Jesus’ voice rang out. It was meant for more than just the little man in the tree to hear. “Zacchaeus! Right now! Get down from there. I’m going to be staying at your house today.”
Moments before this, the air had been full of hoots and catcalls aimed at that hyena, Zacchaeus, sitting up in a tree like some twelve-year-old street urchin[1]. That all faded quickly away as the people in the raucous crowd began to realize what Jesus had just said. After a brief moment, the stunned silence of the crowd was replaced by a low angry murmuring. The people of Jericho were not pleased. Jericho’s happy excitement at having this young rabbi-healer in their town had evaporated. Now, the anger was aimed not at Zacchaeus but at Jesus. “Does Jesus not realize who this man is? No decent person would ever deign to enter that man’s house, much less stay there. Is this Jesus really that oblivious? Does he not know who this man is, what harm this man does to our community? Or maybe this Jesus fellow isn’t a decent person after all.”
It’s important to recognize that Jesus’ actions as much as his words are intended to reveal God to us. The gospel writers understood that which is why they not only report his words but also describe his actions. Luke’s presentation of this encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus is a good example of that. As Luke presents the event, he reports only two things that Jesus says here. First, breaking with both ancient and modern-day etiquette, Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house for dinner and a night’s lodging for himself and his disciples, bold and maybe a little rude. Second, Jesus gives us a theological commentary on Zacchaeus’s seemingly unsolicited repentance. What did he say in between those two statements by Jesus? We don’t know.
Surely there was dinner conversation between Jesus and Zacchaeus, but Luke doesn’t tell us what it was. He doesn’t ever hint at it. I’m not sure why, but for some reason, Luke didn’t think that dinner conversation was the important part. And who am I to argue with St. Luke.
As we read Luke (and the other gospels too), we need to keep in mind that the gospel writers were not just stringing random stories together willy-nilly. Their aim was to lay out a theologically true picture of who Jesus was and is and what he was and is doing. A story like this one about Zacchaeus was not meant to be read in isolation by itself. It can only be understood in light of what has already been laid out by the gospel writer. Luke means for us to make a connection here between this story of Jesus’ calling Zacchaeus down from that humiliating tree and some things that Jesus said in the chapters leading up to this.
In chapter 15 of his gospel, Luke records a set of teachings by Jesus about the recovery of lost things—a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. All could be applied to what happened to Zacchaeus, but the lost sheep is an especially nice fit. We are inclined, I think, to visualize this “lost sheep” as a poor, pathetic little lamb that got separated from the flock through no fault of its own. But that isn’t what real human lostness looks like. Biblical lostness looks like Zacchaeus, a vicious, hardhearted, selfish predator. That’s what the lost sheep of Luke 15:3-7 looks like. The lost sheep looks like a nasty human being. That’s who the Good Shepherd has come to save. As Jesus himself says explicitly, he didn’t come to save good people, nice people. Jesus says he came to save sinners, vicious, dirty, nasty, evil-doing sinners. People like Zacchaeus—and like you and me.
There is something about the grace of Jesus, the undeserved embrace and acceptance of Jesus that has the power to break hard hearts. It is a kind of sledgehammer power of kindness, of mercy, of acceptance. Zacchaeus had received nothing but anger, rejection, and abuse from his neighbors. He likely deserved that anger, rejection, and abuse that he received from his neighbors. But the point is, anger, rejection, and abuse do not change hard hearts. Only the kindness, mercy, and acceptance of grace can do that.
There was certainly some sort of preparatory Holy Spirit work being done in Zacchaeus. The desperation to see Jesus that he showed by undignified running down the street and climbing a tree demonstrates that. But it was the assertive graciousness of Jesus that broke his hard heart. It was the words of acceptance from Jesus that did the work. Jesus calls him by name, “Zacchaeus! Yes, that’s right. I know you by name. This is no mistake, Zacchaeus. I know who you are. I know exactly what I’m doing. You, Zacchaeus, chief tax collector of Jericho, chief abuser of your neighbors—You, Zacchaeus, are going to be my host tonight. You, out of all the good people of Jericho, are going to receive me into your home.”
