“Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through the city. And a rich man named Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, was trying to see who Jesus was; but he could not because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. He ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was to pass that way. 

When Jesus reached that spot, He looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” Zacchaeus came down quickly and welcomed Him joyfully. When they saw this, they all grumbled, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner!” But Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said to Him, “Look, Lord, I will give half of my possessions to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, for he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”^[1]

The Lord Jesus came in human form to proclaim the truth to the world. He entered Jericho to seek out the lost. Jesus is today in the midst of those who gather in His Name in purity, even if only two or three people are gathered. People look at what meets the eye, but the Lord looks at what is in our hearts. He reveals our thoughts.

The Lord Jesus was passing through Jericho for the last time. Each of us must reflect on the fact that our days on earth are fleeting, and therefore we must make the most of the day when the Lord Jesus passes through our lives. Our lives hang by a thread—that is how fleeting we are.

Jesus came into the world so that those who believed in Him might receive forgiveness in His Name. Unfortunately, very few chose to heed His words. No one has ever been able to proclaim the Word better than He did, yet few were led to repentance. Even though, when the Lord passed through Jericho, there were many people there jostling Him, the Lord knew Zacchaeus by name, knew his heart, and went straight to him. The Lord comes even for just one soul who recognizes his sinful state. What are the things we seek today? Both our money and our careers are fleeting; everything we currently possess will pass away. These material possessions offer us no security, for they are perishable. We do not even have our health for our entire lives. We even inherit illnesses from our parents. We inherit their way of life and their sin. The question for us is: What exactly are we seeking in this journey through the world?

We must seek the Lord Jesus through faith. This is the purpose of our lives. If we encounter Him while we are on earth, we will be welcomed into His Kingdom. Zacchaeus was a rich man, and yet he knew he needed God. We are rich because of what the Lord God has given us. In Him we have life and existence. The Lord Jesus came to proclaim the Gospel to everyone, both the rich and the poor.

If we seek Him with all our hearts, He will reveal Himself to us.^[2] “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.”^[3] This is a time when the Lord is speaking to us, but for some it will be too late. Zacchaeus caught the last train; he clung to his last chance to receive eternal life. The religion of those surrounding Zacchaeus was cloaked in hypocrisy. The crowd surrounding Zacchaeus was of no use whatsoever. All the Jews there had their religion; they had the Temple of the Lord and the writings of the Old Testament, and yet they were lost. Although Zacchaeus was part of the same religion, he carried the burden of sin in his heart. He saw himself as a sinner and unworthy to present his defiled life before a Holy God. Only if we see ourselves as sinners will we be able to seek God. When we draw near to Him, a crowd of people will stand between us and Him, casting doubt on our faith in the Lord. Religion does not save anyone from eternal perdition, because what matters before God is our heart and its purity. If we fulfill everything written in the Bible and love God with all our hearts, only then will we be saved from eternal hell. Religious acts do not save us from sin. Zacchaeus probably observed all the traditions of the Jewish religion, but this did not bring him peace because he was living in sins known only to him and to God. The Lord will lay everything before our eyes at the judgment, and then we will not be able to justify ourselves before Him.

Zacchaeus needed forgiveness for his sins, which were many. Only in this way could he find peace in the Lord. God’s promise to those who acknowledge themselves as sinners is that “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.”^[4] This promise is only for those who come to true repentance. He cleanses us of sin and erases everything that is evil from the tapestry of our lives. Zacchaeus knew this very well. When he came near the sycamore tree, he climbed it because he wanted to see the Lord, but he was too short. Zacchaeus ran to the Lord. This must also be our attitude—to run to the Lord because we do not know how many days we have left to live. We have no time to waste. We must not listen to what people say, but only to the voice of Jesus Christ; only the Word of the Lord is the truth.^[5] Zacchaeus, without paying any attention to the people around him, climbed the sycamore tree, setting aside all shame, even though he was a rich man, a man of high standing among his people. Zacchaeus humbled himself to save his soul. We must not come to the Lord with an attitude of arrogance, but only with humility and repentance. We need the Word of God, which will endure forever.^[6]

Jesus was a humble man; He did not stand out in any way, so Zacchaeus would not have been able to recognize Him among all His disciples. Zacchaeus would have called out to Him, but he did not know how to do so. We must remain calm because the Lord lifts His eyes toward us and answers us. The Lord knew the desires of Zacchaeus’s heart, and that is why He answered him before he even opened his mouth: “And He did not need anyone to testify about anyone, for He Himself knew what was in man.”^[7]

