Luke 19:1-10 • Chuck Askew

Good morning. My name is Chuck Askew, and I'm a campus minister for a group called RUF at NC State University in Meredith College. I've been a part of this church the entire time that I've been in Raleigh, and it's a blessing to have been encouraged by this church to labor alongside this church and see college students come to know Jesus, but also to have the opportunity to encourage you with God's word.

Today, we're going to be looking at Luke chapter 19 verses one through 10. And as is the custom of this church, I invite you to read the text out loud with me.

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 grumbled. 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. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our Lord stands forever. — Luke 19:1-10

I'm going to pray that God would help us to understand his word, and I invite you to pray along with me in your hearts. Heavenly Father, as we come to you today, as we are gathered in your presence around your word, we pray that you would use it to change us, to strengthen us, to heal us, but most of all, to see Jesus. We pray this for his sake. Amen.

This Is Not a Cute Story

This is not a cute story. I know you may think it is a cute story because if you grew up in the church, perhaps you are familiar with the song "Zacchaeus was a wee little man." And you know the cute story of a man climbing up a tree to see Jesus, but this is not a cute story. This passage, according to some scholars, is the climax of the Gospel of Luke because this is a historical event that Luke recounts for us so that we can see the real Jesus as he really was. This is not a story of a cute little man. This is the story of a desperate man who longed to be healed and restored and saved. And it's the story of the hero who came to save him.

This is not a cute story. And when we think of it as a cute story, we miss the desperation, the longing, the hurts of Zacchaeus that would lead him to go up in that tree. And in a similar way in this time of Advent, in this season of Christmas, we often think of it as a cute story. And so we miss the real heart of Advent, the real heart of Christmas—that we are people of desperation longing to see Jesus. We can treat Zacchaeus with sentimentality just as we can treat Christmas and Advent with sentimentality, but in both those ways, we miss what we need to see: the desperation that leads us to look for Jesus to come into our life.

And that is what I think Luke shows us today—not a cute little story about a wee little man up a tree, but the story of a desperate man who is rescued. And today, as we look at this passage, the outline for today is this: desperate people look for Jesus.

Desperate People Look for Jesus

First, this is a story of desperate people—in particular, of a desperate man—and we see this in the way that Luke describes for us Zacchaeus. Yes, it's easy to remember that he was this wee little man that went up a tree, but what drove him up that tree? Because when you first hear about Zacchaeus, you wouldn't understand that he would be a man of desperation. Luke tells us in this passage that Zacchaeus was rich. He highlights for us that Zacchaeus was wealthy because as a chief tax collector in Israel, he would not only profit from the taxes of the people but he would profit off of the other tax collectors' profits from the people. He was at the top of the food chain of tax collectors, and so he would be very rich, fabulously wealthy.

But he wasn't just wealthy; he would be powerful. As a chief tax collector, he had power over the other tax collectors, power over the people in Jericho, power over the other people in the surrounding areas. He would have power even over the Roman army, whom he could use to make sure that the tax collections happen and to bring consequences for those who didn't pay their taxes. He had wealth. He had power. He also lived in Jericho, and Jericho was the place to live. This was literally Palm Springs.

The Bible speaks about Jericho as the city of palms, and it was desired as a place to live in this arid culture because of the springs that were there—fresh and refreshing. We see even Herod the Great having built his winter palace in Jericho. It was the place that people longed to go. It's where the rich, the powerful, the beautiful went to live. And Zacchaeus was there.

He had wealth. He had power. He had pleasure. He had everything that you aspire to be, but he was still a desperate man. We see this because he climbs that tree, which tells us that all the wealth, all the power, all the pleasure did not satisfy him. He had to do something. It drove him to do something that would be out of character for him in that day and age, out of character for anybody really. When was the last time that you climbed a tree? Some of the children here are like, "Well, this morning." But the last time I climbed a tree was when I was putting up Christmas lights for this Christmas season, and when I was up in that tree putting Christmas lights, every time a neighbor would walk by or drive by, I'd kind of duck into the tree because I felt awkward up there. I was wondering what they would think of me—why an adult would be up in a tree.

