1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”(Lk. 19:1-10 ESV)
He Didn’t Stand a Chance
Zacchaeus didn’t stand a chance.
That was the word on the street, in the neighborhood and at synagogue. Zacchaeus was known in town by just one word: “sinner.” If anyone had ever careened away from his Creator, it was Zacchaeus. It was unfathomable that anyone like him might ever get right with God, or with others.
It would be like President Putin suddenly becoming Person of the Year–for all the right reasons. It would be like atheist Richard Dawkins suddenly writing hymns about his adoration of Christ.
Zacchaeus’ name meant “pure” or “righteous.”[1]His name was a sign pointing to who he was created to be–pure and righteous. It was a reminder that he had been made in the image of God. His name is a reminder of what we’ve all been made to be–pure and righteous. But these days Zacchaeus was not living out his name. He was neither pure nor righteous.
First of all, Zacchaeus was SO wealthy!
Jesus, just a few verses earlier, had stated, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” (Lk. 18:10). It’s easier, Jesus said, to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle than to get a rich person to surrender to God’s rule. There’s something about possessions that distracts us from devotion to God and love of others.
And Zacchaeus was SO rich! He had a three-camel garage. He had two walk-in closets full of just his tailor-made robes! His children went to the most expensive private school down the road. And he had a three-story vacation home on the edge of the Sea of Galilee.
It’s hard for us to imagine that this could be a strike against him. But it’s hard, Jesus said, for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! That’s a hard word to hear for those of us who are wealthy–and the vast majority of us in this room are wealthy compared to the rest of the world. But the reality is that our wealth distracts us from true love of God and love of others. Wealth is what made Zacchaeus so hopeless. It may make us hopeless as well.
But not only that, Zacchaeus was SO self-centered.
He was, after all, a tax collector. Tax collectors took goods from others for the good of themselves. They were employed by the Romans. The Romans had marched into Israel and taken over. And to fund Rome, their Panem, they taxed groups like the Jews nearly to poverty. That’s why throughout the gospels the phrase “sinners and tax collectors” is used. Tax collector had become just another synonym for “sinner.”
And Jericho, where all this takes place, was the prime spot for tax collection. It sat on major trade routes and was a goldmine for tax collectors.[2]If you were just out of tax collection college, and wanted to climb up the ladder at your local tax collecting firm, getting relocated to Jericho was the ultimate goal..
Not only was Zacchaeus a tax collector, he was the “chief” tax collector. He was the head of teams of corrupt crews taxing their neighbors into poverty and getting rich off it. And no one was getting richer than Zacchaeus. Every penny he gained came through the suffering of others.
Zacchaeus didn’t stand a chance.
The crowds just called him by one word: “sinner.” And when events happened in town, like the renowned Jesus passing through, Zacchaeus was crowded out. No one made room for Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus didn’t stand a chance.
Neither did Bruce.
I remember Bruce from my undergraduate days. Bruce’s parents were longtime members of the large Church of Christ in town. But their son Bruce had walked away from faith. About my age and in college, he seemed to have argued himself out of belief in God. It was rumored he was into drugs. All of us in the campus ministry knew Bruce was hopeless. His disbelief was so anchored and his ungodly behaviors so pervasive that turning him around seemed like turning the Titanic around. He was headed toward that iceberg and nothing was going to stop him.
He didn’t stand a chance.
And neither do we.
It’s easy to look at a guy like Zacchaeus or like Bruce and shake our heads in sad self-righteousness. But the truth is there’s not a single person in this room with any hope, on our own. Created to be pure and righteous, we’re so often not. We may not be taxing people into poverty, but we’re all selfish. We may not be earning millions, but we’re all distracted.
We don’t have a chance.
He Realized His Hopelessness
And it seems on this day when Jesus was passing through Jericho, that Zacchaeus finally realized this. We don’t know what happened. Maybe he had crashed his favorite camel that morning and the impact jarred loose something in his brain. Maybe he had endured just one too many spitting at him as he walked by or one too many doors closed in the face as he took yet another widow’s last mite. But like that green Grinch standing on the side of Mount Crumpit just before Christmas, his calcified heart suddenly opened.
We can see the exterior proof of the interior change by two things.
First when Jesus entered Jericho, Zacchaeus started running. He wasn’t running awayfrom Jesus the way he seemed to have been running away from God his whole life. He was running towardJesus. Wealthy men, prominent men, adult men like him did not run in that culture.[3]It wasn’t something that was dignified. The only people you would see running in Jericho were children. Zacchaeus was sprinting towards Jesus in the way that a child would sprint toward a parent.
The second thing we see is Zacchaeus climbing. Everyone around him has crowded him out. He cannot finish his race to Jesus. So, he climbs a tree. And in that culture important men, prominent men, adult men did not climb trees. It just wasn’t dignified. The only people you would’ve found climbing trees in Jericho were the kids. But here is Zacchaeus climbing a tree.
And it makes us wonder if Zacchaeus might, surprisingly, be the one person in all
of Jericho who has the faith of a child.[4] Jesus had earlier said it was only those who had the faith of a child that could enter the kingdom (Lk. 18:17). It was only those who understood their dependence, like children, who could come under the rule of God. And here is Zacchaeus running like the little ones do at Highland when it’s time in the Life Center for the Kids Collection. Here he is scrambling upward like a little boy on his way to a tree house.
