Transcript
I'm going to ask you to open up to the 19th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. For a second Bible study in the life of Christ and the word and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. This event that I've chosen as a for an exposition today is on the eve of Holy Week just a few days before Palm Sunday and here we are now in the beginning of our own experience and observation of the lamp. So
this is a very appropriate text for us at this time I chose this text because it's so familiar and it's one of the most beloved texts by youth certainly in the church and and I just thought it would be a wonderful text for us to once again focus on the heart of our good news the good news we have to share who is Jesus Christ himself. Chapter 19 of Luke verse 1 Jesus entered Jericho he's on
his way from the north to the south and he'll go from here as you know up to Bethany and then finally into the city of Jerusalem he entered Jericho was passing through there was a man named Zacchaeus he was a chief tax collector and rich that sounds innocuous enough or simple enough as a sentence by Luke at this point but you'll see that that's a very loaded sentence in as a narrative unfolds Luke means an awful
lot by that and he sought to see who Jesus was but could not on account of the crowd because he was small of stature. I've always been a little bit on the short side myself and my brother was 6' 4" and I they always said to me you grew up what you're gonna be tall just like your brother and which was a lie I am 5' 8" and a half and and seem to be shrinking a
little bit too because I you know I get in 5' 8" and a quarter the last time was reading major so I don't know but I always said 5' 8" and a half and but you know one thing about short people is you're shorter though I lived six years in the Philippines in there I was very tall but so is a relative thing but I one thing about people who are on the short side is we
do tend to think ahead more and I remember that's been a true thing as a result of that many famous people I've seen up close because being a little shorter I had to plan a little ahead to get where I could see them and I remember when Pandit Nehru was at Berkeley when I was an undergraduate there and I saw this big secret service car sitting outside the Greek theater and I figured he's gonna walk to
that car so I got out and I was able to stand just about five feet from Nehru when he walked by so he's also a very short man and that was a great experience and when John F. Kennedy came to Seattle when I was a young pastor there and he spoke at Heck Edmondson Pavilion and again I figured now where's that secret service car I'm gonna find where that is because I'll be able to stand near
and again I see him up close so you see short people like Zacchaeus maybe have we love this passage or at least parts of it because we know that you have to plan ahead and Zacchaeus has gone to this sycamore it's interesting it says here a sycamore tree which is a leafy tree and notice not an olive tree with little tiny leaves because this is a tree where you could a little bit high and you could
see but not be seen and that's going to be one of the as you'll see one of the surprise elements in this narrative so he went to this leafy tree and got into the tree probably he's fully equipped you know he has his instrument no he has his he's a rich tax collector he has a Nikon telephoto lens maybe a maybe a who knows a video to Sony video camera and he's got sound and everything ready
maybe saying to himself I hope that maybe Jesus will stop nearby maybe get an argument with Pharisees he's he's good at that and maybe I can get it all down on tape take it to tax collectors meeting next week I'm trying to figure it the way it would appear in the in our century but at any rate he goes ahead gets into a tree and then you'll see in a minute he gets a little more than
he bargained for in this encounter so he sought to see who Jesus was but could not on account of the crowd because he was small of stature so he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was to pass that way and when Jesus came to the place he looked up and said to him now we have here a theophany one of those encounters where someone is claimed and it's
it's quite dramatic he stops Jesus stops at the bottom of the tree and sees him and says Zacchaeus make haste and come down for I must stay at your house today and so Zacchaeus made haste and came down and received him joyfully and when they saw it they all murmured do you know this is the only place in the Gospels where it says they all murmured some places it says you know the Pharisees murmured or maybe
this Sadducees murmured a little later when Sadducees get involved Herodians murder murmured maybe but this is they all murmured that would be zealots and Sadducees and Pharisees and disciples everybody's murmuring and now we understand a little bit more about chief tax collector and rich that just one liner that slipped by a little earlier they all murmured and here's the interesting follow-up sentence to that he has gone in to be the guest of a man who
is a sinner now we know a little bit more about what that meant the tax collecting is a very horrible institution in the first century it's an institution which Romans who learn from the Persians the best way to do Empire is to let people be back in business but then tax them but how do you tax people they don't have banks and bank accounts they have sheep and land and that sort of thing so how do
