I can’t get that story out of my mind, because when I think of that young wife, I see this little man, Zacchaeus, his soul twisted, tormented by the pain of sin. And when I see the young husband twisting his lips to kiss his wife’s paralyzed mouth, I see our Savior, the Christ bending down, condescending to meet Zacchaeus where he lived. Is this not the Gospel story?
On a dung hill outside of Jerusalem in first century Palestine, Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, became sin that we who are sinners might become the righteousness of God through Him? He who was unblemished became mangled to meet us in our mangled condition. He exposed Himself to ridicule and was blasphemed so that we who were rightfully accursed, naked in sin and shame, could be clothed in Him and called “sons and daughters of the Most High.” He was forsaken by His Father that we, the forsaken, might be redeemed. Jesus, the Son of God, bent down to kiss humanity, and as He did, He twisted Himself to meet sinners in our twisted condition.
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This is what Martyn-Lloyd Jones called, “the romance of the Gospel” — that anyone in any situation coming out of any kind of past can be transformed and changed into a new creature in Christ. The truth is that those who curse God today may be preaching Him tomorrow. The truth is that there may be some here this morning that will leave new creatures in Christ, like Zacchaeus, changed by the compassion of a loving Savior.
Do you need His touch today? We all do! And He never withholds his love, his touch to those who cry out for Him. He always sees, welcomes, and He always changes us.
The story ends with Jesus giving an announcement: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham . . . ” Then, the Lord, pointing to the conversion of Zacchaeus as a living example, tells those gathered around that this is why the Son of Man came to earth: “to see and to save that which was lost.” So, Luke records it. So the Holy Spirit imbeds it into Divine Revelation. The Gospel of Zacchaeus is the Gospel: “He sees us, He welcomes us, and He changes us.”
Isn’t this, then, how we must present Him to others? Isn’t this the God of love who came down from heaven and put skin on and gave Himself for sinners? Should we not magnify this Savior? For when He is lifted up, He will draw searching Zacchaeus’ to Himself.
I know this firsthand. Yes, this Savior found me. I already knew about His love and grace, though I had never welcomed Him. I had never climbed up to see Him myself. I was taught as a child of His love by my father’s sister, my aunt who raised me. We lived way back in the woods in a poverty stricken area. I had no mother, and my father was dying when I was five years old.
Before his discharge, my father was a naval officer. He was the first educated person in our family, but he was also an alcoholic and a womanizer. That lifestyle had taken its toll, and he was dying. There was a little church called the Tabernacle just down the road. That little church took notice of my father’s pathetic condition. They saw him. Others saw my father as a washed up drunk, but my aunt never stopped praying for him.