Zacchaeus didn’t stand a chance.
And it seems like something finally on this day made him realize that. He finally felt the weight of that label, “sinner.” He finally caught a vision for who God created him to be: pure and righteous. He finally felt the gulf between where he was and where he was made to be.
So he did the only thing he could think of: He ran to Jesus. Even Zacchaeus had heard the stories. Stories of how this man made room for people no one else would. Stories of how Jesus had been eating with sinners and tax collectors. Stories of how people had been transformed in his company. So Zacchaeus scrambled like a child as close to Jesus as he could get. He ran to the only one willing and able to do anything for him.
There comes a moment for each of us, perhaps many of them, when we too feel the weight of that word “sinner”; when we too catch a vision for who we were always created to be; when we too feel that gulf between where we are and where God intends us to be. And when those moments come, there’s only one thing to do–run to Jesus. Sprint, scramble, scoot and scale to Jesus as fast as we can. Run to the only one willing and able to do anything for us.
That’s what Zacchaeus did.
Jesus Welcomed Him
And here’s what Jesus did–Jesus welcomed him.
The entire city rejected him. But Jesus welcomed him. In fact to show just how much he welcomed Zacchaeus Jesus invited himself to the house of Zacchaeus. This was house on the street all the children ran past fast. No one wanted to go near it, for fear of gaining guilt just by being in proximity to it. But Jesus invited himself in. He wanted everyone to know the depth of his welcome for this sinner with childlike faith in the Savior.
Salvation, Jesus says, has come to this house.
I wonder if you can hear just how remarkable that statement is. Imagine the kind of house salvation might come to. Salvation would surely come to the house of that family fostering two children. Salvation would surely come to the house of that nurse who spends every summer doing medical missions for the poor. But salvation would never come to the home of the richest man in town, living in luxury gained through the suffering of others.
Yet today salvation has come to that very house.
And he will come to your house. No matter the depth of your depravity, no matter the distance between you and God and others, once you scramble in utter dependence to him, he’ll move in–no matter what anyone else says.
Jesus Changed Him
And that act of love by Jesus was so abundant, so powerful, that Zacchaeus was fundamentally changed by it.
He has been calculating on paper all the people he has wronged. Probably no sheet of paper was long enough to list all those people, because it would look like a White Pages of the city of Jericho. But Zacchaeus is so moved by a Jesus who receives him when all others have rejected him that he determines to pay back what he had taken. And not just to pay it back. But to quadruple it.
And then he starts recalling the faces of all the poor in his city. Perhaps even the people he has made poor by his lucrative tax business.. He sees how he has contributed to the social problems plaguing his city. He sees how his own business has darkened this city. And he determines to do something about it. He’s going to use his wealth to invest in the lives of the poor.
And this pledge does not earn him salvation. It is the fruit of salvation. Zacchaeus doesn’t sacrifice these goods so thathe might gain Jesus’ love. He sacrifices them because he’s alreadybeen granted Jesus’ love.
I remember how shocked I was the first time Bruce came to one of our campus ministry events. It was sort of like seeing Zacchaeus up in a tree. He was the last person on campus I’d ever imagine coming to one of our devotionals. He was so far from God. He was so distant from the life of Christ. But one day he showed up. Something happened in his life. In his heart. In his mind. I don’t know what it was. It’s like he came running and scrambling like a little boy to Jesus.
And what Bruce found over the next few months was a welcome by a Jesus so warm that it fundamentally altered him. Bruce became one of the most devout and pious people you could imagine. Yes, there were ups and downs. But Bruce was transformed when salvation came to his house. Today he’s a loving husband, a devoted father, and a leader in a church.
Zacchaeus did not have a chance–rather, his greed, self-centeredness and distraction didn’t have a chance. Because once he experienced the welcome of Jesus, those things about him were washed away and replaced with compassion and benevolence. They didn’t stand a chance.
The same is true for you. Jesus’ love is so overwhelming that your self-centeredness, distraction, and sin don’t stand a chance against. If you scamper to him in total dependence like a little boy or girl, he will start in you a process of renewal that will forever change you.
The same is true for those around you. The whole city might have written someone off. You might have written someone off. But if you could ever get them to a tree, not the sycamore tree of Zacchaeus, but the the tree of Calvary, in the face of the love of Christ, they could still experience a total turnaround.
Jesus welcomes you as you’ve never been welcomed in your whole life. He offers a radical renovation of your heart. All you have to do is come running to him.
And Jesus welcomes those around you as you or others have never welcomed them before. And he calls us to be the one and only community that practices this self-same welcome. Because in the face of such love, the sick, sinners, those of other races, our neighbors, children with special needs, women and all others don’t stand a chance. They will all be won over by the welcome of this one who died on a cross so that we all might live with him.
[1] Morris, L. (1988). Luke: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 3, p. 288). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[2] Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 1997). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
[3]Wiersbe, W. W. (1992). Wiersbe’s expository outlines on the New Testament (p. 191). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[4]Martin, J. A. (1985). Luke. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 252). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
