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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
All the time we may lose and find things: sunglasses, keys, cell‑phones. And, as has been in the news here recently, even people can be lost and found. (I will not go beyond casually mentioning men’s proverbial refusal to admit that they are lost.) Earlier this Church Year we heard Gospel Readings in which Jesus speaks about the joy over finding a lost sheep, a lost coin, and even a lost son (Luke 15), but today’s Gospel Reading takes that teaching to the next level. In today’s Gospel Reading Jesus, our Good Shepherd, speaks of His coming not only to seek but also to save the lost, and so we realize that, with us who repent and believe, His purpose is accomplished, with the result that we are “Sought and Saved”.
In last week’s Gospel Reading, Jesus told a parable about a tax collector who prayed for God’s mercy’s going home justified, having received the Kingdom of God humbly, like a little child, even a baby (Luke 18:9-17). Our lectionary series skips over the portions of St. Luke’s Gospel account that follow that Reading and are relevant for us today: Jesus’s saying that it is difficult for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:18-30), Jesus’s for at least a third time predicting His death and resurrection (Luke 18:31-34), and, as He drew near to Jericho, Jesus’s healing a blind man and all the witnesses’ giving praise to God (Luke 18:35-43).
In today’s Gospel Reading, a rich chief tax collector named Zacchaeus, who apparently had heard the Word about Jesus, perhaps even about Jesus’s welcoming tax collectors and their going home justified, was seeking to see Who Jesus was (confer John 12:21). When this shorter man could not see Jesus on account of the crowd, he ran on ahead and, leaving his dignity behind, climbed a tree in order to see Jesus, the way a child might climb something in order to see a favorite athlete or popular celebrity. More importantly, Jesus saw Zacchaeus, and brought salvation to Zacchaeus and his family, which salvation they received, and so they were both sought and saved. Everything appeared to happen naturally, but it was all by God’s providential plan.
By Divine inspiration, St. Luke tells us that all those who saw it grumbled about Jesus’s going in to be the guest of a man who was a sinner. Not only the Pharisees and scribes, who had been grumbling about Jesus’s eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners since Jesus had first called to be one of His disciples a tax collector named Levi (who is also known as Matthew) (Luke 5:27-32; 15:1-2), but also apparently others were grumbling this time, perhaps even including at least some of Jesus’s own followers. As followers of Jesus, you and I may see ourselves as members of that self‑righteous crowd—people who think of themselves as better than others, but, more importantly, we should see ourselves, like Zacchaeus, as among the lost, whom Jesus came to seek and to save. Among other things, Zacchaeus may have been lost in his greed and riches, and we are lost in our various sins. By nature we are “far from God, in night and darkness; shattered, broken”, and even dead, without any spiritual life at all (Lenski, ad loc Lk 19:10, 945). As Zacchaeus was not able to see Jesus, neither can we, by our own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, and sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith (Small Catechism II:6). As we sang in the Psalm (130), if the Lord marked iniquities no one could stand, but with the Lord there is forgiveness, that we may trust in Him. With the Lord is steadfast love, plentiful redemption, and He truly redeems us from all our iniquities, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. God’s love for us caused the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity to take into Himself a human nature (confer Pieper, II:99 n.89) and come not only into the world as the man Jesus but also come to Jerusalem in order to die on the cross and rise from the grave—for Zacchaeus’s sins, for your and my sins, and for the sins of the whole world. He, Who as God knew who Zacchaeus was, also was a human being, who needed a place to stay (Luke 9:58; 10:38). At this last reported stop in St. Luke’s account, only days from Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, Jesus brought salvation to Zacchaeus’s house and family, in all likelihood thinking about His own death and resurrection, which were necessary for that salvation and, at that time, only days away (Arndt, ad loc Lk 19:10, 390). Zacchaeus received Jesus and that salvation joyfully, gladly welcoming Jesus into his home. With repentance and faith, Zacchaeus followed his ancestor Abraham (Romans 4:12), and, with repentance and faith, you and I are also children of Abraham. As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 1:10-18), though our sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
There is a tradition that once he was sought and saved, Zacchaeus became a companion of St. Peter’s and eventually bishop of Caesarea (Arndt, ad loc Lk 19:1, 388), but we know for sure that Zacchaeus and his family at least were saved (confer John 4:53; Acts 11:14; etc.). Jesus called Zacchaeus by name and was present with him and his family, speaking His Word, eating and drinking, giving them forgiveness. In Holy Baptism, God calls us by name, even babies, and puts His Name upon us. In individual Holy Absolution, God through the pastor forgives the sins of those who privately confess. And, in Holy Communion, Jesus is present with us, as we eat His Body with bread and drink His Blood with wine, giving us forgiveness, and so also life and salvation. Today Jesus is here, in this house of God, with His salvation, for you and for me, and we, with repentance and faith, receive Him and His salvation joyfully.
In last week’s Gospel Reading, we heard the Pharisee in the parable pray to God about the things the he did—fasting twice a week, giving tithes of all that he got—as if those things somehow earned the Pharisee God’s favor (Luke 18:11-12). In this week’s Gospel Reading, Zacchaeus’s thank‑offering of half of his goods given to the poor and his restoring to those whom he had defrauded more than the law in some cases required (Exodus 22:1; Numbers 5:6-7) do not earn Zacchaeus forgiveness, but his thank‑offering and restitution, which come after Jesus had brought him and he had received salvation, are the fruits and evidence of his faith. Likewise you and I make thank‑offerings of what God gives us and restitution of our wrongs, as we are able. Zacchaeus did not need to leave his vocation as tax collector but rather collect only what he was authorized to collect (Luke 3:12-13). Likewise you and I, with repentance and faith, live holy lives in the vocations God has given us. Even as we suffer on account of faith in Jesus, like those in Thessalonica, whom Paul addressed in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 11-12), the persecutions and afflictions that we endure are evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that we may be considered worthy of His Kingdom, which we already now have entered and possess, even though we have yet to experience it fully.
Those of us who navigate our way with some sort of G‑P-S (global positioning systems) may be especially reluctant ever to admit that we are lost, though spiritually, apart from God’s action, we all are lost. But, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He brings us and enables us to receive salvation, and so, by His mercy and grace, we, with repentance and faith, truly are “Sought and Saved”, both now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +