Text: ““The Son of Man came to seek
and to save those who were lost”
Luke 19.10 (NIV)
Can you remember that song from
Sunday School about Zacchaeus ? I’ve been trying to
remember the words for the last three or four days – there was something about
a sycamore tree in it – but the last line, said something like “Come down,
Zacchaeus, for I’m coming to your house for tea”. It always seemed to me to be
such a warm, kind thing of Jesus to say - and I suppose I pictured in my mind
Zacchaeus, delighted, scrambling down the tree,
and while going with Jesus – planning to send a servant to the market,
for something to eat for the evening meal.
Zacchaeus, we can well imagine,
was a lonely man; in
that old cliché, he was wealthy enough – after all he was chief tax collector –
but it hadn’t brought him peace of mind. People didn’t speak to him, certainly
not on the streets – simply because he was chief tax collector and working on
behalf of the Roman authorities. Being
wealthy wouldn’t endear him to people either, since folks on the streets knew
very well where the wealth came from – some probably walked on the other side
of the road when they saw him coming. Zacchaeus, I would think, was one of
those who had decided at some point in life, that the
most important thing for him was making money so that he could do the things he
wanted. Friendship, popularity probably wasn’t at the top of his list, and in
any case he probably wasn’t all that hung up about what people thought about
him.
Luke’s gospel marks the point,
however, where the course of his life changed on this particular day in
And it is at this point that
the gospel reveals to us the significance, the charged significance of this
incident. Here is One
who is the friend of sinners, the outcasts, the sidelined, walking with one who
is a sinner. And in knowing himself
accepted by Jesus, that is in the presence of the Lord, in the presence of the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ – we already see the liberating effect of Jesus Christ
on this man. Zacchaeus’ public response to those nearby is to say – I will give
half of my wealth to the poor, and pay back four times
over anyone I have cheated. Grace is at work here. And the grace of Jesus
Christ is always liberating freeing. The acceptance that there is in Jesus
Christ, His grace brings us life, frees us from our closed, entrenched ways.
The grace of Jesus Christ is vital and life giving.
So that no-one on the street
will miss it, Jesus declares that salvation has come to the house of Zacchaeus
today, because this man is also a Son of Abraham. He is also included in God’s
people, drawn into the circle of God’s grace. And then suddenly, the circle of
grace widens, opens up in the word of Jesus.
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save those who were lost”
You could just about say that
the whole gospel is in these words. And
certainly if we read Romans 5, the Lord’s calling of Zacchaeus is set
firmly in the great gospel movement, the great gospel hymn of who Jesus is and what He does. He is,
first, as He declares, the One who comes to seek…. the lost.
The declaration of the New
Testament is that we were created by God, who is revealed to us as the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, who live in communion together. Now, we were created to
share that life of communion with Him – to find our true selves, and true life
in communion with God – to enjoy fullness of life, and richness of life in that
communion. But as men and women we have rejected God, broken that fellowship
with Him. And a catastrophe has taken place, as a result of that break with
God, sin has entered human life, dominating the world, destroying, distorting
human life.
bringing
with it death.
But in great loving movement,
God continues to seek us, to restore us to Himself. We
read of that in the Old Testament, where God seeks out the Israelites in
And in great loving movement,
God continues to seek us, by sending His Son Jesus Christ, who became a human
being, like us, for us. We find this in Luke’s gospel, Luke often declares
this. The parable of the shepherd tells us of how the shepherd climbs hill and
mountain looking for the lost sheep. How a woman who has ten silver coins loses
one of them, and looks for it everywhere in the house.
Jesus is the one who comes seeking the lost.
Contrary, clean contrary to
what the bystanders thought, Zacchaeus was not beyond the seeking, searching of
the good shepherd, Jesus. In fact, no-one is beyond the seeking, loving power
of God shown to us in Jesus. He seeks us too,
He has
sought us and found us too.
The Son of Man came to seek……..those
who were lost.
But remember, the word of Jesus is this:
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save those who were lost”
The Son of
Man came not simply to seek, to look for us, but like the good shepherd in the
parable, He finds us. The good shepherd, looking for the lost sheep finds it,
at last. And the gospel tells us that when he finds the sheep, he is so happy
that he puts it on his shoulders and carries it home. I am so happy I found my
lost sheep, he tells his neighbours, let’s celebrate.
The Son of Man came not simply
to seek us, to look for us, but like the good shepherd in the parable, He finds
us. God not only seeks us in Jesus, but finds us, rescues us, saves us. This is
exactly what we discover in Luke’s gospel. Here is Zacchaeus, laden with guilt,
no doubt thinking of himself as worthless. But Jesus, the Saviour, who seeks the lost comes looking for Zacchaeus. And not only does the Lord
come looking for Zacchaeus, Jesus holds
out a gracious offer of forgiveness to Zacchaeus and calls him into the
kingdom.
Now that same gracious offer of
forgiveness is made to all, at the cross.
In Romans 5, Paul puts it in
quite dramatic terms: “when we knew nothing about God – when we were sinners
and unaware of it – it was then that Jesus gave Himself for our sins. While we
were still sinners Jesus died for us. Our sins, as Isaiah 53 says, were laid
upon Him, and by His death our sins are removed from us.
Christ has come to take our sin
upon Himself, to take away our sin, and so bring us back to our loving
Father in heaven. We know that He is a loving Father, we know that He loves us,
for He sent His own Son Jesus Christ for us, to come seeking us, to save us. Here is our joy, our assurance, our comfort
and hope. There is comfort here for the guilty, hope for those who despair of
themselves, consolation for those who mourn because of their sinfulness.
This is what the power of the cross consists in. At the cross of Jesus, as Isaiah 53 says, the Lord “laid on Him the iniquity of us all”. Here is our joy, our assurance, our comfort, our hope. Comfort for those burdened with guilt, hope for those who despair of themselves, consolation for those who mourn at their own sinfulness. For our guilt and condemnation are taken away there, finally. At the cross Jesus took our sin, our guilt away – so that our sin and guilt is past and finished with, once for all, as the letter to the Hebrews says.
Our loving Father in heaven has sought us, looked for us, through His Son, Jesus Christ. And at the cross, Jesus, the friend of sinners, has given Himself that we might be restored. Restored, we now live in the new life that God has given us !
AMEN.