Luke 19:5 Jesus…said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
Sunday School songs about the wee little man who climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus don’t do Zacchaeus justice. Luke 19 presents a less sanitized version than the melody crooned by preschoolers. Zacchaeus checked in about a step above lepers in the ranks of Jewish society.
Not only was Zacchaeus a tax collector, but a chief tax collector—a chief tax collector who had grown wealthy on the backs of his people. His profession of collecting taxes from the Jews and depositing them in the coffers of the despised Romans designated him as a trade coat and cheat. Scripture describes his height as short; in the eyes of his kinsmen he stood as a pigmy in moral stature. Although Zacchaeus’ money offered him all the benefits of the “good life,” he lived in lonely isolation. The smirks and sneers of his neighbors followed him home after a long hard day of embezzlement.
We don’t know how much Zacchaeus knew about Jesus. But we do know it was probably more than curiosity that drove him to scale that sycamore tree to get a glance of him. Nor do we know how long he sat perched on those branches, waiting, searching like a raven for someone to drop a morsel of kindness into his lost, starving soul. But we do know life for this pariah was about to turn upside down.
Jesus pushed through the sea of greedy selfishness that hid Zacchaeus and offered him a way out. His words—I must stay at your house today —proved to be more than a morsel. And Zacchaeus responded in the only way he knew how. He would give half of all his possessions to the poor and pay back anyone he cheated four times over!
Zacchaeus’ story makes me wonder how many lost people are sitting in unlikely places waiting to get a glimpse of Jesus. There’s a crowd of hurts, wounds and disappointments blocking him from their view. But they desperately want to be found. Maybe Jesus is asking you and me to stop, look and invite them to come see him. And just maybe, as it did with Zacchaeus, salvation will come to their house.
And the lost will be found.