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Summary:

Luke 19:1-10 tells us about the interaction between Zacchaeus and Jesus. The story is a well know Sunday School story. Zacchaeus was short, not only of stature, but he was short of honesty, compassion and even societal acceptance. He just didn’t measure up. Yet, Jesus pursued him. Zacchaeus didn’t know it when he climbed the tree but he had an appointment with Jesus.

Excerpt:

It's easy to associate with Zacchaeus this wee little man who has to climb into sycamore tree. But of course also adults can identify with Zacchaeus pretty easily to actually we might want to get closer to Jesus but we think we might find it rather embarrassing to do so or, you know, we wonder what's it going to cost if we actually give our lives to Jesus. And that's sort of, you know, adult kind of questions and thoughts. So this story grabs onto us. And I kind of want to look at Zacchaeus in these two kinds of different ways. What's his status? What's his sort of place? And then what does it cost him to follow? Jesus? What's his stature? What's his status? Now, of course, of course, when we think about his status, or his stature, the first thing that we all think about is his height, right? That's the first thing we all think about. But his physical stature, his physical status, is only one part of the story. And it's not even the part that the passage begins with. You know, he's short. So he climbs up into the sycamore tree to see what he could see. But what we all know, almost automatically is he does this because he doesn't want to have to deal with the crowd, right? Because I mean, we can think about this, he could have actually asked, "Hey, can I kind of squeeze in here? Can I kind of come closer to Jesus?" Maybe think about being at a concert and your wife is, you know, near the near the stage, and you went to go get a drink or some food and you're kind of like, "hey, my wife's up there. Can I kind of get by?" and you're asking politely to kind of squeezed between people. Zacchaeus maybe could have done that he could have had that approach. But we kind of get this idea almost right or right away that there's sort of a stature that he has within the community that the community would have let him do that. He's got to be distant. He's got to be up in the tree away from other people.

Now, what we learned, actually, right away before we learned that he was short, is that we learned that he lives in Jericho, and that he's not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector. And he's really rich. I mean, if he repented, and he sought reparations like he does so clearly in this passage, if he gave to the poor, and then he paid back beyond what the law required fourfold from whatever he took unjustly from someone. Don't you think that would have actually left him in a completely different state in his life? I mean, paying back fourfold what he took unjustly, his whole financial status, his whole place in life had to do with what he took unjustly from others, he's gonna pay back fourfold what he took, of course, it reduced his circumstances. Repentance in the Bible is never just a thing of the heart. It changes our lives. And it always costs us our lives. But unlike the rich young ruler that we just saw a couple of weeks back, who said "I can't do that, that's asking too much." Zacchaeus says it's totally worth it to give up everything to follow Jesus. Zacchaeus has found something better than the riches of this world. And here's the thing, we can't take this text right here out of its context out of its bigger situation in the Gospel of Luke. You have to know that this is the passage, this is the last personal interaction before Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem. He's just said to his disciples, just at the end of chapter 18, that he's making his way to the cross. Jesus making his way into Jerusalem to die to give up his life. Jesus is the King of heaven and earth, the one who spoke and the stars hung in their places. The crowd has grown going along with him and think about this, they're actually going along with him, right? Right about to enter into the Gates of Jerusalem where they're going to throw down their cloaks and their palms. And they're probably actually making their way through this city of palms, grabbing the very palm branches that they're about to throw down. And when they throw those palm branches down, what they're going to say is this: "hosanna, hosanna. Save us. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Only to shout the very same week. What? "Crucify him, crucify him, kill him." And what Jesus does is he willingly and he gladly gives up gives up his life for those people.

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