And Zacchaeus climbed this tree in a way that would be humiliating to himself, but not just because he's doing a childish thing like climbing a tree. This is a shame and honor culture where the way that you lived out your life would reflect on your dignity. It was the primary cultural currency to have a sense of honor, and to do something like this would be a way that he was bringing humiliation onto himself. It would be in a sense like Bill Gates showing up in the middle of Downtown New York, taking off his clothes, and jumping into a fountain. It was that egregious. He was taking onto himself a sense of humiliation because of his desperation.

But why would this person who had money, who had power, who had pleasure, be so desperate? It's probably because he did not have honor. In this time, the tax collectors were not like IRS agents. They were not just people that helped the government. They were considered extortioners for the enemy. Imagine if we're invaded by North Korea, and after they invaded us, your neighbor started coming by your house and demanding that you give your money to help North Korea. But not only that, you knew that they were taking an additional amount of money than what North Korea demanded and using it for themselves. How would you feel towards that neighbor? That's the way that the people of Israel would view the tax collectors. They would view them as a betrayer to their neighbors—someone that was profiting off of the hurt and pains of the people that were in their country.

That's why when people see Jesus pick Zacchaeus in the story, they grumble, they complain, because he was a pariah in the culture. He was a sinner who was supposed to be shunned, not given honor. Zacchaeus was to the people around him like Kevin Spacey or Matt Lauer or Louis C.K.—people that are shunned into the darkness of our polite society because of their actions. And think what that must be like for Zacchaeus. I don't know if you've ever experienced that kind of coldness and how isolating it can feel when someone won't even look at you, when they turn their gaze away from you, and how that can seep into your heart like a poison to feel ignored, unwanted, unseen. I imagine that is how Zacchaeus would have felt in this time as the chief tax collector.

But Zacchaeus' desperation may not have just been because people didn't like him. Luke gives us a key detail about Zacchaeus that helps us perhaps understand his desperation. That comes with his name. The name Zacchaeus means clean, pure, just. His parents gave this name to him perhaps with the hope that this child of Abraham would grow up to reflect the character of God into this world, to be a blessing to this world. But here, this child of Abraham was not living out a life that was just; he was using his power to extort money on his behalf. He grew up knowing the law of God, knowing what would be required of a child of Abraham, but he wasn't living that out. And perhaps every time someone said his name, it was like a little dagger to his heart, reminding him that he was not who he was supposed to be—that he was not someone who was just, someone who is pure, someone who is clean, that he was a sinner.

And we know that Zacchaeus had to climb this tree because he was small of stature. We don't know exactly what his height was, but we know it was at least a level of disability. In this culture, when people would see something that was a disability, they would often think that it was a curse on you from God. And perhaps even that height would be a reminder to him that God didn't like him. I don't want to over-psychologize the text.

We don't know exactly what was going on in the mind and heart of Zacchaeus but Luke wants us to see the details so that we'll consider what life might have been like for Zacchaeus. He wants us to see this man who is rich and powerful and wealthy but desperate. He wants us to see this man who was supposed to be clean and pure and just, who is evil so that we then understand why he would climb that tree. Because he felt that gap that exists in all of our lives. That gap between what we were named to be, what we were made to be, what we feel we ought to be, and what we actually are.

Luke would know the irony that people would see that the chief tax collector would be called just. But we know that irony in our own life. That irony that we see in our own life between what we proclaim to be and what we actually are. As we send out Christmas cards of the smiling family but yet we look and we see the anger that's in our hearts when our children misbehave. As we hear ourself being called a Christian but when we see our friend and remember that we didn't pray for them when we asked, when they asked us to, how we feel like we don't live up to that name. When we remember back to the sin that seems to be an indelible stain on our life and we wonder, why in the world would grace be real for someone like me? When we hear ourselves singing songs of worship in church on Sunday, but all we feel inside is coldness and emptiness and wonder if any of it is real. And we wonder if anything can change it.