This is the nature of the gospel of Jesus. Its power is not in force or coercion. The transforming power of the gospel of the crucified, foot-washing, “gentle and lowly”(Matt. 11:29) Lord is in his assertive, initiating, gracious love—a love that we receive not because we deserve it but because we need it.
I don’t say that the dinner conversation between Jesus and Zacchaeus was unimportant. But Luke didn’t think that it was the key to understanding what happened there in Zacchaeus’s heart. It was the gracious acceptance of a wretched sinner that started the transformation. It was the fact that the Good Shepherd came in search of this vicious sinner that broke the heart and then began to remake it.
The true brokenness of Zacchaeus’s heart and the reality of Jesus’ work of remaking it are seen in Zacchaeus’s act of repentance which he shows in the reordering of his life in Luke 19:8. Here again, Luke has prepared the way for us. If we look in the previous chapter, Luke 18, we see a contrasting story.
There in chapter 18 verse 18, Luke tells us that a certain rich, young man approached and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” After a little conversation, we learn that this rich, young man is a scrupulous keeper of the Law. He is, in other words, a good and righteous young man. In that sense, he is pretty much the exact opposite of Zacchaeus, except for the “rich” part—they were the same in that way.
In a certain sense, Jesus offers this rich, young man a version of his gracious embrace that is similar to what he offers to Zacchaeus. Jesus tells the rich, young man that he is welcome to come and join him and his disciples. Oh, well, there is just one small thing.
Jesus says, “There is just one thing. With me, there’s only room for one lord. So, you should leave your other lords behind. After all, you won’t need those other lords when you’re with me.”
“What other ‘lords’ are you talking about, Jesus?” the rich, young man asked.
“Your money. That’s been your lord up till now. Leave that lord behind. You don’t need it. And come along with me.”
Well, we all know how that story ends. The rich, young man loves his Lord Money more than he loves Lord Jesus. So, he leaves Lord Jesus behind and goes off of his own accord with his Lord Money instead.
Zacchaeus is presented with the same choice, but he chooses differently. ““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.” (Luke 19:8 NIV) Of course, if Zacchaeus does what he publicly says he’s going to do, it’s impossible to calculate exactly how much Zacchaeus will have left. But it’s very possible that he won’t have very much at all.
One important point to understand is that when Zacchaeus makes this announcement he himself can’t know how much will be left when it’s all done. He has to know that he is potentially putting everything he has at risk. He already knows that he will divest himself of half his assets before any other claims are lodged against him. Then with the remaining half he intends to restore four-fold to any who bring a claim that he defrauded them.[2] You can imagine what happened when word got out to the rest of the region that Zacchaeus had made a public promise of a four-fold restoration for any fraudulent tax collections. There would have been a very long line of people at his door the next morning, people seeking this generous act of making things right from Zacchaeus.
But apparently, Lord Money was no longer the lord Zacchaeus was serving. He had a new Lord, a Lord whose way was grace, generosity, and care for the vulnerable and broken. Zacchaeus had experienced that grace and kindness from his new Lord. Now, he was going to live by it in his own life.
This really is a profound example of the rescuing and transforming power of grace. In the case of Zacchaeus, we see what Jesus has come to do. He has come to make a new creation. He has come to transform a world of violence, abuse, predation, and sin, a world where Self is lord and where others are to be preyed upon. He has come to make you and me new creatures: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17) On the cross, Jesus killed sin in all its viciousness and so opened a new way of rescue for lost sheep like you and me . . . and Zacchaeus.
© 2025 Gary A. Chorpenning
Photos by GAC
Related posts:
Bible Note #57: Zacchaeus #1–The Real Zacchaeus and That Terrible Children’s Song
Bible Note#58: Zacchaeus #2–Some Background
Bible Note #59: Zacchaeus #3–Tax Collecting in Roman Palestine
Bible Note #60: Zacchaeus #4–Getting into the Story–Jesus Make a Lot of People Mad
Bible Note #61: Zacchaeus #5–Why Would Such a Man Want to See Jesus?
[1] Kenneth Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008, pages 178-179.
[2] This “four-fold” restoration is an Old Testament legal pattern for restitution in cases of fraud and theft. See Exodus 22:1 and especially look at 2 Samuel 12:6!
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