Jesus & Zacchaeus

Well, good morning. I’m Pastor Ben, and it’s my privilege to share from God’s Word with you this morning as we continue on and actually close out this series called The Pursuit. A special welcome to anyone that is a guest this morning, and of course, welcome to First Lutheran who’s joining us as well online.

And so this has been the last few weeks for us where we’ve been exploring in this series encounters that Jesus has had with different individuals throughout Scripture and answering this question, who is pursuing whom? And so far, has this series been a benefit to anyone? So like three people, cool. No, no, no. Hopefully this has been, this is a great, great thing to, to wrestle with in Scripture.

I mean, it seems like we know the answer on the front end, but oftentimes the way that we act and the way that we live our lives out is contrary to the way we actually see in Scripture. So it’s worthwhile, it’s valuable to slow down, to look at Scripture, and to see how does Jesus interact, how does Jesus pursue individuals in Scripture, and how does he pursue us today? So we’re going to be looking at this story some of you may be familiar with, Jesus and Zacchaeus, but we’re going to slow down, go verse by verse, and just look at 10 verses today. And what’s interesting about this visit that Jesus has with Zacchaeus is he seemingly invites himself over to someone’s house.

He just seemingly invites himself right over to Zacchaeus. So with that in mind, this was my house just yesterday, was our, our youngest was celebrating his fourth birthday. Right, Owen? You’re right over there.

He’s now, he’s a big boy, he’s four years old. But what comes with hosting something at your house? How do you get ready to have company at your house? What, what do you all have to do? And when I ask my boys, what do you have to clean, they say everything. Right, what sort of things do you, what do you do? What do you do when you prep for having company? Vacuum, cook, mow the lawn, dust.

Right, I think we go overboard sometimes. Like we think that there’s going to be some family member or friend that’s going to bust into our house, and immediately go straight to the mantel, check it for dust. Then go outside and check the sidewalk.

Did they edge it? Is that straight? Is that not straight? You know, and then look in the closets. Like where are their shoes? Is everything ironed? Is everything all right in your house? Are all your papers organized? Like maybe you have to, I don’t have family members like that, but sometimes we prep. Like we have to have everything in order in our house.

And we also have in mind, I don’t know, maybe you do this. Where’s, where are people going to be when they visit? Those are the places where everything has to be clean. Right? Right, boys? Right.

When I asked our, my kiddos, like it’s time to clean up. We got to get the living room cleaned. We’re going to be in the backyard.

It’s going to be a nice day. So inevitably all the toys and extra things end up somewhere else. Right? You know, and I go and check on their room after they’ve been cleaning so diligently out in the common spaces.

And you go and walk in their room, and I could have swore there used to be a floor in their room. But they had this idea, like I got this from the living room, and then just whoop, you know, and just toss it right into the room. Cover everything up.

So there’s dusting, vacuum, yard work, all the sort of things. Yet what we see in today’s text is that there’s a house visit that takes place. There’s company that Zacchaeus has, and he doesn’t have time to prep.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at it. Like I said, we’re going to be just looking at just a few verses here this morning. In Luke chapter 19, in verse 1, it says this, Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.

To give a little context of what’s taking place at this point in scripture, is in the book of Luke, Jesus has done the majority of his ministry at this point. We’re moving right into Holy Week. This is preceding Holy Week.

He’s in Jericho, and the reason he’s passing through is he’s headed to Jerusalem. And he’s headed to Jerusalem for Palm Sunday, and all of the Passion Week, all of the Holy Week is about to come. So he’s already done his three years of ministry.

He’s already healed. He’s already raised people from the dead. He’s already taught.

So he has his disciples with him. He has a multitude of people that are hearing about him. And so as he’s heading into Jericho, this is important to understand, is that there would be a commotion.

Here is this rabbi. Here is this teacher. Here is this healer, miracle worker, who’s coming to town.

So there would be this big commotion, and people would want to know about him. And that’s where we see Zacchaeus. He’s heard about Jesus.

And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, and he was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And we know a lot about Zacchaeus already in just a single verse. He’s rich.

