“Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.”

(Luke 19:5)

Zacchaeus was a man who suffered from a bad reputation. Three adjectives are used in the gospel story to describe him: chief, rich, little.

He was chief publican at prosperous Jericho. The publicans were tax collectors, and Zacchaeus was the top organization man in the local tax collecting office. He was a Jew who had taken a job with the hated conquerors. Zacchaeus turned his back on his own people and the only name his fellow citizens knew to give him was “traitor.”

The second word to describe Zacchaeus is “rich.” Evidently, he had not only climbed up the ladder of success with his Roman masters; he had done well by himself en route. He was wealthy. The prevailing sin of most tax collectors was extortion. If, by fraud and extortion, the chief publican of Jericho had amassed a fortune, he would be in double disrepute with his fellow citizens. He had not only deserted his country for Rome; he had defrauded his fellow countrymen to satisfy his own greed.

The third word to describe Zacchaeus is “little.” He was short of stature. When the crowd gathered in the streets of Jericho to see the fabled teacher and healer from Galilee, as he passed through on his way to Jerusalem, Zacchaeus was too short to see over the heads of the crowd. His curiosity drove him to run ahead and climb a tree. Arthur John Gossip speaks of Zacchaeus as “a man of small stature and small reputation, wistfully peering down through the leaves of the sycamore tree at Jesus.”

Most people who sell their souls and bargain away their good names come at long last to a place of despairing loneliness. What good to Zacchaeus his success if in the eyes of all it was only the badge of his shame? What profit to him his wealth if no man was so mean as to stoop to enjoy it with him? There in all the lush, semi-tropical loveliness of Jericho, its shops packed with the luxuries of the world and his pockets filled with the cash to purchase, Zacchaeus heart was sad. “His was the wretchedness of a man estranged from his high inheritance, from God, and from himself. Nothing much was left for him now but the futile attempt, day after dreary day, somehow to make up, with all he could lay his hands upon, for what seemed so irretrievably lost — peace, dignity, and self-respect.” (Interpreters Bible)

“The mind,” says Milton, “is it own place,

and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

For Zacchaeus, Jericho was no Eden. It was a desolate wilderness.

Then Jesus came one day to Jericho . . . So the story of Zacchaeus, which is a story about a man suffering from a bad reputation, is not the account of how he perished in despair and loneliness, but rather of how he was saved. And the saving was all a simple exercise in giving.

It began by Jesus giving to this despised outcast his spontaneous friendship. Seeing the face of this small man of small reputation peering down at him through the branches of the sycamore tree, Jesus suddenly said: “Zacchaeus, hurry. Come down. I’m going to be your guest in your house today.”

Of all the people in Jericho for Jesus to pick out — He singles out the most cordially hated man! Someone will say: “Zacchaeus didn’t deserve to have any friends. Hadn’t the chief publican spent his life doing everything to alienate his friends and outrage the convictions of his fellow countrymen? He was alone and lonely, but had he not deliberately chosen that road?”

Yes, but always the glory of Jesus Christ’s coming to men is that He never seeks out the worthy. For whom could He ever find to offer His friendship if He searched until He found one worthy of it? “All we like sheep have gone astray.” All are sinners. One man differs from another only in the degree and particulars of his sin. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus Christ doesn’t even demand the show of some sign of improvement before He gives His friendship. To the mangled body of the drunken driver on the operating table, the surgeon does not deliver a lecture on safety in driving and the virtues of sobriety, and watch for reactions. He operates.

The man sinking beneath the surface of his own and society’s sins needs no lecture on morality. He needs a savior.

“When first I knew thee,” sighs the grateful Augustine, in his “Confessions,” “thou didst raise me up, that I might see there was somewhat for me to see, though as yet I was not fit to see it.”

So, to the unworthy Zacchaeus, the outcast with a bad reputation, Jesus goes promptly with the gift of His friendship. Here was a man starved for human companionship and Jesus gives him what he needs most of all.

