready to go.
03:21 Kids are you ready to move? - yeah!
03:24 It's moving day so let's go and make Jericho.
03:26 Come on! Sophie come on girl lets lead the parade.
03:30 Good girl. Wee! Careful across the bridge.
03:35 That's the way, straight look at me.
03:38 Good job, good job, keep coming.
03:41 Yeah, keep coming.
03:44 Good job and you just keep going right on down that way.
03:52 No we are going down the grassy area.
03:54 Keep it straight boys, good job and follow the girls.
03:59 Good job, good job.
04:05 Good job you're doing just dandy.
04:08 Yeah to the grassy area.
04:22 Come on Sophie lets go with the kids.
04:31 Oh the road wreck, emergency aid vehicle on the way.
04:40 Welcome to Jericho.
04:42 Alright guys I want you to make a town.
04:48 I want you to put these boxes and make Jericho all over
04:50 this area, come on guys stand them up like on a street.
04:53 Oh ha-ha-ha-ha, oh (your house fell down.)
05:08 These are the buildings of Jericho and we are over here
05:11 to make a town now.
05:12 And we'll make the main theme of making our play.
05:22 Jericho has never looked so fine, what do you think?
05:25 Well it is time to dress the inhabitants of Jericho.
05:28 So kids, come and get your costumes.
05:42 There we go, wait, wait!
05:49 I don't know let's have you put this one on.
05:51 Then you could put this across your shoulders.
06:01 All right, we are all in place now and it is show time.
06:05 Here's Jesus, and way back there we have Zacchaeus.
06:08 And here is all the crowd, all the rabble that made all
06:12 the fun, here's a soldier.
06:13 So we are ready to start on our way to Jericho.
06:16 We might run into a blind man on the way.
06:19 As Jesus was coming near Jericho a certain blind man
06:23 sitting by the road was begging.
06:25 So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.
06:29 So he cried out saying,
06:31 Son of David please have some mercy on me.
06:33 Be quiet, hush, you're just a blind man, go away.
06:38 So Jesus stood still and He commanded that the blind man
06:42 be brought to Him.
06:44 When the blind man came near, Jesus asked him saying,
06:48 what do you want Me to do for you?
06:50 And the blind man said, Lord that I may receive my sight.
06:55 Then Jesus said to him, receive your sight your faith
06:59 has made you well.
07:01 And immediately he received his sight and all the people
07:03 when they I saw it gave praise to God.
07:07 Then Jesus entered and passed into Jericho and there was
07:11 a man there named Zacchaeus who was a chief
07:15 tax collector and he was very rich.
07:17 And Zacchaeus was looking to see who Jesus was but he
07:21 couldn't because he was so short.
07:23 So he ran ahead and climbed up into a Sycamore tree so
07:27 that he could see Jesus,
07:29 because he was going to go by that way.
07:30 When Jesus came to the place he looked up and saw him and
07:34 said, Zacchaeus get down from that tree because I'm hungry
07:38 and I want to have lunch at your house.
07:42 Who me? I'm coming.
07:45 So Zacchaeus make haste and came down and received Jesus
07:48 joyfully but the rest of us when we saw did we like it?
07:51 No, they said Jesus has gone to eat with a sinner.
07:57 But then Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, look
08:04 Lord I have given half of my goods to the poor.
08:06 If I have taken anything from anyone I will restore it
08:11 fourfold and Jesus says, today salvation has come to this
08:16 house and that's the end of the story of Zacchaeus.
08:20 I'm so glad that Madeleine asked for that.
08:23 Well for now what I would like you to do is to get
08:26 a pencil and paper ready and write down my address.
08:30 You can send some ideas for programs you like too.
08:33 Are you ready? Here it comes.
08:38 Hey kids Graham Joyce would love to hear from you.
08:41 So why not sit down and write her a letter?
08:43 Like every grandma she loves to get pictures,
08:45 drawings or anything else you sent her.
08:48 Just write to:
09:01 So what are you waiting for? Write her today.
09:07 Oh how I wish every one of you sweet kids could have been
09:11 here today, and I really wish you could have seen how
09:15 we got grandpa up into the tree.
09:17 Madeleine had suggested a chair but it took a ladder.
09:21 All of us had to hold it steady so he wouldn't fall and
09:25 he was pretty nervous about it, but wasn't
09:27 he a great sport? I just love grandpa.