Jesus told Zacchaeus that he was to remain in his house. Surely, the moment the Lord entered his house, Zacchaeus fell face down on the ground and likely confessed his sins to the Lord. Tax collectors and prostitutes entered the Kingdom of God before those who considered themselves righteous because they acknowledged their guilt. The Lord knew Zacchaeus by name; He knew his past, and on that day, salvation entered Zacchaeus’s house. The Lord has a plan for each of us. He wants to bring all His children to salvation. This is God’s purpose for our lives: to be presented before the Lord’s glory, cleansed of our evil deeds. There are some people, however, who thwart His plan by rejecting Him and refusing His offer to save us from our sins.^[8] The place for those who reject God is called Gehenna, the place where garbage is thrown. God has prepared a wonderful heaven for us, which we can enter without paying anything, but most will end up in hell, which burns with fire and brimstone—a place defiled by filth and abomination—because they do not want to be reconciled with Him.

Zacchaeus hurriedly climbed down from the sycamore tree; he didn’t hesitate and immediately ran to the Lord. The longer we hesitate, the more our hearts will harden: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as on the day of rebellion.”^[9] God will not force anyone; rather, He leaves alone those who do not want to follow Him. God will not override anyone’s will. Even if we stand to lose something in this world as a result of our decision to follow the Lord, we will gain eternal life. Zacchaeus had to give up a large portion of his wealth because he knew how much he had wronged others and that he had to return what he had stolen from them. He gave half of his wealth to the poor, and he returned four times as much to those from whom he had stolen. According to the Law, he would have had to give only a quarter, not four times as much. Zacchaeus was happy that he had gained the Lord and needed nothing else. We, as Christians, must make peace with all the people we have wronged; we must ask for forgiveness and learn to forgive, just as God forgives our sins. A person truly changed by God has a radically transformed life. We killed the Lord Jesus through our sins, yet He makes us His children. God’s love is beyond the comprehension of our human minds.Apart from Zacchaeus, no one else was saved in that place, even though the fullness of God dwelt in the Lord Jesus. No one else repented that day—only Zacchaeus.

Also in the Gospel of Luke we read that “the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and they buried him. While he was in Hades, in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off, with Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried out: ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in great torment in this flame.’” “Son,” Abraham replied, “remember that during your life you received your good things, and Lazarus received the bad; now here, he is comforted, and you are tormented. Besides all this, there is a great chasm between us and you, so that those who might wish to cross from here to you or from there to us cannot.”^[10] Here we see the end of another man, whose name the Lord does not mention. He, too, was a rich man who chose to live his life indulging all the desires of his heart, to enjoy his share on this earth, but ultimately to lose his soul in hell. The souls of those tormented in hell will remain there for eternity, because they rejected the Gospel of salvation. Let us not reject the love of the truth; let us remember that we are sinners and that we need a Savior to rescue us from perdition. Zacchaeus was enslaved by Mammon, the same god of money that torments so many people today. The Lord broke this chain of sin, freeing Zacchaeus’s soul from this heavy burden. The souls of all those who saw the Lord passing by them, but who remained indifferent to the salvation the Lord offered them, suffer for eternity in the fires of hell, tormented by the thought that they rejected the One who could have given them eternal life. In hell, there is no longer any possibility of changing anything. The only chance to be reconciled with Him is here on earth. After our death, it will be too late.

The Lord Jesus came to seek out all who are lost, to save all who will believe in Him. Nothing of who we were on this earth will matter in eternity, because God does not look at the outward appearance of people. He is a righteous God who will judge every person according to their deeds. The Lord God is full of patience so that all people may come to repentance. Yet there will come a day when His wrath will be poured out upon this entire earth, defiled by sin. Let us do what is right before Him, acknowledging our sins, so that we may all share in the eternal life full of happiness that He desires to give us as a gift, free of charge and without payment.

Our happiness begins here on earth and can last forever if we accept the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and repent before Him with sorrow for the sins we have committed against Him. Just as there was great joy in heaven over Zacchaeus’ repentance, so too can there be joy for us today as we choose to bow before Him to ask for forgiveness for all our sins.

^[1] Luke 19:1–10.

^[2] Jeremiah 29:13.

^[3] Isaiah 55:6.

^[4] Isaiah 1:18.

^[5] John 17:17.

^[6] Psalm 119:89.

^[7] John 2:25.

^[8] Luke 7:30.

^[9] Hebrews 3:15.

^[10] Luke 16:22–26.