There’s two, there’s two marks against him, really. Number one is being rich. I go, being rich isn’t bad.

In the book of Luke, the way that the author of Luke portrays it, being rich is not a good thing. It’s not a good thing. Actually, just a chapter earlier, there is a rich young ruler who approached Jesus, and all of his wealth really prevented him from following Jesus.

So we see now, a chapter later, another rich man. Not just any rich man. How did he become rich? Off of other people.

And not just other people, his own people. If you don’t know this, I mean, in the context then, so there’s an occupying government, the Roman government, in Israel at this time. And what they would do is they would hire up individuals from that society and say, you can go ahead and collect taxes on behalf of Rome, and you better make sure that Rome gets paid.

But then you can really determine your own salary. And you determine your own salary by just charging people more. Taxing them more.

Your own people. So you’re working for the enemy government, and the way that you line your pockets, the way that you pay your bills, the way that you own everything, is by stealing from your own people. Defrauding them.

So that’s Zacchaeus. And interestingly enough, too, it’s always fun to look at these kinds of things, too. Look at the details.

Zacchaeus, the name means clean, pure, and righteous. And Zacchaeus, in one verse so far, is anything but. The other thing I find curious, too, this is the sixth time we see a tax collector mentioned in the book of Luke.

For some reason, Jesus keeps having these run-ins with these tax collector guys. And to recap it, who’s Zacchaeus? He’s wealthy and he’s powerful. He’s a chief tax collector.

I didn’t mention this. This is the only time in all of scripture that that term, chief tax collector. Not only is he chief tax collector, he’s the chief tax collector in Jericho, which is one of the likely one of the three largest cities for trade in that region at that time.

So he’s a large city with a lot of trade, a lot of taxes that he can have on people, and he’s the chief. So he’s very wealthy. He’s very powerful.

But because of that, and because of him turning on his own countrymen, he is also now a social outcast because of that. Yet, as we’re going to see in our text, for all of his wealth, for all of his power, for his position, he’s still seeking something more. Does that sound like anyone in our society? People that pursue wealth and power, that isolate themselves socially, but there’s still a yearning and a longing for something more.

And even more than that, does that sound like not only people in our society, but does that sound like people here this morning seeking wealth and power, isolated from others, but seeking more? That’s who Zacchaeus was. It says he was seeking to see who Jesus was. Again, so he’s heard the murmurs.

He’s heard the commotion. He’s heard the stories told about Jesus, and he wanted to see who is this Jesus? Who is this traveling rabbi? But on account of the crowd, he could not because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead, climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Jesus, for he was about to pass that way.

Rather than being with a crowd and likely to be with the crowd, he’s among people that truly hate him for what he does and what he continues to do to the people by taxing them and defrauding them and stealing from them. And he does this thing that would be so bizarre for a man of his prestige and his power and his wealth as he climbs a tree. You may have heard it said before, like men in society, they would not run.

They would not climb a tree. This is something that childhood does. This would be embarrassing for him to do.

Yet there’s something inside of him that just wants to see, just to lay eyes on Jesus, to see what he is all about. Not to converse with him, not to touch the hem of his robe, not to ask him for anything, just to see him. The other thing that I find curious about this too, I didn’t even realize until fairly recently, but one of my professors in the last few years, he mentioned that if you go into the Greek and you look at that word he, because he was small in stature.

Can anyone help me with the lyrics? Zacchaeus was a a wee little man and a wee little man was he, right? I asked the band, they didn’t want to sing it this morning. I don’t know. But there’s actually good reason not to sing it because if you go into the Greek, it’s not actually totally clear if it’s Zacchaeus or if it’s Jesus who’s small in stature.

And some of you just, your minds are blown. Wait, wait, my Jesus is six foot two. Like you’re telling me he could have been short.

Well, if you go into the Greek, it could have been Zacchaeus couldn’t see him because Jesus was short. So Zacchaeus had to get into a tree to see past all the other people. Or Zacchaeus himself is short.

And do you know how much that detail matters? Not at all. So okay, we’re done with that sidetrack. But I just find it interesting when you actually slow down, you look at it, and we just assume these things.

