He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd; because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down for I must stay at your house today." So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it they all murmured; "He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord; "Behold; Lord; the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold." And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost."

One day I went to a parade in which the President of the United States was a participant. When it came time for him to advance along the parade route in front of us, the people grew restless and began to inch forward for a better view. Older people who had grown weary in their waiting perked up and displayed signs of renewed energy. Parents hoisted their small children high in the air to give them a better view. The man whom everyone wanted to see was coming, and the people were preparing to see him.

That’s the picture we have of Zacchaeus in this beautiful story in Luke’s Gospel. He had heard about Jesus of Nazareth and what he was doing, and he wanted to get a good look at him. Furthermore, he was caught up in the excitement of the event and the spirit of the people. The only problem was that he was a small man, and he could not see over the heads of other interested and curious people. He solved the problem by racing ahead and climbing a tree. This assured him an opportunity to see the distinguished guest from Nazareth.

Jesus came and stopped under the tree in which Zacchaeus was perched. A strange silence filled the air. This "City of Palms" seemed to grind to a halt. Even the world-famous balsam groves which sent off their fragrance for miles around seemed to lend a listening ear. Jesus had stopped under the tree that Zacchaeus had climbed and appeared ready to speak to him.

What the People Expected

The people knew that at long last this crooked tax collector was going to get a part of what he deserved. He was going to get the verbal tongue lashing of his life. He was going to be exposed for all the wrong that he had done and the grief that he had brought upon the people whom he had been robbing for years. The people knew Zacchaeus was a first-class shyster. For years he had been taking their money. Some he gave to the Roman government, and some he kept for himself. He was the scum of the earth who had teamed up with the Romans to tax his own countrymen out of their hard-earned money and goods. Frederick Buechner calls him "a Jewish legman for the Roman I.R.S."

Most of the people who witnessed this strange meeting of Zacchaeus and Jesus had had some contact with the tax collector. On occasion most of them had begged him for mercy and understanding, but he always had a deaf ear to them. His heart was made of steel, and his eyes were fixed on profits. He was not bad by nature hut by cunning skill. Be had learned through the years how to eke out more and more money from his people so he could line his own coffers.

Many times the people had wanted to tell him what they thought of him and put him in his place, but since he was backed by the Roman government, it was best not to make trouble for him. So they had swallowed their feelings and bottled up their anger for years. Some of them had sleepless nights dreaming of a day of revenge. In the minds of thise who watched, Zacchaeus was pickled in venom.

Now Jesus was going to do for them what they had not been able to do for themselves. He was not afraid of the Romans, and he saw right through Zacchaeus. He was not fooled, and he had the courage to tell things the way he saw them. There was fire as well as compassion in his eyes. Some people had heard him call the Pharisees a brood of vipers. Reportedly, he had even called one of his best friends "satan." He was known for telling it like it. was, and now he was going to humiliate this tax collector who had caused such pain.

Hushed, they listened for the first words of Jesus. Isaiah had said, "Behold, your God will come with vengeance" (Isaiah 35:4), and his prophecy was about to come true. They were glad, very glad, to witness it.

What the People Got

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today." (Luke 19:5)

It is a gross and exaggerated statement to say that the people did not hear what they wanted to hear. All ready and primed to witness a blast of hostility, they heard instead an invitation for lunch. Prepared to witness the heat of anger, they heard the warmth of love. The verbal execution they had anticipated gave way to the voice of clemency. What the people expected was not what they got!

Perhaps Zacchaeus was as surprised as any of the onlookers because he knew his own life. He knew what he was, and he did not deserve to stand or sit or eat in the presence of the righteous. He was not stupid, and the attitude of Jesus surprised him as much as it surprised any of the people who watched. As the victims of his greed watched in shock and horror, Zacchaeus came down from the tree and went to his house to break bread with this dignitary from Nazareth.

When the confused and frustrated onlookers regained their composure, they cried out to Jesus to make sure that he knew the nature of the beast he was befriending. Thinking he may have been momentarily confused, they reminded him again that this man was a sinner. Their words seemed to come apart in the air, and they had no effect on Jesus. The disappointed people watched as their hero went off to have lunch with their enemy. Their dream for vengeance became a nightmare.

