WRITE
THE VISION, MAKE IT PLAIN
Mount Hope
UMC
Thomas
Family & Friends Day
Sunday,
November 3, 2019
Luke 19:1-10 New
Living Translation (NLT)
Jesus and Zacchaeus
19 Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through
the town. 2 There was a man there named
Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very
rich. 3 He tried to get a look at
Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road,
for Jesus was going to pass that way.
5 When Jesus came by, he
looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he
said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.”
6 Zacchaeus quickly climbed
down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a
notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood
before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if
I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as
much!”
9 Jesus
responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown
himself to be a true son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man[a] came to seek and save those who are lost.”
Luke 19:1-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
Jesus and Zacchaeus
19 Jesus entered Jericho
and made his way through the town. 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus.
He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look
at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and
climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that
way.
5 When Jesus came by, he
looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I
must be a guest in your home today.”
6 Zacchaeus quickly
climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the people were
displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus
stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord,
and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times
as much!”
9 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to
this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man[a] came to seek and save those who
are lost.”
Luke 19:1-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
Jesus and Zacchaeus
19 Jesus entered Jericho and
made his way through the town. 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus.
He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look
at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and
climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that
way.
5 When Jesus came by, he
looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I
must be a guest in your home today.”
6 Zacchaeus quickly climbed
down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the people were
displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus
stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord,
and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times
as much!”
9 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to
this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man[a] came to seek and save those who
are lost.”
Luke 19:1-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
Jesus and Zacchaeus
19 Jesus entered Jericho
and made his way through the town. 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus.
He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look
at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and
climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that
way.
5 When Jesus came by, he
looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I
must be a guest in your home today.”
6 Zacchaeus quickly
climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the people were
displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus
stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord,
and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times
as much!”
9 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to
this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man[a] came to seek and save those who
are lost.”
Luke 19:1-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
Jesus and Zacchaeus
19 Jesus entered Jericho
and made his way through the town. 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus.
He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look
at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed
a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.
5 When Jesus came by, he
looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I
must be a guest in your home today.”
6 Zacchaeus quickly climbed
down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the people were
displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus
stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord,
and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times
as much!”
9 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to
this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man[a] came to seek and save those who
are lost.”
Last week we talked about the rich
man and the poor man – the Pharisee who thought that because he followed the
law and did all the right things made him more righteous than the tax collector
he considered beneath him. But the tax
collector did not measure himself against the Pharisee, he just considered
himself a sinner and asked for forgiveness.
How many of us know we can never lift ourselves up by putting somebody
else down? No, God doesn’t want us to
consider ourselves more or better than the next person. We are all sinners saved by God’s grace.
Today we learn of another tax
collector. And I want us to make some
clear distinctions in today’s text that might have been overlooked last
week. Tax collectors were despised as
traitors because they worked for the Roman Empire, not their Jewish community
and they were corrupt.
But Zacchaeus was a chief tax
collector at Jericho. He was a
descendant of Abraham and an example of Jesus’s personal, earthly mission to
bring salvation to the lost. His name in
Hebrew meant “pure” or “innocent”.
Because the lucrative production and export of balsam was centered in
Jericho, his position would have carried both importance and wealth.
But
as the scripture reminds us, Zacchaeus for all his position and possible
wealth, was a despised tax collector.
Working for the Roman Empire to keep his brothers and sisters of Israel
in debt to the cruelty and greed of the Roman Empire. So, they had exchanged one form of slavery
for another to the Empire. They had
escaped slavery to being financially enslaved to the Roman Empire.
Zacchaeus
was forced then to live on the fringes of his society. He was not accepted by the Romans because he
was a Jew, and the Jews did not accept him because he worked for the Roman
Empire against his Jewish people. How
many of us have been a foreigner in our own land? That was Zacchaeus.
Now,
Zacchaeus hears that Jesus is coming to Jericho so he runs ahead of everyone
and climbs up in a sycamore tree. In the
US, sycamore trees are symbols of hope and protection. In ancient Israel they were fig trees. It is a large tree with a trunk similar to an
olive tree. It is a beautiful thick and
knotted trunk with large scaly leave. It
is thought to have been the fig tree that provided the big leather leaves in
Genesis that Adam and Eve used to sew clothing together when they realized they
were naked. The tree was also in Egypt
and every part of it was used for the fruit was good to eat, the leaves made a
healing tea, the sap made sweet syrup and the wood was used to build coffins
and the gigantic trunks provided refuge.