Okay, Zacchaeus is short. Could Jesus be short? Absolutely, he could be short. But does it matter for the story? Ultimately, no.

What we know is Zacchaeus can’t see him. Zacchaeus longs to see him. And he can’t be with the crowd.

He doesn’t want to get trampled by the crowd. But he wants to be able to look upon him. But again, looking at details.

Details, again, they matter. It says Sycamore. But it’s not Sycamore like we think about it.

In that region, at that time, and with that word Sycamore, it means a Sycamore fig tree. Okay, that’s kind of fun. Sycamore fig tree.

What’s that really matter? Well, it would have been a tree like this that’s wide at the base, has low hanging branches, easy for him to climb. So you can kind of get a mental picture. Okay, Zacchaeus is, you know, climbing and hoist himself up this tree.

But then you slow down and you think, well, are there any other times in scripture that Jesus approaches a fig tree? Well, actually, in just a short time, there’s a time that Jesus approaches a fig tree outside of Jerusalem. And when he looks upon that fig tree and he sees no fruit on it, he curses the tree and it withers, which is a really weird story. And that’s not what we’re talking about today.

But it’s curious that he would look on that fig tree in that scenario outside of Jerusalem, and it would wither because he’s looking for fruit and didn’t see fruit. He comes upon this Sycamore fig tree. And in just a few moments, we’re going to see that he looks up into it.

He sees fruit. He sees Zacchaeus. We’re going to see what kind of fruit that is.

Before we get to that, this idea of a tree, climbing a tree, longing to see Jesus, having heard about Jesus, seeing that there’s something more, there’s something more. He has wealth, he has power, but he wants something more. So he’s willing to make himself look foolish, long to look into something else.

What about you? What are the trees that you climb when you’re seeking comfort? What are the trees that you climb when you’re seeking self-fulfillment? What are the trees that you climb when you want to be gratified, when you want to feel good enough? Is it the Bible? Is that where you long to look? Do you long to look into Scripture or do you long to look into, well, if I want to feel secure, I need to look into how can I do better at my job and how can I get a promotion and what can I do? Or if I want to feel like I’m a little bit better than other people, is there a way that I can have a better title? Could I go for another degree? Could I have doctor in front of my name? And then could I long into that? Do I want to just make sure everything is just fine in my family and I got to make sure all those things are all buttoned up because there’s something wrong that I’m longing to look into something. And don’t hear me wrong. It’s not wrong to pursue to do well in your job, pursue other degrees, pursue to provide for your family.

But when that becomes the place where you find your ultimate comfort and hope, then we’re climbing up the wrong trees. And ultimately those things are going to fall short and they’re going to fail us. But here’s Zacchaeus is, and seemingly up into this point, it seems like Zacchaeus is the active agent.

We’ve heard about him. He’s a sinner. He’s climbing up this tree.

But then all of a sudden the script changes. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, when Jesus came to the place, when Jesus stepped down from eternity, put on flesh, lived 30 years, did three years of ministry, healed multitudes of people, cast out demons, healed blind eyes, opened deaf ears. When Jesus had done all this, when he was headed to Jericho just to pass through so he could head to the cross, what he did is Jesus looked up and called him by name.

That Jesus knew exactly who Zacchaeus was. He known exactly what Zacchaeus does for a living and continues to do. And even with all the other people that are surrounding him, he’s come for Zacchaeus.

Not just the chief tax collector in this prominent city, but this chief of sinners in this city. And then this curious thing follows that. Not only just calling him by name, but he says, come down for I must stay at your house.

Not just a simple invitation like he’s inviting himself. He’s commanding him. I’m staying at your house.

We’re going to have a conversation. And without any other context yet, you could imagine potentially that there are people around. There’s scribes, there’s Pharisees, there’s his disciples.

They know that this guy is a prominent sinner. He’s, he’s betrayed his own people and he’s lined his pockets doing it. All right, now Jesus calls him by name.

All right, it’s getting good. Right? He’s going to call out this sinner. He’s going to tell him what’s what.

