COME DOWN QUICKLY
Luke 19:1-10 NET.
1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 Now a man named Zacchaeus was there; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to get a look at Jesus, but being a short man he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, because Jesus was going to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, because I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down quickly and welcomed Jesus joyfully. 7 And when the people saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
We have been studying the commands of Christ. We are looking for clues as to what Jesus wants. Unfortunately, we do not have a written list of commands from Jesus that applies to us. Instead, we have to figure out what Jesus wants us to do based on his interactions with others and his commands to others. Today’s story might be a little tricky. It tells about Jesus’s interaction with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was up a tree, literally. Jesus tells him to come down from that tree. He plans to stay at Zacchaeus’s house. Zacchaeus responds by obeying Jesus’ command. He also seems to have had a conversion experience. The problem with a story like this is that most of us do not climb Sycamore trees. We are not put in a position like Zacchaeus was. Jesus is not walking through our town on his way to Jerusalem. And even if Jesus was coming in our direction, we are not like Zacchaeus, seeking to get a glimpse of him. We are his followers, so we are more like those in the crowd. But I think there is a message in today’s text for us. We can understand what Jesus wants us to do if we follow three steps.
The first step is to examine Zacchaeus and compare him to another man we encountered recently in the Gospel of Luke.
Compare Zacchaeus with the rich ruler of Luke 18.
They were both rich. When Jesus saw this rich young man coming, he loved him. But when this young man wanted to join Jesus’ disciples, Jesus required that he give up all his wealth. The rich man was not willing to do that. He went away sad because he had a lot of money. He wanted to be a believer and a follower of Jesus, but he did not want to sacrifice his wealth to do so. Jesus was not willing to accommodate his wishes. He told his followers a rich man couldn’t enter the Kingdom. It was like a camel going through the eye of a needle.
And so, this man, Zacchaeus, appears on the scene. He is also a rich man. Will Jesus say the same thing to him? Will Jesus turn him away? We know already from the text that Jesus does not. That is a comfort. Knowing that you can be rich and still be accepted by Jesus is a comfort. But what was the difference in Zacchaeus? How did Jesus know that Zacchaeus was fit for the Kingdom? Why did Jesus accept Zacchaeus and reject the rich young man? We will leave that question for a moment.
They were both famous. Both Zacchaeus and the rich young man were famous among their population. People knew their names, and they knew what they did. They were not renowned for the same reason. They were famous for the opposite reasons. The rich young man was famous for being a righteous person. Zacchaeus was not. Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He was the chief tax collector. Zacchaeus was a significant person in a city like Jericho, famous for its role in trade and commerce. But he was also a very despised person. He got rich by preying on the people. He cheated people for a living. He was the kind of famous person you didn’t want to have at your house.
They both sought Jesus. The rich young man sought Jesus to have a guaranteed eternal life. We are not sure why Zacchaeus sought Jesus. Perhaps he was looking for something that he had never found anywhere else. But no one else knew about what Zacchaeus wanted. Everyone thought Zacchaeus was a scoundrel, and they didn’t think Jesus would have anything to do with him. They were a little upset when Jesus decided to join Zacchaeus at his home.
They both had a decision to make. The rich young man had a decision to make. He had to decide whether joining the Kingdom of God was worth giving up all of his wealth. He had to determine if he wanted to change his life to get eternal life. He went away sad because he would not make that decision. He decided that the destiny of eternal life was not worth a current life of poverty. But look at the decisions Zacchaeus made. He had a very similar decision to make. He knew that coming to Christ would mean changing the way he lived. He knew that self and money would have to come off the throne. He knew that to follow Jesus, he had to change how he lived. But he decided to do that. This is what we call repentance.
Now, after we have examined these two men and their decisions, we can discuss the crowds. Remember I said we were more like the people in the crowd that day?
Consider the crowds that day.
They all hated Zacchaeus. Their pockets were a little less full because of Him. They despised the man. If Zacchaeus had tried to reach Jesus through the crowd, they would have tried to stomp him and rough him up a bit. He was not popular with anyone. The only ones who would have tried to look like his friends were the people who worked for him.
The people in the crowd were obstacles to Zacchaeus’ salvation. They were not just obstacles to him physically getting to Jesus. By their actions, Zacchaeus was prevented from contacting Jesus. They wanted to follow Jesus to Jerusalem but did not intend to invite Zacchaeus.
They were critical of Jesus’ choice to favor him. The text says that they all complained that he had gone in to be a guest of a man who was a Sinner. They thought that Jesus had made a wrong choice. But what Zacchaeus did showed that Jesus did not make a wrong choice. Zacchaeus made a vow to give half his possessions to people experiencing poverty. He also vowed to repay all the money he wrongfully took from people. He was showing true repentance. But the crowd did not like Zacchaeus. They did not consider him worthy of Jesus. They could not understand how Jesus could accept Zacchaeus.