you tax them unless you can get an insider someone from within the culture that knows where the wealth is so tax collectors were dreaded because they were protected by Roman garrisons protected by Roman power and yet they had an inside knowledge of their own people they could say to Romans you know this man who looks like he's just an ordinary person has a whole flock of sheep over there at Bethlehem I know it I know his
family have known him for years the Romans say thank you for that now we can tax that and so you see he gets and then he gets a percentage we know the Romans paid percentages and then but you see they go they work both ways the the friend of the family that has the sheep over at Bethlehem comes up to him and says you know please don't tell the Romans how many sheep I've got over there
in Bethlehem he says all right I won't do it how about four sheep for me for not telling him okay and then he goes right ahead and tells him anyway and so he gets he gets paid both ways and the family can't fight him because he's protected by the Rome Roman power so you can see the tax collectors are a hated sort of betrayer of their people and this man's not only a tax collector he's a
chief tax collector and he's rich and now a little wonder the people murmured including disciples everyone what has Jesus done he's gone in to be the guest of a man who's a sinner and Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord now Luke tends to compress accounts like all the writers maybe this is the next day who knows but at least the next sentence we have is maybe after spending that night with Jesus but at any rate
the next sentence in our narrative is and Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor and if I've defrauded anyone of anything I restore it fourfold now brothers and sisters that's repentance is worth something none of this I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry by the way the best way to ruin a marriage is to say you're sorry all the time don't say you're sorry change do
something repent metanoi turn around and here is meaningful repentance half of my goods I give to the poor hey now that's repentance it means something and those who I've defrauded that's a nice way of admitting is defraud I'll repay you fourfold line up over here please and so he repents it's a marvelous portrayal of metanoi of turning around of repentance and now the last sentence of this account is really very touching sentence and Jesus said to
him today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham what a remarkable restoration of this man this Jewish man to his Abrahamic status and then then the final sentence for the son of man our Lord always used that phrase in the book of Daniel that hidden phrase as a reference to his own messiahship it said of Jesus that he was son of God but Jesus spoke of himself as son of
man for the son of man came to seek and to save the loss and that's the end of the incident there are a series of surprises in this incident I want us to look at those surprises the first surprise is that Jesus would notice one person in a great crowd I don't want you to miss that rather obvious surprise because we don't expect that from famous people we don't expect if you are going to meet the
president United States or meet some great or an infamous person and you were in a line with a protocol chief there at all you would not expect to really be noticed in that line in fact you'd be moved on quite quickly very famous people learn how to shake your hand while they move you on and look to the next person and that's the only way you can keep the line going and you get the sense and
say I shook hands with the president and by the way they photograph you and then they move you move on and then he talks to the next person he's got to do that and you're not offended in fact you'd be surprised it was a great line there the president or somebody very famous would meet you and say how's it going tell me about your family how's your how your children doing I mean everybody's waiting the protocol
guy is rustling and you wouldn't expect it it would be a total shock so when you meet a famous person you don't expect that kind of notice and yet that's the first surprise this account that one person in a crowd and we're even told he's in a sycamore tree with leaves and everything we don't expect a famous person to give us their full attention and yet notice that's the first mark of this account Jesus gives his
full attention to this man and knows his name even you never get the feeling in the ministry of our Lord that he's juggling oranges while he talks to you you get that feeling of his full attention you'll notice is one of the marks all the way through the ministry of our Lord the woman who had the issue of blood that touched his garment he says who touched me and the disciples say who touched you everybody's pushing
in he said no someone touched me in a special way and he noticed it he noticed people and they get his full attention the second surprise is that Jesus would spend the night and accept hospitality from a person who is so hated and for good reason by the people that is another surprise that obviously the text Luke really features that surprise the third surprise is that a man like Zacchaeus who has built his whole life on