Some of them stood around in small groups looking down at their feet and making designs in the sand while trying to put it all together. Efforts to explain the behavior of Jesus varied widely. Some thought that Jesus was kind to Zacchaeus because he saw in him the same serious doubts that he had seen in his disciple, Thomas. One of the zealots in the crowd even suggested that Jesus was encouraged when he saw Zacchaeus because he recognized in him the same strength that he had seen in his disciples, James and John. Still others continued to believe that Jesus was totally confused and had acted irrationally.

Conversations followed many different courses of logic, but nobody seemed to be able to put it all together. They talked about it for weeks and months. It was an experience so etched upon their lives that it was preserved as one of the tales that had to be told when the story of Jesus’ life was written. But one thing was obvious to all. They had expected to see the crusty, old tax-collector rejected in hostility, and they had actually seen him accepted in love. How that could be remained a mystery.

The Mystery

One of William Cowper’s hymns begins, "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." That’s one of the lessons which can be learned from this passage of Scripture. Many novelists are writing about the mystery of God and its effect upon us. It is good to try to hear them. Will Barrett is the main character of Walker Percy’s novel, The Second Coming, and throughout the book Will struggles to "nail down" God. He finds it impossible to live with a God who is a mystery, a God who may speak or remain silent, a God who may appear obvious on one occasion and completely hidden on another. This kind of God, who is beyond his control and slightly out of his reach, is not acceptable to him. This God is too unpredictable.

Will Barrett decides to put God to the test. He plans to force a showdown by going to a cave and giving God one last opportunity to speak to him. If God speaks, Will will be satisfied and will go on living. If God remains silent, however, Will plans to remain in the cave and die by his own neglect, and that will be the end of his life. Either way, the mystery that has veiled his God will be stripped away, and Will Barrett won’t have to live with it.

The reader can feel what is happening. We live in Will Barrett’s time, and we to are supposed to know the answers to the riddles of life. Mystery is frowned upon. It causes people to feel incomplete. Every day millions and millions of dollars are being spent to find answers. Computers are spitting out answers faster than we can ask questions. Test tubes are running over with answers. Sociologists can tell us how many people are going to move in a certain zone of the city in the next decade, and the wizards of Madison Avenue have perfected psychosuggestion to the place where you and I wonder if we are still in control of our lives. Mysteries are being solved, and answers are being given. We live in the answer age.

Why shouldn’t Will Barrett expect to have answers and information about God? Why shouldn’t I expect to have them? Why should I choose to live with a mysterious God? Faced with these haunting questions, it’s easy to slip into the place where we think we should have all the answers and then go one step further and think that we’ve got them.

The number of people who claim to be on a first-name basis with God and who treat God, the creator, like a home-town friend is amazing. These people appear to have no questions about who are good and who are bad, who are right and who are wrong, who are saved and who are not saved, who are going to heaven and who are not. To them, God is completely predictable!

That’s exactly where the people were in this biblical story of the chance meeting of Jesus and Zacchaeus. They thought they knew what was going to happen. They were convinced that they had this itinerant preacher "pegged;" there was no mystery. When they saw what happened and realized they did not know Jesus nearly as well as they thought they knew him, they were devastated.

"God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." To know God is to realize and appreciate that mystery. There is a necessary gap between the creator and the created. There is no way to diagram God’s love and mercy. God is beyond us. Embrace the mystery, and live in the joy of knowing that God is able to do far more than we ever ask or think.

Robert Raines says it beautifully:

"Lo, I tell you a mystery
but the mystery is larger
than the telling
it eludes our boundaries
it escapes our
taming
and
naming
hove the mystery.2

Once you and I claim to have full knowledge of God and the ability to predict God’s actions, we have fallen victim to one of the oldest temptations. No, we have fallen victim to the oldest temptation: trying to trade places with God. That’s what our oldest brother and sister did ... in the beginning.