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- [D.A. Carson] When I was a boy growing up in Canada, I was brought up in a part
of the country where we were reared in both French and English.
And when I was on the English side, I learned many choruses and songs
that were simply part of a young English lad's Christian heritage, including,
"Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he.
He climbed up into a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.
And as the Savior passed that way, he looked up into the tree and he said,
'Zacchaeus, you come down, for I'm going to your house for tea.'"
Now, apart from that last line, which shows decidedly British
influence, nevertheless, the story is pretty accurate.
What it leaves out is the feel of it, the spectacular change in Zacchaeus' life.
Once again, you have a man who is despised, he's outside the acceptable
range of social behavior. He's a tax collector. Now, in those days,
you must not think of tax collectors as officials of the IRS.
The tax collectors in ancient Rome were part of what's called a tax
farming system. That is the Roman government would establish how much money
had to be raised by taxes from a particular populous. And then they would
appoint a head tax collector, who would appoint under tax collectors and so on.
And they would gather this money together and pass it on to Rome.
But nothing stopped them from demanding more. So, the system was riddled with
graft and corruption. So, quite apart from the fact that Zacchaeus
represented the overlords, which wouldn't make him popular,
but also was undoubtedly caught up in the corruption of the tax farming system.
He was a despised man, but interested in Jesus, curious,
wanting to see him. A short little dude, so he couldn't look over the heads
of taller people. He climbs up into this big leaf, low branch sycamore tree
in order to see Jesus. And Jesus seeks him out.
And instead of asking to go to the mayor's home, or to the chief Pharisees home, or a
rabbi's home, he wants to go to the home of this despised tax collector.
And somehow, without all of the details being filled in by the Scripture here,
somehow Jesus' presence, the message that he's preaching
throughout the land, has so grabbed hold of Zacchaeus' soul,
that he is soon repenting so thoroughly that he is vowing to give away half of
his wealth. And not only so, but where he's robbed someone, or wronged
someone, or extorted money, he will repay it fourfold,
presumably with the other half of his wealth. He's not going to have much left.
And salvation has come to this house. In other words, once again, you have
the despised being saved by the Lord Jesus and their lives utterly transformed.
Now, this is in line with another passage that
appears in the previous chapter and ties things up tightly with something I said
two segments ago. It's the account of the Pharisee and another tax collector going
up to the temple to pray. We read in chapter 18, "To some who were
confident of their own righteousness," that's the foil, "and looked down on
everyone else, Jesus told this parable,
'Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a
tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed,
"God, I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers,
or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all
I get."'" God, I thank you that I'm not like the wild people who do drugs.
I'm a member of the church, I'm a baptized believer, I tithe,
I show up sometimes at prayer meeting. I'm religiously restrained. I thank you,
God, like I should for recognizing your grace in my life
to give me all of these things. I'm not like these rotten perverts and
twisted people that make up the scum of our society. "But the tax collector stood
at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said,
'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'" Now, of course, in one sense we ought to thank
God when God has saved us, or helped us, or given us anything, or made us
acceptable, or changed our life. But this Pharisee, though he was formally thanking
God, in fact, he was patting himself on the shoulder for all that he had achieved
even while he was giving thanks to God. The bottom line for being acceptable
before God is recognizing that you don't deserve Him. "God, be merciful to me,
a sinner." And that's why Jesus says, "I tell you that this man," that is the
poor tax collector who dares not even lift his head up toward God, but begs for
mercy, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home," we're told,
"justified before God." Because, you see, the other man
was self-justified. In self-justification, we declare ourselves to be just and we're
proud of it. That's the nature of self-righteousness. In real justification,
God declares sinners to be just. Not because they are, but because another has
borne their sins for them. And the one who has done that is on the
road to Jerusalem to bear our sins in his own body on the tree.
So, as we come before this God, either we come self-justified, and
therefore not begging for mercy, or we come recognizing our need and cry,
"God, be merciful to me, a sinner." And only such people will go home
justified rather than self-justified. How does Jesus end this up?
"For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who
humble themselves will be exalted."
That, you see, is exactly what happens in the life of Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus, though a corrupt man, and a powerful man, and a rich man, is also a
despised man. And he comes to God and receives mercy born in faith
and repentance. For Christ comes to find little men hiding in sycamore trees who
are broken and need mercy rather than the self-righteous of our society.
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