extortion and on exploitation of his own fellow citizens and fellow Jews that a man like Zacchaeus would become so penitent and so generous that's a big surprise the fourth surprise and I guess there's enough surprises for us to reflect on today is that a man that has done so much real harm as this man has done think of the family that is families that he has left in ruin and that a man who's done so much
harm should be restored publicly by Jesus as the son of Abraham and again Luke especially notices that fact in this account that he says this man is a son of Abraham and you've got to understand that identity that identity feature here that those who are his fellow citizens that know about his tax collecting would have thought he has sold out his birthright he has betrayed his own people and now our Lord wants to be sure that
everyone knows that this man has been as a son of Abraham and again a man who's done all the harm that Zacchaeus has done that he should it seems so unbelievable that a man like that could then be restored back to all that he had thrown away well now as I see it all of these surprises come together in one very interesting and intense sentence and Luke has given it to us in a very simple of
three words they all murmured the surprises converge in that one sentence they all murmured everyone murmured why if we can understand why they murmured then I believe if we can understand why those people are so upset then we can really understand the Christian gospel because I think the Christian gospel is converging right here in this incident and I think you'll see it in a dramatic in in in some dramatic contours contours if we can understand why
they all murmur we'll have our we'll have a profound insight into the nature of the gospel which is the good news we have to preach yesterday we made the the some observations on that great final sentence of the and final paragraph of the Sermon the Mount where to be the rock he said if you hear my words and do them you're a wise man or woman and you build your life on a rock what an astounding
statement to make and it's a profoundly messianic statement I pointed that out if the final paragraph of the Sermon the Mount is about faith and it really is but it's even more fundamentally a statement about Christology a statement about who Christ is the fact that he claims to be the rock upon which you can build your life but now the question is does he deserve to be the rock that is also a crucial question it's not
just how do you preach the gospel how can you preach the gospel does the gospel deserve to be preached is Jesus really the rock that people should be invited to build their lives on and so that's a fundamental question too and today we look at that question he claimed to be the truth yesterday but does he deserve to be the truth does he deserve to be the source of your hope should you build your life on
him obviously that's in question here why would they all murmur that's in question and so close to the close of our Lord's life he's already taught the disciples for almost three years and yet they're murmuring we all wonder when it where was the point where Judas Iscariot the son Judas from Iscariot where did he finally break with Jesus was it just at the very last when a proposal of 30 pieces of silver was made to him
no it's not that earlier on somewhere Judas became disillusioned with Jesus is this the point where Judas became disillusioned when this young zealot this young revolutionary man with so much fervor and so much concern he was a Judean you know is it this place when he saw this night that Jesus spends in the house of Zacchaeus is this where Judas became angry is he one of the murmurers and finally said to himself I've had it with
Jesus I don't know but they all murmured something's in question why are the people so upset it seems to me that people are upset for a very basic reason I don't want to take it lightly because they expect the Messiah in fact that's one of the reasons that there are crowds there and Zacchaeus had to find a tree to see Jesus because great crowds were around him why were the great crowds around him because the people
are expecting the Messiah it was right in this very area a little north of it in Batharba where John the Baptist had done all his preaching so maybe some of those people who had heard John the Baptist are there and they're expecting the Messiah and many of these people hope that Jesus of Nazareth will be that Messiah but they yearn for a Messiah who will conquer evil now that's a very important thing I'm going to have
to do a little research with you right now to show you what they were looking for so we can understand why they murmur they were looking for a Messiah but what kind of Messiah were they looking for in the first century they were looking for a Messiah who would first of all be the conqueror of evil let me prove it to you if you have a New Testament in front of you open to Luke 3 I'm
going to do a little journey with you to show you their expectations just a few miles from this very place John the Baptist did his preaching and Luke more than any other gospel writer focuses on the ministry of John the Baptist this man who was so famous that he had more followers than Jesus did in many ways and even way up until in the 18th chapter of Luke or the book of Acts we discovered that from
Alexandria people came to Corinth and didn't even know about Jesus Christ but they were they were followers of John the Baptist that's how popular John the Baptist was that's how famous John the Baptist was so this man left a tremendous indelible mark he was a very important man notice verse 15 this is in the middle I can't read the whole speech of John the Baptist but you can see it for yourself in chapter 3 in that
