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Sermon for the week of Epiphany 2
Luke 19:1-10
What a beautiful little story we heard this evening, the story of Zaccheus, one that we don’t hear in our regular lectionary, so I’m glad we have the chance to ponder it tonight. We see here, really, the same thing we saw on Sunday in Jesus’ miracle of changing water into wine, that Jesus came, not to condemn sinners, but to bring joy to sinners. To bring salvation. To seek and to save that which was lost.
We’re introduced to this man named Zaccheus—the only time he shows up in the Bible. We learn that he’s not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector. He has likely participated in and overseen more theft and fraud in one year than most people could commit in a lifetime. Imagine how many lives of his fellow Israelites he has damaged and maybe even ruined! But now, at the end of Jesus’ ministry, as He’s approaching Jerusalem for Palm Sunday and Holy Week, Zaccheus finally has a chance to get a look at Jesus. But he has to climb up a sycamore tree in order to see Him, because Zaccheus is a short man, and the crowds are blocking his view.
The fact that Zaccheus is so keen to see Jesus tells us something important. Clearly it isn’t just raw curiosity. It’s hope! Because Zaccheus has heard, over the past three years, that this Jesus doesn’t just write off tax collectors and sinners, like so many in Israel. He has time for them. He’s been giving them hope that, on the other side of repentance, there is a gracious God who will gladly have them back in His good graces, who will forgive them all their many trespasses and welcome them back as His children. And so Zaccheus, spurred on by hope, climbs that tree to get a look at this Man whom many are calling the Christ who has come from God.
And he is not disappointed.
Not only does Zaccheus catch a glimpse of Jesus, but Jesus looks straight at him, and knows him—knows his name, knows his profession, knows his sins. But He also knows that Zaccheus is not up there in that tree because he wants to throw apples at Jesus, or because he intends to go on living in his sins. He’s up there in that tree hoping for redemption. And that’s just what he finds. Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today!
Stay at the house of a tax collector, of a man who is despised by everyone who knows him in Israel? That’s what grace looks like, Jesus reaching out to a sinner, eager to spend time with him, unashamed to be associated with him. And so Zaccheus hurried and came down and received him joyfully.
And you and I rejoice together with that sinful man, because we know that it’s the same grace and forgiveness that we have received from Jesus, the same acceptance of us, not as we stubbornly remained in our sins, but as we sought a way out of our sins, as we sought in Him redemption.
But the crowds did not rejoice. They all grumbled and said, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” Oh, what a tragedy! These people still didn’t know Jesus, didn’t know the grace of God, and they certainly didn’t know themselves, because if they had, they would have rejoiced instead of grumbling. You only grumble at Jesus’ kindness when you think you deserve it, while other people don’t. But that’s never the case. There isn’t a soul on earth who deserves Jesus’ kindness or God’s acceptance. All have sinned and earned for themselves the wages of sin, which is not kindness or acceptance, but eternal death.
How to silence the grumbling of the crowds? How to prove to them that this man has been changed and is no longer the greedy, thieving sinner he was before? 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 will restore it fourfold.”
Look at the power of the Gospel—the promise of free acceptance through Christ! Look at the New Man step forth, revealing the faith that lies beneath! Does Zaccheus sound reluctant to give up his former sins? Does he sound like he’s being forced to make restitution to those from whom he stole? Hardly! Zaccheus is simply doing spontaneously what John the Baptist told the crowds to do: Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. He shows the truth of what Jesus would soon say to His disciples in the upper room on Maundy Thursday: If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. A person who comes to Jesus unwilling to mend his evil ways is not coming in faith but still in unbelief. A person who is truly converted does what Zaccheus does here—seeks to mend his ways and make up for the things he’s done wrong, not before God, but before men. Before God, the blood of Jesus is the only thing that can make atonement for evil deeds. But before men, if it’s in a Christian’s power to make atonement, to make restitution, to give back what was stolen or to mend what was broken, he will do it, gladly, as Zaccheus did, out of thankfulness to God for His free acceptance in Christ.
Having shown his faith through the good works that flowed from it, Zaccheus heard an even sweeter sentence from Jesus. Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. Now, genetically speaking, there was never any doubt that Zaccheus was a son of Abraham. He was a Jew by birth, like everyone else in Israel. But once again Jesus reveals that to be a true “son of Abraham” is not a matter of genetics, but a matter of faith. Those who share the faith of Abraham in the God of Israel, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, are sons of Abraham and will inherit the heavenly Promised Land.
That title, “son of Abraham,” given to Zaccheus by Jesus, is also a reminder to the rest of those who call themselves “sons of Abraham” that Zaccheus is their full-fledged brother, and they ought to receive him as such and treat him as such, no longer “a man who is a sinner,” but “a man who has been forgiven through faith in Christ, just like the rest of us sons of Abraham.”
The same lesson applies to us Christians. If a person shows himself to be a believer in Christ, then social status and past sins no longer define that person. Christ now defines that person, who has become our brother in the family of Abraham.
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. And there’s the beautiful truth. Jesus, the Son of Man, didn’t come to praise those who are doing well on their own, nor did He come to tell the lost that they’re doing fine in their lostness. He came to go looking for those who are lost, like Zaccheus had been for much of his life, and to save, to rescue those who are lost from the guilt of their sins, and from living as slaves to their sins, and from the eternal death they (we!) have deserved because of our sins.
And so, in this beautiful little story of Zaccheus in the sycamore tree, we see again the truth so clearly expressed in John chapter 3, God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Take comfort in this epiphany of Christ’s saving purpose, and rejoice in His eagerness to come searching for you. Amen.