Maybe you feel that irony in your life, that tension, that gap that exists, I think, in all of us. Maybe you see it in the world around you. Maybe you see the climbing death toll of COVID-19 and how weak we are even in this supposedly advanced culture to stop the pandemic. Where you see the lingering and persistence, presence of racism in the life and the hearts of the people in our country in a firm resistance to addressing it. Maybe you see it in the acceptance of sexual immorality in our culture and you fear the coming generation is just going to accept it as right and you look at all these things that you may say are wrong and not what they ought to be. You begin to feel cynical about things getting better because you're desperate for change, but you don't know if it's gonna come. Do you feel that gap that is between what is supposed to be and what is?

That's the gap that Zacchaeus felt every day. The man who is called just but was unjust in his life and that is what drove him up to the tree because he tried money, he tried power, he tried pleasure, and he found that they were empty. There was only one thing that he thought might help and so Luke tells us in verse three, he was seeking to see Jesus.

You see, it's only when we are desperate that we're going to stop trying to save ourself. It's only when we are desperate that we're going to stop thinking that we can fix the things in our life with our efforts or with the things of this world. It's only when we are desperate that we begin to look for Jesus. And this is what Luke wants for us too. He wants us to long for Jesus to show up in our life.

Jesus Is the Hero of the Story

Because the main character, the story is not Zacchaeus, the main character is Jesus. The climax of Luke's gospel is not Zacchaeus's boldness, his faith, his repentance. The climax of the story is the Jesus that shows up to rescue him, to redeem him. And the same is true for us. The hero of your story is not you. The hero of your story is Jesus.

Jesus is Dumbledore arriving in the ministry of magic just in time to rescue Harry from Voldemort's killing curse. He's Gandalf the white riding into Helm's Deep just as the evil orcs are about to overwhelm the Hornburg. He is Anna leaping in the path of Hans as he tries to kill Elsa with his sword. He is the hero of heroes. The one who rescues the desperate by his coming in our most urgent time of need.

But we can only see Jesus as the hero of the story if we keep in mind the desperation of Zacchaeus. It's only when Zacchaeus stopped looking to himself and started looking for Jesus that he was rescued and this is what we are called to do in this season of Advent. This is what we're called to do as the church. Is to stop looking to our self for rescue and look for Jesus in our desperation. Zacchaeus and you and me have to stop looking inward and start looking outward.

And the beauty of this story is that when Zacchaeus stopped looking at himself, Jesus shows up. This text drives this point home. In verse one, it says,

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. — Luke 19:1

With that word behold, Luke is trying to elevate the drama so that you would see here's this desperate man in needing of saving but here is the hero coming in. Behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus but behold, there is a man named Jesus who happened to be passing through but it wasn't just that he happened to be passing through.

Luke writes the story as a rescue mission. He writes it in a way to point to a Jesus that is not elusive but intentional, who is not avoiding Zacchaeus but is intent on finding Zacchaeus. It's not that Zacchaeus found Jesus by getting into the tree. No, Jesus finds Zacchaeus and calls him down from that tree. He was pursuing him and isn't it interesting that Jesus when he sees Zacchaeus, he calls him by his name. How would he know his name? Was it that Zacchaeus was that well known as a sinner or was it that Jesus was sent there by the spirit to rescue him? But Jesus knew him. He called him by name. He didn't just catch his eye but Jesus looked for him. He looked at him and think of the power of this for a man who had been shunned, who had been rejected, who had people when they saw him, who would turn away in rejection to see the savior come looking for him, putting his eyes on him, and calling him down to himself.

And he calls out to him and says, Zacchaeus, I must come to your house today. I must come. I choose you. He singles him out among all the beautiful, all the powerful, all the elite to say, I am going to have my honor given to you. This well known teacher, this rabbi, this healer, this man of God is going to go and dine with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, I must come to your house. To one who is shunned, who is marginalized, who is rejected. Jesus says, I love you. I choose you. I give you my honor. What Zacchaeus longed for, Jesus provides. The one who is glorious as he enters Jericho. This was right before the triumphal entry. Gives his glory to the one who is despised. This is the real Jesus. This is the Jesus that Luke wants us to see. Luke wants us to know. Luke wants us to worship.