marvelous section where John the Baptist is preaching is narrated for us by Luke we'll pick into that we'll just jump into the 15th verse chapter 3 and listen to Luke commenting as the people were in expectation and all men and women questioned in their hearts concerning John whether perhaps he were the Christ John answered them all I baptize you with water but he who is mightier than I is coming the thong of whose sandals I am
not worthy to untie he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire and by the way he doesn't mean fire to warm your heart it is pretty clear what he means in just a minute he means the fire of judgment he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire and here's the proof of that though his winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into the granary
and the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire it almost sounds like the end of Psalm 1 doesn't it he is going to do the judging he's going to sift his axe is already to the root it's another line that John the Baptist has and he's going to take the chaff and he's going to burn it and he's going to take the wheat that's the good people and he's going to put them into the granary by
the way I love the next line look at verse 18 so with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people good news the wheat not so good for the chaff where did John the Baptist get this message now jump back to the book of Malachi the last book of the Old Testament and you can see what's ringing in the ears of the whole Jewish nation as they enter into the New Testament period these lines
from the book of Malachi and these lines are terribly important I can prove it to you just again just chapter three verse one behold this the last book of the Old Testament behold I send my messenger to prepare the way before me and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight for he this line remember from handles messiah for he is like a refiner's fire
like a fuller soap and he will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine the gold and silver all right but then look at here then I will draw near to you for judgment I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers against adulterers maybe that's why when the adulterous woman came to Jesus he so offended the Pharisee because he said if she if Jesus were
a true prophet he'd know what kind of woman she was the adulterers uh let me see I lost the place and those who swear falsely and against those who press the hirelings in his wages the widow the orphans against those who thrust aside the sojourner and do not fear me says the Lord of hosts those that are going to be judged in this refiner's fire and then chapter four for behold the day comes burning like an
oven when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble where did John the Baptist get his message right from here the day that comes shall burn them up says the Lord of hosts so that it will leave them neither root nor branch but for you who fear my name the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings you will go forth leaping like calves from the stall hey by the way Raymond Brown in
his commentary on John's gospel says that he thinks that when John the Baptist introduced Christ in John's gospel and said behold the lamb of God who take away the sin of the world Raymond Brown says he doesn't think John the Baptist was thinking of the of the lamb of of Isaiah 53 the suffering servant lamb because all of Israel felt that they were the suffering servant Israel is the suffering servant no the lamb according to Raymond
Brown he thinks that John the Baptist is referring to the calf of Malachi that will trample down the evildoers that will destroy the evildoers you see no one expected a suffering servant lamb they all expected a conquering lamb the lion of Judah which is an intertestamental actual an image in the intertestamental book second Ezra's but here like a calf from the stall you will tread down the wicked there will be ashes under the soles of your
feet for the day I act says the Lord remember the law my servant Moses the statutes and ordinances behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes and he will turn the hearts of the fathers their children the hearts the children of their fathers lest I come and smite you with a curse now these are the words that are ringing in John the Baptist's ears and these form
the framework of John's preaching about Messiah now listen closely folks the Jews and those people who came to Jericho to see Jesus that day they're looking for Messiah and what do they expect the Messiah will do the Messiah will be like Elijah what did Elijah do all the messianic expectations were in Elijah terms Elijah was the great prophet though he was a written not a written prophet he was still the greatest of the prophets and remember
Elijah is the one who had the guts to challenge Ahab as the false king and say that as you have destroyed Naboth so the dogs will lick up your blood you'll be destroyed and that's the kind of prophet that people loved and honored for his courage and he won the battle on Mount Moriah against the 400 false prophets of Baal and the 420 false prophets of Asherah Asherah is the the god of the child sacrifice he
