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 anyone 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." – Luke 19:8-10 (ESV)
There is a song that I learned in Sunday school about Zacchaeus: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he...” The bad part of the song, as I remember it, is that the song ends with Jesus going to Zacchaeus’ house. That is only part of the story. Here in vv. 8-10, there is some disagreement over whether Zacchaeus was telling Jesus what he did, or what he was going to do. The later seems to be more plausible, but in either case, he is showing himself to be a recipient of salvation. This is a VERY generous move, by any account. In chapter 18, there is a ruler who refused to give away his money to follow Jesus. The people grumbled that Zacchaeus was a ‘sinner,’ while the rich young ruler received no such censure. While the ruler valued his money over Jesus, Zacchaeus shows the opposite. Two points can be made: (1) nothing is more important than Jesus and (2) no one is beyond the reach of Jesus.