09:30 How many of you like to climb trees?
09:33 I know a lot of you to but some folks just prefer
09:36 staying on the ground.
09:38 Myself I like going up, but it is the coming down
09:41 that scares me.
09:43 I remember one time several years ago when I wanted to
09:46 climb up onto a fire lookout tower in a national park
09:49 up near Mount Hood in Oregon.
09:51 It was a sturdy tower and it had been built just
09:54 so visitors could get in Eagle's nest view of
09:57 the whole forest below.
09:59 It had a big pole up the middle with flights of stairs
10:03 making a square box around it.
10:05 It was perfectly safe I knew, but still I looked at it a
10:09 long time before I got up the courage to start climbing.
10:12 It was easy at first until I got to the top of the first
10:16 set of stairs, then it started to feel a little exciting
10:20 and I wanted to see how it would feel to be a little bit
10:23 higher so up I went another flight of stairs.
10:26 When I stopped there to look around, little butterflies
10:29 started to flutter around in my tummy and I hung onto the
10:32 railing a little tighter.
10:34 It was still exciting and not really scary yet so I went
10:39 up again and again.
10:41 Now even if I didn't look away from the stairs I could
10:44 tell I was definitely up pretty high in the air because
10:48 now instead of there being shrubs and trees under the
10:51 stairs I could see the sky down there.
10:53 It wasn't so much fun now as my middle began to really
10:58 shake, but I come this far and I really wanted to make
11:02 it to the top.
11:03 So I gulped some fresh air and asked my husband to stay
11:07 right on the step behind me so if I slipped I would fall
11:11 on him and not crash all the way to the bottom.
11:13 He said, don't look down.
11:16 Boy I tried, but I knew down was all around me and now
11:20 I was getting a little dizzy.
11:22 Now this little venture of mine had become a challenge to
11:26 me and I thought I can't stop now, I don't want to fail.
11:30 Every step took courage,
11:33 or maybe it was just stubbornness.
11:35 I couldn't tell anymore, but I was so scared I kept
11:39 pushing on even though every thing in me screamed to stop.
11:44 Up and up, higher and higher only thinking about making
11:48 it to the top and definitely not thinking about
11:51 how to get down again.
11:53 Until at last I put my shaky foot on the tower floor and
11:57 I crept toward the pole in the center and I grabbed on so
12:01 tight the blood all left my fingers.
12:04 I could see straight down through the metal mesh,
12:07 and that was the floor.
12:10 The ground never in my whole life looked so far way.
12:15 I try to lift my eyes to enjoy the view that I had worked so
12:19 hard to glimpse, but I couldn't say I exactly enjoyed it.
12:23 All I can think of now was how am I going to get down from
12:27 here, and I clung to the pole all the tighter.
12:32 Did you ever get yourself into a fix like that?
12:34 Maybe ventured out to look too far and didn't know
12:37 how to get back again?
12:39 I kind of think we are all like that sometimes because
12:42 we all love adventure and sometimes it is just so hard to
12:45 tell where the adventure ends and the foolishness begins.
12:49 Aren't people the funniest creatures, sometimes we are so
12:53 silly it makes me laugh at myself.
12:56 Well anyway it took a couple of forest rangers climbing up
13:00 to help me let go of the pole in the middle and with one
13:04 in front of me and one behind I slowly made my way
13:08 safely back down to good old mother Earth again
13:11 still trembling all over.
13:15 Well I certainly never did that again.
13:17 Maybe other silly things but never that one again.
13:20 I wonder if wee little grandpa felt that way when
13:24 he got back down from our Sycamore tree?
13:26 Hmmm, maybe, but here's something I'm pretty sure about.
13:30 I think Zacchaeus was really glad to get down on of his
13:34 tree and take Jesus home with him.
13:37 And that's the thing I want you to remember about the
13:40 story of Zacchaeus and Jesus and you.
13:43 No matter the scrapes we get ourselves into,
13:45 Jesus can always help you keep your feet on the ground
13:49 again all safe and sound.
13:50 After that it is really a good idea to take
13:53 Jesus on home with you.
13:54 Do that today and don't forget, get to know
13:58 Jesus better every day.
14:07 No girls allowed.
14:19 You don't want me to take you just wanted to see me
14:21 up in the tree longer.
14:22 I have to pick it up with a stick. Trust me.


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Revised 2014-12-17