During Jesus’s time, the sycamore tree was considered extremely
important.
So
Zacchaeus knew that climbing the tree would give him safety and protection from
the crowd that despised him, but it would also be an excellent vantage point to
see Jesus. What he did not expect in
this encounter, was that Jesus would not only see him, but seek him out. See, church you can’t hide from Jesus. He will seek you out. And he called out to Zacchaeus. He knows our name, church. And he told Zacchaeus he had to come to his
house. He invites himself into our
lives. Zacchaeus probably about fell out
of that tree, but he accepted Jesus’s invitation and took him to his house,
where he promised Jesus he would give half his possessions to the poor and if
he cheated anyone out of anything he would pay it back four times the
amount. Jesus said to him, “Today
salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save the
lost.”
Although
the Jews muttered about Jesus going to Zacchaeus’ house, he went. He went to save a lost sheep of Israel. He told the crowd that Zacchaeus was one of
them – a brother, a son of Israel, one of the promised ones – a descendant of
Abraham.
We
all are like sheep who have lost our way, church. The Good Shepherd wants us to return to our
flock, our family, our roots, our original beginnings. He wants us to come home where we belong;
where we’re connected and have relationship.
There
are three lessons here I want to share with you that I discovered in a blog
about Zacchaeus on the internet.
1. You can’t hide from God. No matter how hard you try, how far you run,
or where you go, God knows exactly where you are. There is no secret he doesn’t know and no
past you can run from. He sees through
the mask you hid behind to cover your own pain, hurt and brokenness.
2. God sees you.
Yes, wonderful, uniquely created, You.
In the middle of a crowd, he singles you out. He’s got his eye on You. He loves you, accepts you, and forgives you –
always, forever and no matter what.
3. God knows your name. Not only does God see you, he even calls you
by name to be his own son or daughter.
He calls you down from all the branches of busyness that cover you each
day. He is call you by name to say yes
to Him.
Not
only that,
Be a
tree in someone else’s life. Zacchaeus
climbed a tree to be able to see Jesus.
Allow others to be able to see Jesus in your life. Spread your branches of trust, faith, and
hope for others to see Jesus in your daily and during tough times.
Climb
higher than your circumstances for a clear view of Jesus. Zacchaeus also climbed high above the crowd
to get a great view of Jesus. Sometimes
you have to rise above your circumstances that might cloud your view of
Jesus. It’s so easy to lose your vision
of Jesus when you are preoccupied with hard issues you’re going through, or in
the thick of your to-do list or busy schedule.
Lastly,
beloved, we don’t know how long Zacchaeus may have been calling for help
hearing the violence everywhere, seeing evil everywhere he went; being
surrounded by people who love to argue
and fight; the law paralyzing and no justice in the courts and thinking that
the wicked outnumbered the righteous so that justice had become perverted –
just like we see today.
Yet,
Zacchaeus went up to his watchtower to wait to hear what Jesus was going to say
and that it would be something to give him an answer to his complaints and
there Jesus saw him, called him by name and invited him self to his home where
he received the salvation of the Lord.
Believe me, beloved, this scenario was written on a tablet so that a
runner could carry the correct message to others. The vision was not only for a future time
such as this, but the time Zacchaeus became saved.
As
Habakkuk says, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry
the correct message to others. This
vision is for a future time. It
describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take
place. It will not be delayed. Look at the proud!” I’m telling you to look at the man in the
White House whose arrogance and pride won’t allow him to face the lies and
deceit he has sewn. Look at those who
surround him to puff him up with more pride and more arrogance by not calling
him out on his lies and deceit. Habakkuk
says, “They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked.” Yes, they are being called one-by-one to task
for their support, arrogance and lies.
They will be held accountable and we will see the unjust fall and the
just rise. That is a hope and a promise
that God provides for us. Then Habakkuk
provides this hope, “But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.”
As
sure as the sun will rise and new mercies will be given, those of us who have
this assurance that if we walk by faith and not by sight, we will be the
righteousness of God.
As
family, write the vision and make it plain.
It is for a future time, so wait patiently for it will surely take
place. It will not be delayed. Keep your eye on the prize. Amen.
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