Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.’”
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
Wee Lil Man
There’s a story about a local fitness center which was offering $1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate that they were stronger than the owner of the place. Here’s how it worked. This muscle man would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and then hand the lemon to the next challenger. Anyone who could squeeze just one more drop of juice out would win the money.
Many people tried over time ¬ other weightlifters, construction workers, even professional wrestlers, but nobody could do it.
One day a short and skinny guy came in and signed up for the contest. After the laughter died down, the owner grabbed a lemon and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains to the little man.
The crowd’s laughter turned to silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass. As the crowd cheered, the manager paid out the winning prize and asked the short guy what he did for a living. “Are you a lumberjack, a weightlifter, or what?”
The man replied, “I work for the IRS.”
The good old IRS… notorious for being able to squeeze water out of rocks and getting blood from turnips. Keeping to that stereotype… we find a tax man in our scripture text this morning who was great at squeezing every last penny out of your wallet… and keeping a good chunk of it for himself.
In the game of life… Zacchaeus was a BIG man. In verse two, we learn that Zacchaeus is a chief tax collector… a position of great prominence, authority, and power.
As we discussed last week… tax collectors make their living by taxing the people of their region… and skimming from off the top for themselves. Now… if you were a chief tax collector… it meant that you were in charge of all the tax collectors underneath of you as well… and guess what… you got to skim off the top of their take as well.
Now… the shadier you were… the more money you made. And our friend Zacky boy here… was very very rich… so guess what that meant. Zacchaeus was absolutely no saint. Well… with all of his scrupulous living… Zacchaeus had risen to a position of great wealth and power… he as a very… BIG… man.
Now… it is quite ironic… seeing what a BIG man Zacchaeus was… that verse three describes Zacchaeus as a small man. The Greek literally calls Zacchaeus a man of small stature - creating a play on words… you see Zacchaeus was indeed a short man… but he was also a man of little substance. Despite his power… despite his wealth… Zacchaeus didn’t measure up to be much of a man at all.
Now, our verse today begins with the declaration that a REAL big man was coming to town that day. Jesus was not a man of great wealth or great position… but everyone in town was talking about him. I imagine that Zacchaeus was awfully curious about Jesus. I mean… he had spent his entire life reaching for power and clamoring for wealth… yet… he was empty. Now Jesus was a man who lived his life in a completely different way with completely different standards… and Zacchaeus really needed to see what he was all about.
Unfortunately, when Jesus got to town… crowds had gathered and Zacchaeus couldn’t see because he was a very short man. Now, Zacchaeus may have been short… but what he lacked in height he more than made up for in resourcefulness. Little man Zacchaeus, climbed up a tree to get a first hand look at the Lord.
Now at this point of the scriptures, there is a major shift. Zacchaeus had been the one seeking up to this point, but all of a sudden in verse five… Jesus becomes the one who is seeking. Now there is a very important point that needs to be lifted up here… Jesus’ mission is stated quite clearly at the very end of the text… that “he came to seek and to save the lost.” And it is lived out in perfect clarity in this scripture text… right at this moment where the scripture shifts so abruptly.
You see, Zacchaeus had taken just one small step forward… and Jesus went the rest of the way. Despite the fact that Jesus had a busy schedule… despite the fact that he had a mission to attend to… despite the fact that he was in the middle of a journey… Jesus stops… and takes the time to reach out to one of the lost. That’s how it works. The Holy Spirit stirs us to reach out… to take that one small step forward… and Jesus takes all the rest of the steps to bridge that gap that exists between us.
Zacchaeus took that one small step forward… and Jesus did the rest. “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” Jesus called to Zacchaeus and the scripture text stops just short of telling us that he fell out of the tree he jumped so fast. And Jesus goes even further… he went into his house.
This was a huge honor paid to someone who did not deserve it. Zacchaeus was a sinner… and as the Pharisees and the crowd pointed out in verse seven… Jesus was breaking a huge protocol by associating with someone as despicable as Zacchaeus. But they didn’t know what Jesus was all about. It all hinges on that final verse… verse 10… the whole entire point of Jesus’ ministry was to come… seek and save the lost.
And because of what Jesus did… something amazing happened. The very tiny man… the man of small stature… the man who was big in the town of Jericho but small in the eyes of God… that man was transformed.
Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
A man who made his living by extorting people was now going to be one of the greatest welfare programs Jericho had ever seen. A man who prided himself in wealth and power was now going to pride himself in service and in following his new found Lord. A man who was of a very small stature… became a giant… through the power of Christ in his life.
SO WHAT?
Jesus continues to seek and to save the lost. And if we are to learn anything from Zacchaeus… we can take example of the things he did. First… Are you willing to take that one step towards him? If the Holy Spirit is so moving you today… take that one step forward… that one step towards him… and Jesus will walk the other 900 steps towards you.
Second, after taking that first step, or if you’ve already taken that step… Are you willing to invite him into your house? Are you willing to make him the Lord of your everyday life, allow him to be present with you in your personal life… in everything you do? And there is a similar follow up question… Are you willing to invite him into your heart… really inviting Jesus into your heart will make tremendous changes in every single thing you do. It is a transforming event that will change the way you act, change the way you think, change your very heart. Zacchaeus welcomed Jesus into his home and into his heart and did a complete 180.
Finally… Are you willing to become the giant that God wants you to be. When Zacchaeus finally turned his home and heart over to God… the wee lil man became a Giant for the Lord. Likewise… if we really allow the Lord to work in our lives he will use us to do some pretty amazing things… things even we didn’t think we were capable of.
Now, all of these lessons apply to us both personally and as a church whole. My encouragement for all of us, is to examine our lives… to examine where we are in our walk with the Lord, and work towards the goal of becoming giants in the eyes of God.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit… Amen.