won the battle against those false gods and then what did Elijah do he had them line up all 820 of those false prophets on the river and he had them all killed and the people cheered him for that we love to see bad people killed we love to see people we love to see evil conquered it's what we expect the Messiah to do it's what the people expected Messiah to do it's interesting in the Seder in
the celebration of the Seder even to this day an Elijah chair is kept open at the Seder and the act of the Seder is a little boy supposed to be the littlest boy in the family supposed to go to the door it's a fun part of the Seder and look out the door and see if Elijah came because his chair is left open for Elijah because that's the messianic hope that the Messiah will be like Elijah
and what's Elijah do he conquers the evildoers remember when Jesus said who do men say that I am someone said they think you're Elijah but what does Jesus do here the people want a messiah but what does he do well he starts out all right he comes down to the bottom of the tree and says Zacchaeus I see you in that tree you know I bet the disciples are saying oh isn't he marvelous so he knows
his name he sees him right he defoliates that tree and sees right through the tree here's a Nikon camera following and all these things falling all around Zacchaeus is shocked to death I see you in that tree and then he blows it from there on what he should do is he should be able to see the do to really that he would be messiah if he said I see you Zacchaeus you snake in the tree you
come down folks look at this man rip off of the people destroyer of the people this evil evil man there he is then they would say truly Jesus must be the messiah because he saw the evildoer and he recognized him can you now understand why the Pharisee was so offended when the adulterous woman washes Jesus feet and the Pharisee says in his heart if he were messiah he would know what kind of woman this was because
that's what the messiah is supposed to do to find evil and conquer it but what does Jesus do he sees Zacchaeus now that's okay he knows his name that's okay he calls him down from the tree that's okay and from there on it's all downhill then he says oh Zacchaeus I'd love to spend tonight at your house Zacchaeus says wonderful and then the next thing he does is Zacchaeus repents of course and then he heals Zacchaeus
and then he restores the identity to Zacchaeus and then he makes that strange enigmatic statement at the end the son of man has come to seek and to save the lost and that's the end of the incident and the result of this event is that Zacchaeus gains ground and Jesus loses ground can you see the shadow of the cross over this event do you think Jesus won any friends this day all the expectations for messiah are
now suddenly up in the air they're all murmuring but let's first of all see what happened to Zacchaeus Zacchaeus gains ground I know he gains ground you know I've been a pastor long enough to know something that when someone experiences the grace of God you can always tell when someone experiences God's love the first sign is body English they loosen their hands and they want to do something for someone else half of my goods I give
to the poor generosity and they want to repent those who I've defrauded I want to restore fourfold now there is a man who's experienced the amazing grace it's always true and when I meet someone who's and clutching at life and clutching at money and clutching at relationships I know in my heart that that person is afraid and hasn't experienced God's love what they need is to experience God's love more than to be scolded not to be
selfish I'll tell you scold people not to be selfish all they do is become better defended but if you experience if they experience the grace of God they will become generous it's the cure for so many things that are that are born out of fear racism and all these terrible things we do to one another are born out of fear out of a clutching kind of fear and the cure is grace here's a text that shows
it Zacchaeus gains ground and Jesus loses ground can I give you an illustration a couple of in our in our own century that might help to understand this you know in a junior high school in a high school in America the most lonely hour of the day for a high school student maybe you don't know this because maybe when you went to school it was different but the most lonely hour of the day in any high
schooler's life is lunch lunch period that's the most terrifying hour of the day because that's the day when if you have friends and if you're in a good circle of friends it's confirmed and if you have no friends you have to eat alone or maybe in the cafeteria with the nerds but in every high school there's a section for the athletes and a section for all the in kids in this group or the in kids in
that group and then the kids that don't have any friends are by themselves or they have to eat in the cafeteria it's a terribly lonely moment okay let me give you a scenario here's a little here's a lunch room hour in a typical American high school and here's a little kid over there maybe just came into town maybe just came to that school or like we say in California sometimes from some of these kids that have
come from southeast Asia he's FOB fresh off the boat can hardly even speak English and he's over there and has a funny sounding name and he is sitting over there by himself at or herself at lunch hour and now here's a big gang of kids and here's a young boy who's on the football team or a girl who's a yell eater and she's she sees that kid or he sees that little friend or doesn't know that
