Risk

Luke 19:1-10

¹Jesus 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.”

One of the songs that have endured from my childhood in Sunday School is the song about Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus was a wee little man

A wee little man was he

He climbed up on a sycamore tree

For the Lord he wanted to see . . .

One may not be able to teach that song to children today as it may be seen as derogatory toward little people. I don’t know. Anyway, whenever I hear the name Zacchaeus, that little ditty runs through my mind. But this event in the ministry of Jesus was anything but little. It serves as one of the culminating events during His journey into Jerusalem.

“To the deliverance there [in Jericho] of a man lost in blindness and poverty corresponds now the deliverance of a man lost in wealth and corruption.

J. Nolland, Luke 18:35–24:53, 907.

In the story of Zacchaeus we find the path to salvation for a life of great wealth that lacked everything important. To truly grasp this man’s journey we need to understand what it meant to be a tax collector in ancient Judea. A few days ago, we discussed this occupation as we studied the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. If you will recall, tax collectors actually paid the tax for a region to Roman ahead of when it was due then went about the task of collecting the owed monies from the population. They would collect more than was owed and pocket the overage. Apparently Zacchaeus had this down to a science for he had garnered great wealth for himself. It would also appear that there was a hierarchy to the tax collector system and he was at the top of the pyramid. There were lesser ranked tax collectors working for him, perhaps such as the man mentioned in the parable just a few verses previous.

We are not told what motivated Zacchaeus to want to see Jesus so desperately that he would humiliate himself by running or by climbing a tree. These two activities would have been antithetical to a man of such position or power. But be it mere curiosity or the seeds of faith, run and climb he did. More important than Zacchaeus’ actions are those of Jesus. While Zacchaeus was hanging out in that tree Jesus was looking for him! We cannot escape or ignore the fact that Jesus was seeking the sinner. That is still what He does. Jesus doesn’t only look for Zacchaeus; He engages Zacchaeus in conversation and invites Himself into Zacchaeus’ home. The crowd was appalled and we are alerted to that fact by the information that they “grumbled” about it. By eating in his home, Jesus would have become the equivalent of Zacchaeus—a sinner and an outcast. But again Jesus proves that He has not come to pat the “righteous” on the back. He has come to save those who acknowledge that they are sinners.

What it means to be lost can be learned from the way Luke develops the concept in the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin and fleshes it out in the portraits of the Prodigal Son and the Tax Collector of 18:9–14. The lost is anyone separated from that which gives identity, meaning and value to one’s life. The lost is personified in the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus. He has sold his identity as a son of Abraham to the foreign oppressor and he has battened on his own people, literally robbing them to fill his own coffers. He has gone into his own far country. But the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. In place of his riches, Zacchaeus has received the ultimate wealth, salvation, forgiveness of his sins (Jesus eats with sinners while they are still sinners but this fellowship brings about repentance) and that is “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” (see Luke 6:38).

Cf. J. O’Hanlon, The Story of Zacchaeus and the Lukan Ethic. 21

When Zacchaeus declares that he will pay back that which he openly acknowledges he has stolen, he is acting in accordance with the Old Testament protocols that had been established generations earlier.

Exodus 22:1

“If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.

[Here is King David’s response to the parable that Nathan tells him in order to alert David to the fact that the Lord knows of his adultery and murder and the time for repentance is at hand. Note that David’s response is also in accordance with what Exodus sets up.]

2 Samuel 12:5–6

⁵ Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, ⁶ and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

Jesus doesn’t really affirm Zacchaeus’ commitment to repay what he has stolen. Instead He sees it as the confession of sin that it is. And in that confession Zacchaeus is also recognizing his need for a Savior and seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of his need. Honestly, I don’t think that Jesus is looking for reparation. He is looking for confession and repentance. If reparation is a part of that repentance, so be it. But it is the broken heart that Jesus forgives. There are circumstances in all of our lives where reparation is not possible. But repentance and forgiveness is always possible because Jesus has paid the price and we are free.