Text: Lk. 19:1-10
4/30/95. 6 pm.
Inchon-harbor mission
Introduction
We have a story about Jesus' meeting with a man Zacchaeus who lives in the city of Jericho. This city is a significant one in the scripture. It was noted for its palms; but it was also notorious for its snakes. We know Jesus' parable, namely story of a good Samaritan comes from after this city. The story of a good Samaritan goes like followings: A man was beaten by a robber and almost put to death. The priest and Levite passed carelessly. But a Samaritan took a good care. There were exploiters and exploited, cold clerics and pious men of God. We see that the heavenly and the hellish were closely interwoven in this city.
Like Jericho we can see that a harbour city Inchon is a gateway to the world. It is a transfer point for commerce. Many people with the mind of seeking something materially valuable come and go as ships come and go. Many smugglers, drug traffickers, fugitives, and sailors come and go. But this city is also the gateway to the heaven. The first protestant missionaries from America put their first steps at this harbour. General Mac Arthur, who led his armies to regain the lost Seoul from the communists' armies of North Korea, mobilized his forces overwhelmingly from the gate of this city and saved our country. Yes, like in Jerico the heavenly and hellish are interwoven closly in this city.
Certainly, you are situated in such a peculiar feature of this city. You have two gateways which run the opposite directions. One is the gateway for the world. The other one is the gateway for the heaven. Those gateways are wide open for you all to enter, but you must choose one way or the other. You can choose habitually and sensuously the gateway for the world without paying attention to the other one carefully, that is the gateway for the heaven. This afternoon I want to help you to decide and choose a right one so that you can experience the most important moment in your life. For doing that I want to introduce a man, Zaccheus, who like you all was a true seeker and chose the right one. Looking at his case carefully we can compare with our cases and get some helps to have the idea about features in a true seeker.
1. Zaccheus was a sensible man about his own identity
We may say that he had paid no attention except making money by all means and gaining some power with that money. So, he became a tax collector by his own will. Nobody did urge him to have such a hateful job in the mind of his fellow country men and women because he had to exploit his own fellas for appeasing the Roman authority and for his greed for money. But after long journey of hateful job and success, he certainly felt that such kind of worldly success without honor from others and devotion to God couldn't make him happy and satisfactory. Thus, he began the new journey of seeking a true life's meaning which might give him true satisfaction and happiness. The human experience tells us an important lesson that the most of human being try to find the life's meaning by identifying himself with a heroic person.
2. Zaccheus was an attentive person
We hear in the story that by grace God gave him a chance to find answer for his new quest. He heard the news about Jesus from Nazareth. Many fellow tax-collectors report Zaccheus their own experience with Jesus, and others their experience of encountering with Jesus and solving many problems with him. He may hear how a fellow tax-collector, Matthew, follows Jesus and how Jesus treat Matthew in return. He may hear directly from Matthew how Matthew himself was changed after meeting Jesus. He may hear how Jesus treats many people who are despised, alienated, suffered from illness, economic hardships, broken families, loneliness, discrimination, and even demon-possessions. He heard that Jesus was a real friend of sinners and sufferers. I think that is the reason that stirs his interest in seeing Jesus with his own eyes. That kind of interest is enough to cause the psychological chain of reaction. Interest leads desire, desire leads hope, hope leads risk, risk leads courage, courage leads action, and finally action leads fulfillment. Yes, the news about Jesus that you've just heard from me is genuine and trustworthy. If you meet Jesus personally in this afternoon like Zaccheus, you surely find peace, meaning, a real friend, and even more the everlasting life passed from death as a child of God.
3. Zaccheus was a courageous person about himself
Another human experience tells us that when it's a matter of life and death, all men and women forget who they are. You may experience such a thing directly or indirectly, for example, the fire in a hotel, terror, bomb-explosion sight, earthquake at Koebe of Japan, storms at the sea. The director of tax-collectors in that city, forgets his stature as the director so that he climbs up a tree on the street to see who Jesus is. He didn't calculate the shameful consequences by such a disgraceful act. He didn't care about the loss of reputation and authority as the director or about the cursing from other fellas. To Zaccheus it's a matter of life and death and thus nothing bothers him in his attempt to see Jesus. I claim this afternoon that to meet Jesus sometime in your life, particularly when it's available like your special situation, is a matter of death and life, because Jesus proclaimed that "I am the way, truth, and life" and "who hears my word and believes has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."
4. Zaccheus was an obedient person
Jesus knows where Zaccheus is, who he is, and what his motive in his deepest seat of heart. Jesus never met Zaccheus before, and there are crowds and noise around him. Normally Jesus couldn't see anything but the crowds who push others with on the tip-toe to touch him, hear him, ask him favor for their various kind of troubles in life. There is no way to look up the tree to see something there. Zaccheus wasn't in centre stage of this scene but outside the stage as a spectator. But Jesus cannot miss the critical moment in Zaccheus life. If Jesus passes by this scene without attention, then the grace of God may pass by forever. Jesus stops where he can see Zaccheus eye to eye, looks up and find his eyes. When Zaccheus' eyes were found, he saw the radiant power and love in Jesus' eyes. Jesus asks him come down from the tree, and Zaccheus obeys immediately and welcomes him gladly. Oh, this afternoon, listen this story, and if you feel the eyes of Jesus which starring at the deepest seat of heart with the Spirit and hear his order "come down to me," then don't hesitate but come to him fast and welcome him gladly.
5. Zaccheus was a repentant but saved sinner.
Welcoming Jesus in his life Zaccheus manifests that he is repenting his past wrong doings such as greed, exploiting, cruelty of no attention to other's problem. Jesus claims that repenting nets salvation from sin and deliverance from the power of sin, habits, every kind of vice, evil thought, sensuous desire, hate, and jealousy. Zaccheus heart is cleaned, and God pours into his cleansed heart with joy, peace, gratitude, love and compassion. Zaccheus before meeting Jesus was a sinner, despised, rejected from his fellow country men and women and from God's grace and power, but now he became a new creature with a promise that "this man too is a son of Abraham"--this means he is adopted in the family of God as his child. Yes, Jesus, the Son of man has come to seek and save the lost. Jesus is, first, the true seeker of sinners and the lost. Then, in return, you should be a true seeker for the true seeker. Who among you wants to be a true seeker? Like Zaccheus, let him come to Jesus, the true seeker.