Finding Forgiveness in Zacchaeus

As I was getting ready to put together the next series of posts I realized that I had a series of posts about a year ago that said much what I wanted to say. So instead of starting from scratch, I have taken those posts and worked them over for this series on what love looks like. My blog was just getting started back then, if you are one of the few who were with me back then and the next few posts give you that feeling “I think I’ve read this somewhere before,” you are not crazy and I am not unaware of it. But repetition, especially when it comes to something as important as forgiveness, is not a bad thing.

For the last couple of weeks I have been asking the question “What does love look like?” So far we have seen that the love that God grows in His people is humble and is confident because of God’s grace. The story of Zacchaeus reveals another facet of love. It tells us that learning to love like Jesus means forgiving like Jesus forgives. A person who is full of God’s grace is a forgiving person.

I don’t honestly remember much from my classes in college and graduate school, and not just because it was 20 years ago. I find that I’m not alone in that either. We go, we learn (cram), get tested, and forget. Nevertheless there are a few very specific things that I remember almost perfectly.

Back in 1996, I was sitting in a class on Christian counseling that was led by Dr. Gary Rupp. He was talking about forgiveness. And he said something that just lodged itself in my brain. I don’t think I will ever forget it. He said, “The most important thing to know about forgiveness is that you can’t forgive anybody of anything.”

Now that made me stop. How could he possibly mean that? Forgiving is something we are specifically told to do right? His point was that only God can forgive. When we forgive people, our forgiveness only works if God’s forgiveness is powering our forgiveness.

Well, I left that class knowing that I did not know what I thought I knew about forgiveness. That led to a directed study, which lead to a journal article in the Princeton Theological Review, to a book, Forgiveness Is Tremendous which I co-wrote with Charlie Jones in 2005. I have been doing a lot of studying and reading on forgiveness. In that study I came across the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10, and I could not believe the great message of forgiveness that I got from reading it. But I couldn’t remember a sermon I had heard that got something on forgiveness from the story of Zacchaeus. Well, I thought I would change that.

Jericho in Jesus’ day, was famous. It was famous for its gardens, its palm trees and streets lined with sycamore trees. Mark Anthony had given the city to Cleopatra as a gift of his affection for her. Herod has his winter palace here. Jericho was at the crossroads of the major trade routes just above the Dead Sea making it one of the most lucrative cities in the region.

Roman citizens paid big bucks for the privilege of being able to levy and collect taxes on imports and exports in their city, town or region. These “tax-buyers” would then hire people to collect the taxes for them. In this arrangement, a tax buyer who had paid for the rights to charge and collect taxes would sublet the right to a chief tax collector like Zacchaeus, who in turn would hire people under him to do the actual door to door collecting. On top of that, there were three main offices for the collection of taxes throughout the region: Caesarea, Capernaum, and, you guessed it, Jericho.

Tax collectors made their money by collecting more than the tax, and there were no rules or regulations in place to make sure that this was done in a uniform or fair manner. Because of this, tax collectors had a reputation for being extortionists because of the huge sums they often collected for their own pay. Jews who were tax collectors were, in addition to being seen as extortionists were seen as traitors for serving the oppressive Roman government. Being in such a position it is no wonder that Zacchaeus was rich, and it was also no wonder that he was not well liked.

Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, but being a short man he could not. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree so he could see over the crowd. These sycamore trees lined the main road of Jericho at the time and were loved for their shade. The branches on these trees start very close to the ground, making them very easy to climb.

Despite his eagerness and even abandon in climbing into a tree to see Him, it is Jesus who initiates the conversation with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was hoping to simply see Jesus pass by, but Jesus stopped and looked up at him in the tree. “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” This was more than he had bargained for. More than he had hoped for.

So Zacchaeus came down at once and welcomed Jesus gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.'” But Zacchaeus stood up and said, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus responds saying, “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 to save what was lost.” What that last sentence really means is that Jesus was looking for the opportunity to be forgiving. He was looking for it.