And he’s going to his house. There’s no time for Zacchaeus to prepare. There’s no time for Zacchaeus to go and clean things up, to dust, vacuum, to do whatever he needs to do.

It’s done. He’s caught. Jesus is there.

What about you? If Jesus was to come here now today and to call you by name and say, hey, you know what? Not only am I going to come to your house today, but I need to see your calendar for the last couple months. I want to see how you’ve broken down your time and how much you’ve allocated towards me. Hey, could I also get a look at your online banking? Because I want to see how you’re spending your finances and how are you really prioritizing me? Are you really just kind of treating yourself? You know what? Actually, and above all that, could I get my hands on your phone? I’m going to call you by name and I’m going to grab that because I want to see what is this thing that you gaze upon so enthralled with all the time and what is it that has so taken your attention? And is it things that are edifying and building up for your faith or are they things that are tearing you down? Nowhere to hide, nowhere to turn, no chance to clean things up before Jesus gets there.

Rather, Jesus just inviting him, commanding himself over before there’s times to straighten things up. With that in mind, we have this idea here, Zacchaeus, is this the worst person in this society? But for us here today, who is the worst person that you know? If they’re in the room, don’t say their name. But who’s the worst person that you know? It’s easy for us to think of headlines, to think of different political leaders across the world.

We could think of horrible people within our own society. Maybe it’s a family member who’s wronged you, who’s betrayed you, who’s stabbed you in the back. Well, we fail to see when we look at these little snapshots of other people’s low lights.

Someone else’s headline of one of their sins, you know, and it may be heinous, it may be horrible. We fail to see is that when we see that, we’re only seeing a small snapshot of some of their sin, while all of us know all of our own sin. We know someone slip up in their failure.

We know someone’s horrible deed that they did, they said. We know all of our own. We know all of our unfaithfulness.

We know all of our lies. We know all of our shortcomings. Yet, when we see a Zacchaeus, when we see someone else and their sin is out in front, it is so very easy for us to not join with the disciples, but rather join with the Pharisees and go, man, look at him.

And in a moment like this, where Jesus is now calling him by name, we’re just, oh yeah, okay. Now he’s going to straighten him out, not realizing that we ourselves are Zacchaeus, chief tax collector, chief sinner. Yet, Zacchaeus senses something in Jesus because he doesn’t feel condemned.

What we see is that a joyful response. It says this, so he hurried and he came down and he received him. Zacchaeus received Jesus joyfully, and when they saw it, they all grumbled and say, he has gone to be a guest of a man who is a sinner.

That man is a sinner. Zacchaeus, the sinner. Which echoes what we continue to see throughout scripture.

In the book of Mark, a very similar setting. Matthew, a tax collector, had just been dining with Jesus, and the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw it, they were, that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteous but the sinners. And this is so critically important for us to understand as we like bring this series to a close in God’s pursuit of us, that when God is coming to pursue us, when Jesus is having these encounters with individuals, what he’s doing, when he’s inviting himself over, when he’s having this impromptu home visit, he is not showing up to do an audit on your house.

He’s not showing up as a house inspector. He’s not showing up to figure out all that is wrong. He already knows.

He’s doing what he says here. He’s a great physician who is doing a house call for someone who is sick. And I think when we frame it in that way, it becomes so very helpful for us.

We see Jesus open the eyes of the blind, open the ears of the deaf. He is healing sick people, people that have ailments. And here it is no different with Zacchaeus.

He’s sick. He is sick with sin. He’s sick with greed.

He’s sick with pride and selfishness. He’s infected. And it is killing him.

And here Christ come, not to condemn, but to heal, just like he does in all those other interactions. And that’s what the Pharisees and the scribes, they fail to see, is that when Jesus comes, when his presence comes to these sick sinners, is he’s not condoning their sin. He’s not endorsing their sin in any way.

And that is how they would have understood it. When it says that he sits with them, he eats with them, what they would have understood is like if you’re going to go to his house under his roof and eat his food that he’s paying for with money he stole, it is just like you have stolen from the people too. It’s not that you’re just having dinner with Zacchaeus.

