Ep. 257. Luke 19 | Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man

EPISODE 257

ZACCHAEUS WAS A WEE LITTLE MAN: LUKE 19

It is funny how we think about the Bible as kids. The story of Zacchaeus was one of my absolute favorites. Back then, I would have never guessed that it was only ten verses long. Of course, as a kid, I paid much more attention to the fact he was a short man, and I always thought the image of him up in the tree was hilarious. But I didn't catch the phrase's significance until I was much older: "he also is a son of Abraham." You remember, of course, the woman in Luke 13 bent in half by a spirit and how Jesus referred to her as a "daughter of Abraham." Or again, in John 8, where Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are not children of Abraham. We know that Paul proclaims in Galatians that only those who are people of faith belong to the line of Abraham, even if you could have traced your family tree back to the father of faith himself. What that simple phrase, "he also is a son of Abraham," tells us about Zacchaeus is that he put his faith in Jesus, and I think that's amazing.

In the next section of our reading today, we see that the Jews "Supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately." This explains why they celebrate and proclaim, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" It wasn't that they put faith in Jesus, though certainly some of them must have, but more so they believed that Jesus was about to establish a physical earthly kingdom. It must have been a shock when, over the next few days, he preached about the Kingdom being taken away from them and given to people who would bear the fruit of it. It must have further been a shock when he was put to death. As the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 53, "Who would consider that he would be cut off from the land of the living?" The people weren't expecting a Savior who would come to die; they were expecting a Savior who would come with a sword. But of course these things were hidden from their eyes so that Christ would be crucified. Jesus says, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes." And, "You did not know the time of your visitation."

ADDITIONAL READING: Luke 15:1-2; Galatians 3:7; Isaiah 56:7; Jeremiah 7:11