But we can only see him clearly because of the desperation of Zacchaeus. We can only see Jesus's glory when we see our own shame. But that is why Luke ends the story in the way he does in verse 10 when he says:

For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. — Luke 19:10

There he encapsulates for us the heart of Jesus. He shows us the heart of Jesus that he is the one who comes to seek and save the lost and Zacchaeus is the perfect representation of it. Not just a tax collector but the chief tax collector, the chief sinner, the chief betrayer, and yet Jesus pursues him. Jesus loved tax collectors. And if you go and look at the gospel of Luke, Luke highlights that fact because every time you see tax collectors mentioned, it's in a favorable way. Why? Because Jesus was not rejecting them but he was seeking them and do you know that that had to have impact on Zacchaeus why he might be up in that tree hoping to see Jesus, hoping to see one who instead of turning his gaze away from Zacchaeus might just look at him. He had to have wondered, would this compassionate teacher be compassionate towards me? But Zacchaeus did not need to get Jesus's attention because Jesus was going to get his.

He comes to Zacchaeus and says, hurry and come down for I must stay at your house today. Hurry. He doesn't want to leave Zacchaeus in his desperation. He doesn't want to leave Zacchaeus up in that tree. He knows that there's only one thing that will bring him healing and it's Jesus and he wants Zacchaeus to know it right then, right there. Hurry, Zacchaeus. I must come to your house today. You know, Zacchaeus did not live up to his name but Jesus would make his name true. Zacchaeus could not make himself just but Jesus could. And that's because Jesus is the only one that lived up to his name. What is the name Jesus mean? He saves. Jesus saves. Do you think Zacchaeus wondered out of a sense of cynicism? Will Jesus live up to his name? I know I don't. Will he live up to his name? Will he save me? But what does Jesus do? He sees him and he says, hurry. I must come to your house today.

Why did he want to come to his house? Because as he says later, salvation has come to the house of this child of Abraham. Jesus came to save Zacchaeus and wanted to hurry to get that salvation into his life. But Zacchaeus had to come down from that tree to be saved by Jesus. We cannot stay in our desperation. He had to hurry down so that he would come to Jesus. It's only when we leave our desperation to get to Jesus that he saves us. Zacchaeus had to leave his effort even to get Jesus to see him by being up in that tree so that Jesus could dwell with him. This is the only way for Zacchaeus to be saved, to get out of his desperation, and get out of that tree. Why? So that Jesus could climb a tree for him.

Luke places the story right before the passion week, right before Jesus goes to Jerusalem because it's there that Jesus does climb that tree. He goes up the hill to the cross and climbs a tree that brings on to himself shame and humiliation. A tree that Paul tells us in Galatians 3, we all deserve for Paul says:

Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. — Galatians 3

We are all like Zacchaeus.

We are all failing to be just, pure, clean. We all deserve the curse of those that cannot abide by all that God made us to do and be. And we live in that gap between what we are made to do and what we are. But Jesus climbs that tree of the cross to take onto himself the curse due us for our failure.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. — Galatians 3:13

Jesus took on to himself all the unjust actions of Zacchaeus, all of his extortion, all of his sin, his selfishness, all of his greed, all of his impurity, all of his uncleanliness, and the curse that such a life deserves. So that Zacchaeus could become truly Zacchaeus, truly clean, truly pure, truly just, truly blessed through the work of Jesus. Jesus made him to be the true son of Abraham that he longed to be by being the son of Abraham that was sacrificed by the father. And through that to be the true offspring of Abraham who makes the blessings go as far as the curse is found.

