Lord that I might see

Luke 19:1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 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.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 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.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

In Luke Chapter18 Jesus has challenged a rich young ruler, healed a man lost in blindness and poverty (Lord that I might see), and now saves a man lost in wealth and corruption. He lifts the blind man up and tells Zacchaeus to come down - his final two encounters with people in need of healing and salvation before his final clash with the Jewish leaders, his arrest, his trial and crucifixion.

The name Zacchaeus means pure and innocent. This was not the man’s worldly identity but it was his eternal destiny from before the beginning of time (Ephesians 1:4). But he didn’t know who he really was, like the rest of us. This crowd of people was his obstacle to seeing Jesus because he was short of stature, but Zacchaeus was used to overcoming the obstacle of other people, finding ways to climb above them and leveraging himself into getting advantage. This time it was climbing a sycamore tree. He was a ‘chief’ tax collector, a top negotiator. He knew how to intimidate the poor into getting higher taxes from them and how to deceive the Roman authorities into giving lower payouts to them; he knew the art of the deal. He just didn’t know who he really was (and he wanted to see who Jesus was). He thought his destiny was tied up with money, and he was correct but he had things the wrong way round, because unlike the rich young ruler he discovered he was destined to be a giver not a taker.

He had to hear those words from Jesus to ‘come down’. So Jesus took the initiative, and told him to hurry and come down, as Jesus saw the urgency of the moment. But Jesus wasn’t in a hurry, because he knew he was going to stay overnight at the home of Zacchaeus, and he also knew that Zacchaeus had a decision to make and that this was his moment.

Zacchaeus was an outsider to the crowd and they complained about his getting attention and not being reprimanded. Jesus took a different approach and invited himself in to stay the night! We don’t know what Jesus talked to Zacchaeus about when he stayed overnight, but that doesn’t matter.

There would no doubt have been honest and transparent conversation and his joyful welcome to Jesus resulted in his transformation (Matt 10:12). Zacchaeus became a giver instead of a taker. He now ‘sees’ Jesus, and sees himself. This is different to the rich young ruler who unlike Zacchaeus asked Jesus about the kingdom but didn’t let go of his wealth – he didn’t really ‘see’ Jesus or his real self . Zacchaeus was not asked to give any money away. He was really being asked to give himself away, in return for finding his real identity. Zacchaeus finally found his pure and innocent destiny in helping the poor and in bringing justice to the people he had cheated. He fell in love with that crowd.

But the rich young ruler had found his identity in his wealth and wanted to keep it there. There is no barrier to the access of the Kingdom, other than our putting other things before the Kingdom. God creates our hearts in such a way that only God will do. So we need to seek first the Kingdom.

A life hemmed in by the closed horizon of ourselves and our problems is too dismal to give our lives real meaning. Once we welcome the present moment which contains a present Jesus and give him spacious hospitality we understand what reality is all about. Instead of talking to ourselves in our lostness, we talk to God in our foundness.

We can be lost in many things – our past history, our future apprehension, the future enjoyable and pleasurable expectations, our present worries and concerns – OR – found in the present reality of God with us. We can be blind to the one thing that God wants us to see, that he has come to stay at our house. When we stop and look and find the present moment with the present Jesus we can share in how he feels for humanity.

God says he remembers our sins no more. What matters is now. Are we no more than the ongoing momentum of what we used to be? Zacchaeus wasn’t – and what about Paul ‘By the grace of God I am who I used to be?’ We can now identify with how precious is each one in the sight of Jesus starting with ourselves. Jesus is always seeking and finding and restoring with deep compassion all that is lost and broken in our lives and in the lives of those around us. There are too many lost sheep. Invite Jesus into your house and have a chat to him about it all like Zacchaeus.