The Resurrection United Mwthodist Church of Leawood, Kansas, United States Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Tuesday, 26 May 2015 - “To seek and save”
Daily Scripture: Luke 19:1 Yeshua entered Yericho and was passing through, 2 when a man named Zakkai appeared who was a chief tax-collector and a wealthy man. 3 He was trying to see who Yeshua was; but, being short, he couldn’t, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed a fig tree in order to see him, for Yeshua was about to pass that way. 5 When he came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zakkai! Hurry! Come down, because I have to stay at your house today!” 6 He climbed down as fast as he could and welcomed Yeshua joyfully. 7 Everyone who saw it began muttering, “He has gone to be the house-guest of a sinner.”
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.”
Reflection Questions:
Many of us know at least the outlines of the story of Zacchaeus. This diminutive tax collector was a “bad guy.” When Jesus invited himself to the man’s house, more than just a few self-righteous priests complained. “Everyone who saw this grumbled,” Luke wrote. It’s hard to miss the echo of Genesis 3:9’s “Where are you?” in Jesus' response to them. It’s as though he said, “Of course I’ve gone to be with a ‘sinner’—that’s the reason I came.”
- According to Luke, Jesus’ next stop after visiting Jericho was Jerusalem, where he died on a cross. Scholar N. T. Wright saw a connection between this story and what followed: “His mission is not just to suffer and die, but rather, through that fate, to search out and rescue the lost sheep. ‘He has gone in to spend time with a sinner’ will soon change to ‘He has gone out to die with the brigands’; and the same reason will underlie both. The son of man has come to seek and save the lost.” What helped, and helps, you recognize your need for a Savior? How have you learned, like Zacchaeus, to joyously claim the salvation Jesus offers you?
Today’s Prayer:
Lord Jesus, when I wander from your path, you continue to seek out and save me. I thank you. I want, like Zacchaeus long ago, to be a different, better person because you have found me. Amen.
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at the Vibe, West, and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
The story of Zacchaeus was one that stuck with me from childhood, and how could it not? You have a greedy little man that got elbowed out of a crowd and had to do something as ridiculous as climb a tree just to see Jesus. If you grew up in church, you remember the rhyme: a wee little man was he. But Jesus not only stopped to address this wee, greedy little man–he had specifically selected him to be his host for his visit.
Why is this? We hear these stories so often that we rarely stop to really ask why Jesus didn’t stay with contemporaries (or at least people who are generally well-liked). Two reasons.
First, Zacchaeus needed help. As a tax collector, he had wronged a lot of people, as is apparent in the crowd’s treatment of him. (How much you want to bet the crowd would have let other short men have a view of Jesus?) Jesus came for the people that needed help, and, even though we eventually realize that all of us need help, he spent the most time with the people who needed the most help. Zacchaeus had a lot to atone for, and Jesus knew it.
Second–and here’s the big one–Zacchaeus wanted help. More specifically, he wanted redemption. Notice I didn’t say righteousness–that’s part of it, but that’s not the whole of it. Righteousness is a state of being right with God. Redemption, in its basic definition, is an exchange of something with little to no value for something of far greater value. Think about when you redeem a coupon, which by itself has no value, for something of greater value. In this case, Zacchaeus wanted to trade his riches for righteousness in the form of righting his wrongs and blessing those he had wronged. He had spent his life thinking on a temporal scale, accumulating wealth, and was ready to think on an eternal scale.
(Just to be clear, redemption and righteousness come from God; but they’re not without a commitment from us, which can come with a cost. Nothing we can do, or fail to do, will cause God to love us any less, but redeeming the things of this life for things of the next requires you to give up the thing you need to redeem.)
To see that kind of redemption in our own lives, we need to first see where we need God’s help, and then seek redemption. It takes humility and resolve to admit your shortcomings–but it takes a lot more to want to turn them around into something good, whether that means admitting this fault to people you have wronged, or being a voice for the people you used to persecute, or, yes, using money you may have accumulated by being not-so-great for a greater purpose, just like Zacchaeus. The point is, to redeem for something eternal, it costs something in this life, whether that’s pride, or time and effort, or money–or all three. Zacchaeus knew this trade was worth it. Do you?
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224 United States
913.897.0120
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