But even more strange — Jesus offers His friendship in such a way as not to pauperize Zacchaeus. He doesn’t say: “Cheer up, poor beggar, I’ll buy you your dinner.” That would be benevolent, but patronizing. Jesus’ understanding of Zacchaeus’ need and our common human need goes deeper. He said: “Come. I will be a guest in your house today, Zacchaeus. I need you. I’m offering you my friendship, but I want yours, too.”

Dr. Ralph Sockman, whose radio ministry has been a blessing to all of us and millions more, has said that “our deepest need is the need to feel we are needed.”

To Zacchaeus, the outcast, the man who made money his god and became traitor to his people and by dishonest extortion impoverished them, to him, Jesus said: “I need you. I want your friendship. I’m inviting myself to come to your house today.”

The first step in overcoming a bad reputation and an evil past is the Savior’s coming to the unworthy, giving His friendship, and assuring the unworthy of His need of him.

The second step in overcoming a bad reputation is also an exercise in giving — Zacchaeus gave his heart to Jesus. Lloyd C. Douglas in The Mirror, explains the transformation which took place in Zacchaeus by this exchange of conversation: “Zacchaeus,” said the carpenter gently, “what did you see that made you desire this peace?” “Good Master, I saw — mirrored in your eyes — the face of the Zacchaeus I was meant to be.”

Students of the Hebrew tell us that the name Zacchaeus means “the pure one, the righteous, the just one.” With such hopes, his parents had named their son long ago. Now in the eyes of Jesus he begins to behold what God intended him to be and what he may become and ought to be by God’s grace.

The huge Negro freight handler was a marvel to all his friends, and indeed to himself. For he had been a notorious devil of a brawler. Then, once in a drunken fight, he had been stabbed, mortally wounded. Still, in a pool of blood he lay. It seemed his rioting was done forever. The police picked him up for dead and were carting him off to the morgue, when miraculously he revived. From that moment, he was a changed man. He veritably believed the old man had died and a new man had come to life. He was changed from the inside out. All his habits were completely cleansed. Now when asked: “Big Slim, how does it happen that you don’t drink and fight anymore, but always go to church and have love in your heart? How does it happen?” He always replies: “I’se blessed. I’se blessed.”

From Zacchaeus, there comes the proof of the miraculous change that has come to him: “I give half of my property to the poor. If I have swindled anyone out of anything, I will pay him back four times as much.”

Genuine repentance always shows itself in a willingness to make restitution for wrongs done. The sinner, having received the blessing of forgiveness and new life, becomes a blessing to the world for Christ’s sake. When we give our hearts to Christ, the moral change in our lives is so clear and unmistakable that the world knows we have been blessed.

But there is a third step in this business of overcoming a bad reputation. It also is an exercise in giving. Jesus gives his friendship to Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus gives his heart to Jesus, and then Jesus gives Zacchaeus back to the fellowship of God’s people in that place for continuing and perfecting His work of saving grace. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the last words in this little gospel incident are spoken not to Zacchaeus, but to those citizens of Jericho who thought of themselves as God’s people. To them Jesus said: “Zacchaeus is a descendant of Abraham as much as you are, and it is the lost that the Son of man came to seek and to save.”

Reputation concerns not only the sinner and his God. It also concerns other people, especially those among whom the sinner has earned a bad name. Without their forgiveness, acceptance, and healing help in restoration to fellowship, the miracle of grace cannot be completed.

So Jesus says to the Jerichoites: “Take back into the fold this penitent. He’s just as much a son of Abraham as any of you. My mission is to seek and to save the lost. When through faith in Me, accepting My friendship and returning it, anyone of My wandering sheep is brought back into the fold, you accept him as I accepted you, when you and they were yet sinners. Now that they are penitent and cleansed and eager to live the new life, you take them in.

“I’m going on now to Jerusalem, and to the cross. Zacchaeus, the sinner, the outcast who did such wrong and suffered so long, is now sorry and ready to make restitution. You let him do that, and help him with it. I’m counting on you.”

And those people of Jericho — who beheld the wonder of wonders — a spiritual rebirth — the transformation of a man before their eyes — did they further and complete the Savior’s redeeming work in Zacchaeus, or did they short-circuit the whole business by their unforgiving rejection? I wonder.

And what about us and the ministry of reconciliation our Lord has committed to us?