Jesus did it because he was desperate. Desperation drove Zacchaeus up to the tree and desperation drives Jesus up his tree. He was desperate to be with Zacchaeus because he loved him. "Hurry," he says. "I don't want you to hold back because of your shame or your pride or your fear. I want you to come to me in your desperation, in your shame." But don't you know he was desperate to get up that tree not just for Zacchaeus but for you too? He was desperate because of his love for sinners, because he came to seek and to save the lost like me and like you. And he didn't go up that tree unwillingly, forced up there as though it was some sort of cosmic child abuse, but he climbed up that tree willingly and lovingly and desperately to save us.

Do you know that? Do you feel that? It's vital for you to know that and to feel that because that's the only way that you can stop feeling desperate inside. The more that you see your sin, the more you see the brokenness of the world around us, the more you can lose hope. When all you see is yourself to deal with the gap between what is and what ought to be. And when you are all you have to hope in, if you're like me, you slip into despair, despondency, and despising yourself, despising others. But you do not know joy.

But when you stop looking at yourself and start looking to Jesus, things change. How does Zacchaeus respond when he saw Jesus come into his life? The text says, he received him joyfully. He's not despairing anymore. He's not desperate anymore. He's filled with joy. Why? Because Jesus is with him. Jesus is caring for him. Jesus wants to be with him. Jesus is saving him. The glorious one thinks he's worthy of his presence and wants to be in his house with him.

Do you see that? Do you feel that? Do you know that for yourself that the glorious one thinks that you are worthy and wants to be with you?

Jesus didn't come and preach at Zacchaeus and say, "Zacchaeus, alright, before I come in, we gotta talk about this money thing. There's some things you gotta do to make it okay." He doesn't talk about money at all in this passage. But who talks about money? Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus changes. Not because Jesus says, "If you change, I'll love you." Not out of desperation, out of shame, out of guilt, as a way to still get Jesus to see him. No, he changes. Why? Because Jesus walked into his life. Jesus came into his house. Jesus walked in.

Salvation is not an act we do. It's not a moment in our life. We are not saved by justification. We are saved by the justifier. We are saved by Jesus. Salvation is a person, a hero, Jesus. He saves. And when that salvation comes into our life, things change.

As one commentator says, grace walked in Zacchaeus' front door and selfishness scampered out the back. When the joy of Jesus being with you fills your heart, so many things that you've grasped onto as a path of joy or salvation fall right out of your hands. Because the savior is with you. Salvation has come in Jesus.

Looking Forward to Jesus's Return

And so we are called to be people that look to Jesus in our desperation. And how does the Bible end? Spoil alert. Here's how it ends. Before the last benediction, we hear the cry, "Come, Lord Jesus."

And why is that the end of the Bible? Because that is the cliffhanger that we are all in. We are all in a world waiting for Jesus to come.

Even now the creation groans longing for the redemption that is to come. — Romans 8:22

And we must be people who groan too, waiting for Jesus to be fully with us. We see the growing numbers of the pandemic and we should cry, "Come, Lord Jesus." We see the destruction in our communities from racism and we cry, "Come, Lord Jesus." We see the moral values of our community shifting away from the values of God and we cry, "Come, Lord Jesus." We see our broken marriages, our broken parenting, our broken lives, and we cry, "Come, Lord Jesus."

We see our sins linger and we cry, "Come, Lord Jesus"—but we do not cry wondering if he will come. We cry wondering when he will come. We don't cry wondering if he sees us. We cry knowing that he sees us, because he is the one who saves. He is the one who comes to seek and to save the lost.

And so we labor in the gaps that exist between what ought to be and what is. Not out of desperation, but out of joy—because salvation will come, because Jesus will come and make his blessing to flow as far as the curse is found. And so we have joy because we look to Jesus, and not to ourself, as salvation for this world. And that is what we want.

We know we cannot undo the curse, but we know Jesus did and will and is now. And so we long in our desperation. We wait and we rejoice, because we know that Jesus saves. He comes, seeks, and he saves the lost, and he testifies to us:

"Surely, I am coming soon."

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.