Divine Initiative and Human Response in the Season of Expectation
Before Advent begins, we stand in a peculiar moment of spiritual time—the ordinary days that nevertheless carry the weight of expectation. We know what is coming. The liturgical year prepares to circle back to the mystery of the Incarnation. In this threshold space, two passages speak with startling clarity about the pattern of divine encounter that Advent will celebrate: God comes seeking before we even know we need to be found.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe (1 Timothy 4:9-10). Paul’s words establish a foundation: salvation begins with divine initiative, not human merit. The living God is Savior—active, seeking, initiating. Your response matters infinitely, but God’s movement comes first.
Then Luke shows us what this looks like in lived encounter: Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass by that way (Luke 19:1-4).
Notice the sequence carefully. Jesus enters Jericho. He chooses to pass through this particular city on this particular day. Zacchaeus responds—seeks to see, runs ahead, climbs the tree. But watch what happens next: When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house” (Luke 19:5). Jesus calls him by name. Jesus invites Himself into Zacchaeus’s life. The initiative remains divine even while human response is honored.
This is the pattern Before Advent reveals and Advent will celebrate: God comes seeking. The Incarnation itself is divine initiative—the Word becoming flesh not because humanity finally got religious enough, but because the living God is the Savior of all. What you are preparing to celebrate in Advent is not your achievement but your being found.
But here the inner work begins. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, wealthy from collaborating with Rome’s occupation, despised by his own people. The text does not sentimentalize his condition. He was complicit in oppression. He had built his life on extraction and betrayal. And something in him—we do not know what—wanted to see Jesus. Not to repent yet. Not to make amends. Just to see.
What is that something in you? What small wanting stirs before you even know why? You may not be ready to change everything. You may just want to see. That is enough. That wanting itself is already divine initiative working in you. Maximos the Confessor teaches that your natural will—the deepest orientation of your nature—already desires God even when your personal choices have diverged wildly from that desire. The fact that you want to see at all means your nature is still pointing home.
Zacchaeus climbed a tree. The detail matters. He was short—a physical limitation. The crowd blocked him—a social barrier. So he did something undignified. Chief tax collectors do not scramble up trees like children. He made himself ridiculous to see what he needed to see. What are you willing to look ridiculous for? Where does your dignity need to be set aside so that genuine seeing becomes possible?
Many people remain stuck because they will not risk looking foolish. The ego’s investment in appearing competent, controlled, spiritually advanced—this blocks encounter more effectively than any external barrier. Zacchaeus’s willingness to climb reveals something crucial: he wanted to see more than he wanted to maintain his image. This is inner work you cannot bypass. What image are you protecting that prevents you from climbing?
Jesus looked up and saw him. Not accidentally. Not as afterthought. Jesus came to Jericho for this. He knew Zacchaeus’s name before Zacchaeus knew he needed calling. Gregory of Nyssa writes that “the one who seeks God has already been found by Him.” Your seeking is response to being sought. The wanting itself is already grace.
This transforms how you understand spiritual effort. Paul writes that we both labor and suffer reproach. Yes, effort matters. The labor is real. Zacchaeus had to run, had to climb, had to receive Jesus, had to face the crowd’s murmuring. But the labor is response, not initiation. You work because you have been found, not to make yourself findable. This distinction liberates effort from anxiety. You are not scrambling to earn divine attention. You are cooperating with divine initiative already at work.
The crowd grumbled: He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner (Luke 19:7). They saw contamination—the holy one defiled by association with the unclean. They missed the entire point. Holiness does not fear contamination; holiness transforms what it touches. Christ assumes fallen humanity, not unfallen perfection. He enters the tax collector’s house, the collaborator’s life, your compromised existence—not to condemn but to transfigure from within.
What part of your life feels too compromised for divine presence? Where have you decided that Christ cannot or will not enter? The house you have built on extraction and betrayal, the self you have constructed from wounds and defenses, the history you cannot undo—Christ says, Today I must stay at your house. Must. Not might, not if you clean up first. Must. The divine initiative does not wait for your readiness. It creates readiness by entering.
Zacchaeus’s response flows from encounter, not before it: Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold (Luke 19:8). This is not gritted-teeth repentance, white-knuckling goodness to earn approval. This is the natural outflow of being seen truly and called by name. When you experience being received as you actually are—not as you pretend to be, not as you wish you were—transformation becomes possible without self-violence.
Notice the movement: being sought, being seen, being called, being received—then choosing differently. Not the reverse order. You cannot genuinely choose transformation before you know you are already accepted. Trying to do so produces only performance and exhaustion. The faithful saying is faithful because it establishes the order: God is Savior first. Your believing responds to what is already true.
Paul instructs Timothy: Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Do not neglect the gift that is in you (1 Timothy 4:12-14). The gift is already in you. Not something you must acquire but something you must stop neglecting. Your true self—the image of God that remains even under layers of self-protection and compromise—waits for recognition.
This is shadow integration through divine encounter. You do not excavate your darkness alone. You climb the tree, make yourself visible, receive the One who calls your name. In that encounter, what you have denied can be faced because you are not facing it alone. What you have hidden can be acknowledged because acknowledgment no longer means abandonment. Zacchaeus could admit what he had done because he knew he was already received.
Before Advent, you stand where Zacchaeus stood: wanting to see, not yet knowing what seeing will require. The liturgical season approaching will celebrate the pattern: God enters. Not when you are ready but to make you ready. Not because you have climbed high enough but because divine love seeks what is lost. Athanasius writes that “God became human so that humans might become god.” This is not metaphor. This is the actual structure of reality—matter being transfigured, humanity being united to divinity, your compromised life becoming temple.
The cosmic dimension grounds your personal encounter. When Jesus calls Zacchaeus down from the tree, He is enacting the pattern of all salvation: the divine descending to meet the human in its actual condition, then elevating that humanity into communion. The Incarnation will make this universal—the Word uniting to human nature itself. But Zacchaeus experiences it personally, individually, by name. Both are true simultaneously. Creation’s groaning and your particular longing participate in one reality.
What does this require of you now, in these days before Advent? First, acknowledge the wanting. Stop dismissing the small stirrings of desire for something more, something real, something beyond the life you have built from wounds and compromises. That wanting is already grace, already divine initiative. Second, risk the ridiculous. What do you need to do that dignity forbids? Where do you need to become like a child, visible in your need rather than competent in your performance? Third, receive what is offered. When Christ says Today I must stay at your house, do not argue about worthiness. Open the door. The transformation will follow encounter, not precede it.
Paul’s faithful saying grounds this in cosmic hope: God is the Savior of all, especially those who believe. Your believing does not create salvation but allows you to participate consciously in what is already true. The universe is structured for consummation. The divine kenosis that poured out in creation continues in Incarnation and will complete when God is all in all. Your personal transformation participates in this cosmic movement—not separate from it, not identical to it, but woven into one fabric.
Before Advent, make haste and come down. The season of waiting approaches, but the One waited for is already seeking. Climb your tree. Make yourself visible. Hear your name called. Receive the Guest who transforms houses and hearts by entering them. The labor and reproach Paul speaks of are real—changing actually costs, and the crowd will murmur. But the labor is response to prior grace, and grace makes the cost bearable. You are not earning encounter. You are cooperating with the seeking love that named you before you knew you needed a name.
Keywords: divine initiative, Advent preparation, Zacchaeus encounter, faithful saying, transformation through grace, shadow integration, cosmic salvation, patristic exegesis, theosis, Orthodox spirituality
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