We were studying Luke 19:1-10 in Sunday School. My wife and I heard the very typical conventional wisdom of Zacchaeus as a small man who wanted to see Jesus. He was judged critically by his peers but found favor and salvation from Jesus. Many in the church today when the read Jesus words, "Today salvation has come to your house" think that Zacchaeus must have publically repented to Jesus, said the sinners prayer and literally received salvation on the spot by Jesus on the day Jesus came to Zacchaeus' house.
My wife was biting her tongue and jumping at the bit and simply said at the end of Sunday School, "Ask me about Zacchaeus later." Here is my beautiful spiritually intuitive mystic wife who tells me her excitement on what the Zacchaeus story really means. We think we know he is a great sinner. The crowds thought so and so do we today. We look at this story as a conversion where a sinner becomes born again. What if our over-familiarity with this story like so many other stories in the Bible (we think we already know) actually is obscuring the deeper and historical reality and meaning of the biblical text?
My lovely wife who barely passed Greek in Bible College and does not study the scriptures from an academic or scientific approach put things in such technicolor beauty that I can no longer read this text in black and white. She said that Zacchaeus was a righteous tax collector who already was giving half his riches to the poor (I excitedly double checked the Greek text which confirmed my wife's understanding of this text was correct). He was saying if he defrauded someone, he will pay them back four fold. Zacchaeus excitedly climbed that tree not to be some gawker or spectator to see Jesus the celebrity walk by. Zacchaeus was already passionately following and seeking after Jesus and love compelled him to go the extra mile to see Jesus.
Can we start recognizing deeper, spiritual, and mystical dimensions to this gospel stories where we think some kind of Evangelical decision and conversion happens in the moment which happens to miss the spiritual mystical awakenings of some who followed Jesus who were already living a righteous life before God. Salvation coming to Zacchaeus house does not mean he was converted on the spot but that Jesus who is the salvation of God had come to Zacchaeus house. Can we start reading the Bible as if for the first time so that God's Word can shed new light into places we think have enough light already?
Zacchaeus was a righteous man even though we want to judge him as unrighteous because of his profession. Cornelius is a God-fearing Gentle which means he already believed in the God of Israel but Peter preaches the fuller gospel of Jesus and he and his family are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus over and over is the righteousness of God and is salvation that has come down from heaven. The scriptures says we are all sinners but that does not mean some people at some point started living righteously for God. The truth is we all need the empowering presence of God's Holy Spirit in our life if we are to progress further in our spiritual journey with God.
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