This is what one writer thought happened to people like Zacchaeus in the New Testament: “By accepting them as friends and equals Jesus had taken away their shame, humiliation, and guilt. By showing them that they mattered to him as people, he gave them a sense of dignity and released them from their old captivity. The physical contact which he must have had with them at the table . . . must have made them feel clean and acceptable.” 3
Throughout His brief but powerful public ministry, our Lord’s love and compassion for the lost moved Him to touch others. Indeed, He healed by touching, by coming alongside, by lifting up. One of the most powerful forms of ministry that chaplains practice is called “the ministry of presence.” The ministry of presence is being there in the places where people live and move and have their being. It’s a ministry that seeks to imitate the ministry of Jesus. And when our presence is hidden in Christ and His love and grace, it changes the lives of those who are seeking.
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Zacchaeus was a changed man. It says in verse 8 that we see the fruit of this man’s faith. This sinful man tells Christ that he shall give half of his goods to the poor and pay back four times what he would have stolen. Some might see here a contradiction in grace and law, but there is none. Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9: “by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of works.” Our salvation is all of grace. But James 2:20 tells us “faith without works is dead.” What we are witnessing in this passage is the fruit of faith. Works do not save us, but a transformed heart will begin to produce abundant fruit. A life cradled and loved by the Master will begin to change for the better.
Dr. Richard Selzer, MD wrote a book called Mortal Lessons,4 about what he has learned from dealing with people in the worst of situations. He wrote about one incident that I couldn’t get out of my mind. He said that he had to remove a tumor from a young woman’s face. In the process, Dr. Selzer was forced to remove a tiny twig of the facial nerve, to save the woman’s life. But, the procedure left her mouth twisted in a palsy. She asked the surgeon, “Will my mouth always be like this?” “Yes” Dr. Selzer replied. “The nerve was cut.”
She nodded and was silent. But her husband, whose eyes never left his wife, smiled at that moment. “I like it,” he said, “It’s kind of cute.” Dr. Selzer said that he watched with wonder as the husband bent down to kiss his wife. He twisted his own lips to accommodate hers, to show her that their kiss would still work.