person's name sits over there and walks over during lunch hour and says to that kid hey are you eating lunch here alone the guy says yeah hey come on over and join our group and he brings that kid over or she brings that kid over come and have lunch and hey kids this is what's your name by the way this is I just met him now let me just explain the dynamics of what just happened in
front of our eyes that little kid who is a stranger in that school has gained ground am I right guess who lost ground that yell leader or that young athlete that went over there and befriend to that kid has lost ground what in the world you doing why you invite him into our group it ruins the whole group that's what Jesus did he lost ground let me give you another illustration suppose Jesus were to get off
the plane and let's not make this Jericho let's have Jesus getting off the plane in Las Vegas with his entourage he's on a he's on a great tour evangelistic tour he comes off the plane he gets off the plane on the tarmac there at Las Vegas airport over against the one of the screens with the tinted windows and the electric windows you know you can always spot electric windows because they go down so even you know
they're really obscene those long cars I hate them and so this tinted window you see the window goes down just this far you can't see him but he can see out and Jesus is way over here by the airplane he looks across Joe I see you there I see you in that car no one else can see him hey I want to spend tonight on the 18th 19th and 20th of the sands hotel where you live
it's joe frenero of the frenero mafia gang and he owns that hotel I should have given him an Irish name having the Irish mafia it's over there now what just happened how is Jesus going to hold on to the Sierra Club crowd spending the night with that fellow how is Jesus going to hold on with common cause and all those people those guys are around there too and they say he's going to spend the night with
this guy in the 18th 19th 20th floor of the sands hotel this guy's a hood he's gonna spend the night there he has no perception he doesn't even realize who that guy is he wouldn't do it if he did okay now that's exactly what happened in our Lord's ministry Zacchaeus gains ground Jesus loses ground let me see how I can explain this to you the people expect the defeat of evil but no one in the first
century I want to repeat that because this is so fundamental to understand the gospel no one in the first century not John the Baptist I can prove that from all those speeches of John the Baptist not Peter the number one disciple of our Lord not John not one single disciple expected that Jesus Christ would defeat evil the way he chose to defeat evil no one in the first century expected that Jesus was the suffering servant of
a lot of Isaiah 53 upon him have all the sins of us been placed and by his stripes we are healed no he is to be the ensign of Isaiah he is to be the the the crowning Lord of Isaiah he's to be the Elijah figure who will conquer evil not the suffering one we have been the suffering ones through all these years he is now to redress our suffering but Jesus Christ is going to conquer
evil in a way that no one expected it he is going to conquer evil by taking it upon himself by absorbing the anger the hostility the power of evil and even death itself and he is going to take it upon himself and disarm it and conquer it on the third day in his victory over death and no one expected it you can prove it as you go right to the Thursday night of Holy Week and to
the the arrest of our Lord in the garden Peter is up to that point denying that Jesus should ever be taken and arrested and when our Lord is arrested Peter in bitterness denies our Lord three times and they all scatter and run no one was prepared for the way our Lord even though our Lord made said hints set it in hints he said I'm the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep the disciples
still did not hear that they did not understand how could they understand it John the Baptist had program program them toward another way in which the victory over evil would be won Jesus is like Elijah he does fulfill Elijah but with one major difference Jesus does line up all the false prophets he does reveal our sins he does find Zacchaeus in the tree he knows our names he knows our sins and he lines us all up
and just at the Jesus goes over to the side of the river and takes their place and he is mowed down and that's the cross and no one expected it and that's the good news a totally new way to conquer evil and therefore can you see why everything now is changed it's now a way in which we can't all the old testament judgment passages all the old testament passages the psalms for instance how do you interpret
the psalms how do you interpret the psalms where David wants his enemies killed believe me there are some r-rated psalms in the in the book of psalms David has he wants not only in one psalm it's even improbable he wants not only the the he wants the mothers and fathers killed then he wants the children killed to the third and fourth generations how can that happen if you've already killed the first generation but he wants
