To See and Be
Seen By Jesus!
Sermon for Sunday, November 4, 2007
1. Good morning! Let’s pray.
O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: Last Sunday Jesus
told us in the Gospel of Luke that a humble tax collector was preferred to a
self-righteous Pharisee in the Kingdom of God.
Well
this morning we just read about a small-in-stature tax-collector who must have
heard about this special dispensation and was about to take Jesus up on it.
But is the Gospel story primarily about Zacchaeus
and his redemption?
The reason I ask this question is that
when I read the Old Testament reading from Isaiah I heard the Lord challenge me
to come to Him and though my sins are like scarlet yet will He make them as
white as snow. But for this to happen I
must be willing to come to Him and reason with Him! I must be reasonable! Ah, back to that idea of a humble and contrite heart.
What
I heard here is a call to repentance and conversion.
And today’s Second Reading in 2
Thessalonians chapter 1 I heard St. Paul writing encouraging words to the
Christians in Thessalonica and he concluded with this prayer:
2Thess
1:11 “Therefore we
pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s
called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with
his own energy so that it all amounts to something.”
What I am hearing here is that God is speaking to His people and He’s
calling us to a deeper deeper commitment to Him. In other words, He’s calling us to a deeper conversion!
And in the Gospel we read about Jesus’
special blessing upon the tax-collector Zacchaeus and
we saw Him called to a deep conversion and those who were watching were also
being called to a deeper conversion into a Kingdom in which all are welcome –
the least and the lost and the lonely!
So,
while Zacchaeus is a most fascinating character I’m
convinced that the real focus of this reflection should be upon our deeper
conversion - it’s not easy but it is possible – and it is imperative!
Let’s begin by asking ourselves these questions:
What
I’m getting at here is our fundamental disposition to change and grow up or not
to change and to remain infantile in our faith.
It fascinates me that you could be the President of America and remain
a spiritual infant. You can be a Priest
and remain infantile in your faith. Or
you can be someone of small stature despised by the prevailing culture yet
personally chosen by our Lord to be loved and redeemed and ushered into His
Kingdom on earth!
I have to wonder about a person who calls himself a Christian and yet
gets to be say 60 years old and is still childish in his faith. I have to wonder who they have been following
all of these years?
I think that they think they have been following Jesus but in fact
they’ve been following their own construct of who they think He might be.
Could
it be possible that some people who call themselves Christians may in fact be
following a make believe Jesus and not the real one - for
the real Jesus will most certainly be calling His precious disciples to deeper
commitment to Him but those who don’t really follow Him will ignore His call to
this deeper conversion!
3.
What I’m suggesting here is that this morning
our Lord is calling you and me to a deeper commitment to Him – a deeper
conversion of our lives and He’s using a most interesting – less than likely
character - to do this and indeed He’s commending Zacchaelus’
behavior to us – to imitate – if we really want to grow in spiritual commitment
then learn from this man Zacchaeus!
Please listen now as I read from the Gospel of Luke once again but this
time I’ll be reading from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase called “The Message:”
Luke 19:1
Then Jesus entered and walked through Jericho. 2
There was a man there, his name Zacchaeus, the head
tax man and quite rich. 3 He wanted desperately to see Jesus,
Did you hear that – he was “desperate” just to see Jesus –
desperate enough to make a fool out of himself – to climb up a tree and in that
way to make himself not only able to see Jesus but also to make himself more
visible to the crowd who already hated him and would certainly despise him even
more when they saw him seeking to get the attention of this local
celebrity. This is how desperate Zacchaeus was to see Jesus!
Do you honesty think that he just wanted to “see” Jesus. Ah! I
think it was more than that!
Let’s read on . . .
but
the crowd was in his way—he was a short man and couldn’t see over the crowd.
Ah! Something was
obstructing Zachaeus’ access to Jesus – what could
that be in our lives? What
obstacles are separating us from seeing Jesus?
Are you and I desperate enough to do whatever it takes to see to Jesus but again I don’t think it was just about
“seeing” Jesus I believe that Zacchaeus wanted to
also be seen by Jesus!
Ah! He not only wanted
to see Jesus but more importantly to be seen by Jesus! And He was willing to do just about anything
even to run the risk of the disdain of the crowd.
Let’s read on:
4 So he ran
on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus when he came
by.
Luke 19:5
When Jesus got to the tree, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus,
hurry down. Today is my day to be a guest in your home.”
Wow! Did you hear
that? How did Jesus know his name? And what did Jesus do? He did the very thing that Zacchaeus wanted – Jesus recognized him!
Remember what Jesus said in the Book of Revelation:
Rev. 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my
voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he
with me.
Jesus comes to us – to the base of our tree – He knocks at
our door! Our own door! He comes to us
even when we thought we were coming to Him!
And He looks at us and calls us by name!
Jesus came to the door of Zacchaeus’
life and invited Him to come into Jesus’ life and then Jesus offered to come
into his life – forever! Ha! Did you hear that – forever!
Let’s read on:
Luke 19:6
Zacchaeus scrambled out of
the tree, hardly believing his good luck, delighted to take Jesus home with
him. 7 Everyone who saw the
incident was indignant and grumped, “What business does he have getting cozy
with this crook?”
Now listen to verse 8:
Luke 19:8
Zacchaeus just stood
there, a little stunned. He stammered apologetically, “Master, I give away half
my income to the poor—and if I’m caught cheating, I pay four times the
damages.”
Now it’s important for us to realize that Zachaeus was stating the fact that he “had already” been
giving away half of his income to the poor.
You see, the verb “give” is in the “present
tense” – it talks about what he is presently doing. It’s not in the “future” tense – that he
“will give” away half of his income to the poor. It appears that Zachaeus
was already a charitable man and may have been a “god fearing” man and when he
heard about Jesus wanted to connect with him – not just see him at a distance.
Now what was he hoping to achieve in this encounter? I can only speculate that he wanted to
continue his conversion!
So let me ask us this question – what did you do during this
last week to further your conversion to our Lord? What did you do to draw closer to your Lord?
Read a devotional book – perhaps a book on theology – perform
an act of charity out of love for Jesus and others and not out of a need to be
seen as “religious.”
What did you do in the last 7 days that was like Zachaeus’s climbing the tree?
To Zachaeus Jesus said:
Luke 19:9 “Today salvation has come to this house, because
this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was
lost.”
And so too does Jesus say this to you and to me as we lean in and seek
to see and be seen by Jesus!
Amen and Amen!
Let’s pray . . .