BY WALT ALBRITTON
OPINION —
When Jesus was walking through Jericho, he attracted a large crowd. In the crowd was a man named Zacchaeus who was short of statue, so short he could not see Jesus over the crowd. Determined to see Jesus, he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed up on a limb in a sycamore-fig tree so he could see the Man of Galilee when he walked by.
Imagine that you were in that crowd. You are busy talking to your friends, watching where you are stepping, and looking at Jesus. You are not expecting to see someone sitting on a limb in a tree. Think about it: Would you have noticed the “wee little man” on a tree limb? Honestly, had I been in that crowd, I think I would not have noticed Zacchaeus; my attention would have been on Jesus.
But Jesus noticed him. And what surprised everyone is that he stopped and called him by name. Jesus knew who Zacchaeus was. And everyone knew who the little man was – a man they all hated because he was a chief tax collector known for extortion. The crowd was astonished when Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “I want to go home with you today.” That prompted one of the Pharisees to say, “There he goes again – eating with sinners!”
Why would Jesus stop to talk to Zacchaeus? He was but one man Jesus chanced to meet on his way to Jerusalem. Why so much fuss over one sinner? The answer is obvious. To Jesus, one person counted, especially someone who was lost. Jesus did not build his ministry by courting the wealthy and influential. He was always looking for the person who needed him, a person interested in a relationship with God. The gospels are full of stories of Jesus taking time to care for individuals who wanted and needed his love, forgiveness or healing.
Since few people today, even those of us in the church, seldom speak of “being saved,” we might want to ask if Zacchaeus needed to be saved. The answer is yes, he was in bondage to the sin of stealing. He was gouging taxpayers for more than they were obligated to pay. So, Doctor Luke (19:1-10) tells us that while Jesus was in his home, Zacchaeus was so influenced by Jesus that “he stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’”
What had happened is obvious. Jesus had saved Zacchaeus from his sins. Jesus made this clear when he exclaimed to Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house, for this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
We dare not miss the valuable lesson this brief encounter of Jesus with Zacchaeus teaches us: Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. So, what has this to do with us as individual disciples of Jesus? And what has this to do with the church?
We have here a warning that Jesus wants us to be his witnesses so that he can save the lost. He wants us to make disciples so they can be saved. Jesus wants us to do more than get people to come to church and join the church; he wants us to help individuals to experience salvation by trusting the One who came into the world to save the lost.
This is a warning to pastors and church leaders to be careful that the church does not become so absorbed with programs and activities that they fail to observe the lonely sinners who are so easily overlooked. Running church programs can consume so much of our time and energy that, unlike our Lord, we fail to see a Zacchaeus sitting on a tree limb — or on the back pew.
The great danger is that while running the church, key leaders can run right by individuals who need salvation. When that happens, the church becomes a pleasant irrelevancy. God forbid! That is one reason why modern society largely ignores the church today — and we should admit that we deserve to be ignored when we become oblivious to the lost who are all around us. The devil is delighted when we forget that the church exists for the people who are not in it.
Let’s face it: The church is not worth its salt if it fails to focus on seeking the lost so that the Lord can save them from their sins. We simply must not spend our days maintaining the church, oiling its machinery, and moving furniture, to the extent that we have no time to look for the lost Zacchaeus who is at our doorstep, wanting to “see” Jesus in us.
Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. That is what he said. Therefore, it should be the essential business of His Church today. Thus, the only reason to ever have a covered dish dinner or a watermelon-cutting at the church is so that around the tables we may notice a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, to whom we can offer the salvation that results from trusting our Lord Jesus. Like its Lord, the church must notice lost persons, befriend them, and offer them the chance to fall in love with Jesus and be saved from their sins.
While living a life of love in the service of Jesus, we should always be looking for the person who wants to see Jesus — because he or she is someone Jesus wants to save!