It is as if you yourself have stolen from these people, that you are now an accomplice of Zacchaeus. Yet that is not what Jesus is doing. It actually is this idea of table fellowship.

When Jesus sits down over and over and over again, there is this draw to the meal that’s so significant in Scripture. And the first thing that we have to see in this is when Jesus invites others to a meal, it is because God’s desire is to be with us. God’s desire is to be with his people who are sinners.

That he is called to the sinners, not to the righteous. It’s been that way since the garden where God approaches people, and it’s that way in Christ, and it’s that way still that he is the one that pursues. The second point is so critical too because I think it gets twisted in our society that sometimes we go, oh well Jesus sat with sinners, or he spent time with prostitutes, and so that he must be okay with those things.

Nowhere in Scripture does it say that he did those things and then said, well you know what, attaboy Zacchaeus, just keep on stealing from your own people, keep on turning your back on the Israelites, keep on endorsing the Roman government, that’s totally fine. He never condones sin, and often he will tell them to go and sin no more. But what he’s offering with his very presence is not only healing, but more importantly with his presence comes forgiveness.

And then with forgiveness there is this call to repentance, to turn and change the way that he’s living. There’s also this foretaste, there’s a foreshadowing that’s happening in all these meals where Christ sits down with sinners and saying that he’s going to forgive others, he’s going to offer his own very body and blood through the Lord’s Supper. It’s going to connect us to the cross, to the very real forgiveness of sins.

It’s also going to point us forward to the banquet that is in heaven where he is going to have a table filled with sinners who are now forgiven. But why is it, why is it that we question who and how God visits others? Because I don’t think it’s just me, when you see a headline of someone that’s been converted, that Zacchaeus type person, there might be this feeling like, okay well how long is this going to last? How long is this celebrity that used to be promiscuous and into alcohol and to drugs and you know and they converted? Well maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. Or we like to think that we can be fine with God showing up to people that are just as bad as we are, but there are certain sins that are off limits.

Okay, liars. Okay, maybe people that cheat, but murderers? No way. Could God show up to people in prison, change their hearts, offer them forgiveness? When you hear about what we would categorize as worse sins in some regard, and you see that horrific headline, you have often said things like I’ve said, either out loud or to ourselves, there’s a special place in hell for someone like that, right? There’s a special place.

And in doing so, all of a sudden we put ourselves in this judgment seat where we’re saying ultimately that that sin, that person is beyond the reach of God and all they deserve is hell. And if that’s the case for others, then how do we question, why don’t we question how and who God pursues us with? Because I ultimately believe that we might think of ourselves better than we ought, more than we ought. And we would think, oh well, God’s good with me with the 98% that I present.

God’s good with me with all the rooms that I present to my life to other people that I’ll let them into. But there are certain places I haven’t cleaned up yet. There are certain closets and corners and crevices of my life that are still pretty dirty, and I don’t really want to talk about them.

I dare not utter them out loud. And you know what? I’m not quite sure because I don’t talk about them and I really haven’t offered them up to God. I’m not quite sure if I’m forgiven of those things.

But I know the 98% that I’m doing pretty good with over here. But if some people knew the things that you’ve said, the things that you’ve done, or even as Jesus flips things on his head, and even the things that you desire and that you think, if those were on display on the screen behind me, would there be those among us that would look at that and go, wow, there’s a special place in hell for that person. That they would think that, that they would do that, and that they would say that.

That’s how others have treated Zacchaeus. That’s how he has been ostracized from society. And he certainly has, he’s lived the sin.

He’s done it. But what’s curious is he’s not hiding it. He receives Jesus joyfully.

Now all of his dirty laundry aired in daylight for everyone to see who he is. And now he responds in this way. Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

This echoes what’s actually taught earlier in Luke, when John is baptizing tax collectors. They’re asking, what should they do? And he says, don’t defraud anyone. So either this message somehow got to Zacchaeus, or he just intrinsically understood.

Jesus is here. Forgiveness is here. Acceptance is here.