They were ignorant of his potential for change. They had made a value judgment based on their prejudice. When they saw someone like Zacchaeus, they wrote them off as unredeemable.
Now, here is the point where you and I have to confront a problem we might have. We have to consider whether or not we are like that crowd. To help us consider this, it would be nice for us to ask a few questions about ourselves.
Ask yourself these questions.
If Jesus is seeking the lost, am I? Most of us would quickly say yes, we are seeking the lost. But I wonder if when we really get down to looking at it, we only look for the lost people we want to be saved. Are we like that crowd who immediately dismissed Zacchaeus as a candidate for salvation? Are we seeking the lost but only the lost that we want to come to Christ? Or are we willing to let the Holy Spirit decide who comes to Jesus?
Am I willing to befriend people to share Christ with them? You might notice that in today’s text, Zacchaeus came to Christ because Christ first came to him as his friend. All Jesus said was for Zacchaeus to come down and that he would eat at his house that day. Jesus did not yell up that tree for Zacchaeus to repent for being a Sinner. Jesus did not recite the four spiritual laws to Zacchaeus. Jesus did not quote any Bible text to Zacchaeus. He invited Zacchaeus into his life. I wonder if we would have more people accept Christ through our witness if we first tried to befriend them. Most people I know do not want to talk theology to someone they don’t know. But they don’t mind talking theology with their friends. I imagine the same is true about going to church. They are likelier to attend church with a friend than to appear at a stranger’s invitation.
The essence of friendship evangelism is making friends to reach those friends for Christ. The advantage of friendship evangelism is that people do not want to lose their friends. They are more likely to respond favorably to an invitation from their friends than someone they don’t otherwise know.
Who do I consider unreachable? Probably everyone in the crowd that day thought that Zacchaeus was unreachable for Christ. None of them offered to put Zacchaeus on his shoulder so that he could see Jesus or to bring Zacchaeus to Jesus. He was a hated tax collector, a tool of the Roman oppressors. Most people did not even want to think about Zacchaeus, and they certainly didn’t think about him in the context of religion.
Friends, there are many people like that in today’s world. They are people we might know but not want to be around. They are undesirable. We tolerate them because we have to, but there are people we do not want to get closer to. They are like Zacchaeus. Guess what? These people need Jesus.
Someone told me a story recently about something that happened to them. They were on a road one day, and a long line of cars had pulled to the side of the road. Another car came by. A very popular and famous man drove a costly vehicle. He went by some of the cars, and they all waved at him. He waved back. He drove by more cars, and they all waved at him. He waved back. When it reached the end of the road, everyone heard a tremendous splash. He had driven his car into a large wave of water. He had to exit the vehicle and swim to safety. When he got to safety, he asked the people why they had not tried to stop him. But they all said they did try to stop him — that’s what they were waving for.
I thought about that story in conjunction with today’s text. I wonder if we are like that crowd. I wonder if many people go by us daily, and the signal they get from us is that everything is fine. When, in fact, we know everything is not fine with so many people’s lives. Lots of people need Jesus. They need someone to flag them down and keep them from going into a disaster. But mostly, they don’t hear that from us. It seems as if we are letting everyone drive by. The crowd in Jericho that day was content to allow Zacchaeus to be left behind. They did not consider him to be redeemable. But the message we get from today’s text is that Jesus loves people like Zacchaeus. He came to seek and save the lost; we should be about that business, too. We should make it our business to look for people like Zacchaeus who are up a tree. We need to look for signs that people are looking for salvation. We need to go out of our way to befriend those people. If we dare to do that, we will find that our evangelism will improve.
For further study:
Abbott, Lyman. The Gospel According to Luke. New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, 1878. pp. 118-120.
Adeney, Walter F. St. Luke: Introduction. New York: H. Frowde, 1906. pp. 332-334.
Allen, Ronald J. Preaching Luke-Acts. St. Louis, Mo: Chalice Press, 2000. p. 130.
Ardizzone, Edward, and J B. Phillips. St. Luke’s Life of Christ. London: Collins, 1956. pp. 80-81.
Balmforth, Henry. The Gospel According to Saint Luke: In the Revised Version, with Introduction and Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930. pp. 256-257.
Barclay, William. The Gospel of Luke. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew, 1997. pp. 276-279.
Barrell E. V and K. G Barrell. St. Luke’s Gospel: An Introductory Study. J. Murray 1982. pp. 137-138.
Baugher, H L. Annotations on the Gospel According to St. Luke. New York: Christian Literature Co, 1896. pp. 346-351.
Beck Brian E. Christian Character in the Gospel of Luke. Epworth Press 1989. p. 180.
Blaiklock, E M. Luke. London: Scripture Union, 1978. pp. 70-71.
jeffersonvann 