them killed and killed and killed he wants all his enemies destroyed he knows who they are by name how do you handle that psalm because our lord fulfills David i've often said Jesus fulfills David by on the one hand fulfilling David's greatness but also our lord fulfills David by fulfilling David's tragedy and David is a tragic figure in the old testament too and that's a tragic psalm to want so much mayhem against your enemies but our
lord fulfills that too when Jesus Christ became the enemy he took the place of David's enemy and that's why all those psalms need to be read through the Messiah Jesus Christ disarms even the the murderous psalms of David that's why you should read those psalms and realize like Bonhoeffer says in his letters and papers it's only then that we can understand grace when we see that sense of judgment coming toward our foes and then Jesus Christ
taking the place of our foe and we see it right here in this passage Jesus Christ takes the place of Zacchaeus he identifies with Zacchaeus he heals Zacchaeus and then so that no one will misunderstand at the last sentence he says this is why the son of man came to seek and to save the lost uh brothers and sisters we have just seen the love of God as an event yesterday we talked about love and faithfulness
as an event Jesus word and work now you have just seen the word and work don't misunderstand this passage this narrative I just read to you is not a parable it is not illustration of love it is the very thing itself what is love love is Jesus touching a person with leprosy that's not an illustration of love it is Jesus spending the night with Zacchaeus that's not an illustration that's the very thing itself and it is
Jesus dying on the cross in your place in the place of the 400 false prophets of hell to satisfy Elijah's righteousness that's love an event not a theory we don't have an idea to share with the world we have a person to share with the world and here we see it in this simple account I'm going to end by reading a reading for you from C.S. Lewis everybody says can Earl Palmer give a talk without quoting
from C.S. Lewis somewhere well I can't really I quote him so much without giving him credit I'm now going to quote him and give him credit this is from his wonderful little book miracles a preliminary study he wrote it 1947 the best chapter in the book is his great chapter on the grand miracle which is his chapter on Jesus Christ oh it's it's marvelous and here's a parable that C.S. Lewis creates just settle back and enjoy
it you know there's nothing like being read to is there I'm going to read it to you and that's how I'll close in the Christian story God descends to re-ascend he comes down down from the heights of absolute being into time and space down into humanity down further still if embryologists are right to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life down to the very roots and seabed of the nature he created
wow that's Lewis's way of saying Jesus became a real person no phantom christ for him he became a real man but he goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with him one has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden he must stoop in order to lift he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and off
with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders or one may think of a diver first reducing himself to nakedness then glancing in midair then gone with a splash vanished rushing down through green and warm water into bleak and cold water down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay how do you like that as a definition of white collar crime you know tax collecting tax evasion adultery how do you
like how would you like an adulterous relation described as ooze and slime and old decay well that's that's Lewis's way of putting it i tell you he's great with words so down into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay then up again back to color and light back to color and light his lungs almost bursting till suddenly he breaks surface again holding in his hand the dripping precious thing he went down to
recover and that's you that's me that's sakeus that's david's enemies david the woman caught in adultery mary magnolain peter how do you like yourself as a dripping precious thing that he went down to recover now the last line is so marvelous again this is vintage c .s lewis i'll read that whole sentence again then back up again back to color and light his lungs almost bursting till suddenly he breaks surface again holding in his hand the
dripping precious thing that he went down to recover he and it are both colored now that they have come back up into the light down below where it lay colorless in the dark he lost his color too and that's what no one expected jesus would do no one but he did heavenly father thank you for this text thank you for the way it shows us to ourselves because we murmur all the time so many times we're
so disappointed in the way you do things lord we thank you though that you are the lord and you know how to save us you know our names you know the trees we hide in you know how to spend the night in our house you know how to let us know that we're really loved you know how to walk across the school ground when we're lonely invite us to join the gang you even know us in
the limousines that we find us you're the great finder we thank you but most of all that you're the redeemer that takes the complicated sins of our lives from the ooze and the slime and the old decay and you know how to resolve us and make us whole and what's true for us is true for the whole world thank you lord help us now to share this with our generation amen