Mercy is here. And now the overflow of gratitude, of being restored, is that he has no other choice than to try to right his wrongs. And I mentioned the rich young ruler earlier.

It was just a chapter earlier in the book of Luke. And when he’s asking, how can he inherit the kingdom of heaven? What does he have to do? He’s told to sell all of his possessions and follow Jesus, which was hard for that rich young ruler. But now here a chapter later, this atrocious sinner, man who betrayed his very own people, became rich off of it, encounters Jesus, isn’t commanded to give anything away, and his natural response to the presence of Jesus is, I got to give it all away.

I just have to give it all away. And we see that this response is because of what follows. Because his overwhelming sense of gratitude and thanks comes from this, that Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house, since he is also a son of Abraham.

It’s not a rabbi. It’s not some great teacher. It’s not a miracle worker.

It is a Messiah who has now visited him and offered salvation. Salvation, which means what? That he’s been saved. Saved from what? Himself and his own sin and ultimately separation from God.

And this same language today is used just a few chapters later when Jesus is hanging on a cross and a man next to him professes faith in Jesus and he says, today you will see me in paradise. That the presence of Jesus, recognizing Jesus for who he is and what he has come to do, brings salvation that actually saves him. Saves him from a lifetime of sin.

And not just the sins that are out there, but even the sins that are hidden are nailed to that tree as well. Jesus then follows and closes out our text together with this. He said, for the son of man came to seek and save the lost.

This amazing mission statement here in the middle of the book of Luke and a great reminder to all of us that you’re right there in that verse along with me. Do you know that? Just like he sought out Zacchaeus, he seeks us, those that are lost. Lost in our own sin, lost in our selfishness, lost in our pride, lost in our greed, and lost in the fact that we actually aren’t even in touch with how wicked and sinful we really are.

And that there’s not cleaning up that we need to do. We don’t need to straighten stuff up because Jesus is coming and he wants to visit. No, he’s inviting himself over.

And there’s not time to clean stuff up, but you know what? He’s taking it upon himself. And it’s not just vacuuming, it’s not just dusting, but he comes into our hearts and he sees all the brokenness, all the sin, and he also sees what it deserves. He comes into our homes and our hearts and he sees a tomb with each of our names on it.

And he says, no, that’s not yours, that’s mine. I’m going to take that from you. You know what? You don’t need that because I’ve come to seek you and to save you.

And now with his very presence in our lives that we can hand those things over gladly and receive the forgiveness of our sins. Not just offering Jesus what is our best effort to look good, but even offering to him all of our brokenness. That it’s safe with Jesus, that we can receive him joyfully in all of our brokenness, because in all of our brokenness, he gives us all of his righteousness.

An early church father stated it this way. Cyril of Alexandria in the fourth century, he’s actually giving a sermon on this very text. And I love, you don’t always have to do this, but I find it interesting that we’re connected with that church.

This saint is now in glory with Jesus. And the way he professed it was this way. He said, for where Christ enters, there is necessarily also salvation.

May he therefore also be in us, for he is in us when we believe, for he dwells in our hearts by faith and we are his abode. But you don’t need to invite Jesus in. Jesus has invited himself over.

Receive it. Realize it. Cling to the fact that that finished work of the cross is yours.

It’s been done for you, just as it’s been done for Zacchaeus, that salvation has come to you today. And that as you hear these words now, that salvation has come to you today. No matter what it is, no matter what sin that you still cling to, release it, let it go, and recognize that Christ wants to dwell in you, that his spirit is with you, and you no longer have to live in that sin anymore.

Salvation is here, because salvation is where Christ is, and Christ is here. Amen? Let’s pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, God, we thank you.

We thank you for your word and for this series, for these reminders through your scripture. God, that in our brokenness, in our lostness, God, and all of the hidden things in our lives, that you still choose to pursue us with grace and mercy in your eyes. God, let us not only receive your forgiveness, God, but let us offer to you all of our brokenness, all of our sin, and the various ways that we continually fall short, knowing full well that they have been nailed to the cross, and that they are forgiven.

Amen.