An Instruction for the Thirty-Second Sunday: On Zacchaeus

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Lk. 19:10).

Beloved brethren! These words, full of compassion, which we heard today in the Gospel, are spoken by God incarnate of the sinner, whom the righteous judgment of God has called the lost, who has been sought out by the power and grace of redemption, taken up and inscribed by it into the number of the saved.

The sinner—Zacchaeus was a tax collector and chief of tax collectors. He possessed considerable wealth, as the Gospel mentions, thus hinting at the means by which wealth was acquired. Tax collectors were those who gathered taxes. How tempting is money! The gleam of gold and silver enchants the eyes of Adam’s descendants, infected with sinfulness, and wherever money circulates, abuse rarely fails to creep in. Tax collectors, for the most part, engaged in extortion. When extortion becomes a passion, it permits itself all manner of violence, all oppression of one’s neighbor. To this passion of extortion comes the passion of cunning and hypocrisy. From their combination arises a propensity for quibbling, which clings, under the pretext of scrupulous observance of laws, to all manner of trifles, invents guilt for the innocent, and strives by such conduct to give the appearance of justice to inhuman oppression and cruelties committed against one’s neighbors. By such a character, tax collectors were an object of terror to the people and of contempt to moral people. Zacchaeus was chief of tax collectors: his abuses were more extensive than those of his subordinates. It was not without cause that it was mentioned that he was rich! He became rich through wrongdoing; his sin was extortion; his soul’s affliction was avarice and the cruelty and pitilessness toward mankind arising from avarice. Because of his grave transgressions and criminal disposition of soul, Zacchaeus was called the lost. It was not the light-minded, often erroneous judgment of men that pronounced him lost—God issued this determination about him. Zacchaeus had become an inveterate sinner: to accumulate wealth through abuses required prolonged time and constancy in such conduct.

The cause of Zacchaeus’s sinful life lay in that in which lies even now the cause of the sinful life of many: in following the generally accepted custom of conduct and in ignorance or the most superficial knowledge of God’s Law. Tax collectors commonly gave themselves over to the vice of covetousness, and Zacchaeus was drawn to it. The majority of Judea’s population, contemporary with Christ, was occupied almost solely with their earthly position, striving toward material development and earthly advancement. At that time God’s Law was studied chiefly according to the letter; worship was conducted chiefly to satisfy ritual observance; virtues were practiced superficially, coldly, more to impress public opinion. Zacchaeus was content with this. He lived as everyone lived. Even now one often hears: “I live as everyone lives.” A vain excuse, a deceptive comfort! Something different is proclaimed and ordained by the word of God. “Enter”, – it says, – “through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. How narrow is the gate and how hard is the way that leads to life, and few there are who find it” (Mt. 7:13–14). The narrow gate is careful, thorough study of God’s Law both in Scripture and through life; the hard way is activity wholly directed according to the Gospel’s commandments.

While Zacchaeus lived according to the custom of a world hostile to God and had arranged for himself, by the wisdom and standards of the world, a position that was secure, not without importance and luster, yet in a spiritual sense he was the lost sinner, already condemned to eternal anguish in the prisons of hell—at this very time the Saviour of the world was journeying through the earth, in the inheritance of the twelve tribes of Israel. Zacchaeus was inflamed with a desire to see the Lord and proved the sincerity of his desire through action. His will was accepted by the Lord, who knows hearts, and the Lord was pleased to visit Zacchaeus in his house. Joy seized the sinner when he saw the Lord come to him, and his sins became abhorrent to him; his heart was wrenched away from love for the fruit of sinful life, for transient wealth. Standing before the Lord who knows hearts, Zacchaeus said: “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will repay it fourfold” (Lk. 19:8). In this vow there is contained confession of sin, repentance and amendment, joined with the greatest self-denial. Zacchaeus confesses his extortion and resolves to obliterate the oppression of his neighbors with abundant recompense; Zacchaeus confesses his avarice and resolves to cleanse and sanctify his possessions and his heart through abundant giving of alms. Zacchaeus’s repentance is immediately received by the Lord. Of that sinner who but a few moments before belonged to the number of the rejected and lost, the Lord proclaims: “Today salvation has come to this house, for this man also is a son of Abraham” (Lk. 19:9). Zacchaeus was a descendant of Abraham according to the flesh; but by God’s judgment, only through virtue is one adopted as a son of Abraham. By the word “house” we may understand Zacchaeus’s soul, into which salvation entered following the repentance that cleansed this soul from sin; the Lord’s word might also refer to Zacchaeus’s household, which, following the example of its head with a similar self-denial, as often happens, entered into true knowledge of God and into life pleasing to God.

All who saw that the Lord had visited Zacchaeus’s house murmured, considering it unbecoming and humiliating for the Lord to visit such a sinner as Zacchaeus was thought to be by public opinion. The mystery of redemption, which remains incomprehensible to fleshly minds, was and remains incomprehensible: with equal power and efficacy it heals all human sins, both great and small, draws sinners out of every destructive abyss, however deep. For such a marvelous action it requires of man faith in the Redeemer and sincere repentance. They murmured because they did not understand; they did not understand because before their eyes was being accomplished the work of God, incomprehensible to human reason not illumined by grace. Explaining the incomprehensible and revealing the infinite power of redemption, the Lord said: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”. God, having taken upon himself humanity, unsought and uncalled by men, Himself, by His ineffable goodness, came to “seek and save” the human race, lost through separation and departure from God, came to “seek and save” each man drawn into perdition by sin—provided only that this man does not reject the God who seeks and desires to save him.

The Holy Gospel may be compared to a mirror. Each of us, if he wishes, will see in it the state of his soul and that almighty healing offered by the almighty physician, God. God the Son calls Himself “the Son of Man” because He took upon Himself humanity and walked among men, in no way distinguished from them in outward appearance. This is the consequence of infinite divine love, of unspeakable divine humility. “The Son of Man”—let us speak in human fashion—had the right to forgive all sins to men as having offered Himself, the all-perfect God, as a redemptive sacrifice for mankind and having annihilated all the sins of men, both insignificant and great, through the immeasurable and infinite significance of the redemptive price. The judgment of the “Son of Man” upon men, as we see in the Gospel, is entirely different from that of other men, who judge their neighbors from their own righteousness, rejected and corrupted by sin. All sinners who accepted redemption through repentance and faith, the Saviour justified, even though men condemned them; on the contrary, all who rejected redemption through rejection of repentance and faith, He condemned, even though men considered them righteous, worthy of respect and reward.

In the Gospel mirror we saw today a sinner drawn by the passion of covetousness, who served this passion through unjust extortion and manifold wrongdoing to his neighbors; we saw this sinner, condemned by men, justified by God for his faith and sincere repentance. A comforting, encouraging spectacle! And still the Saviour, by His infallible promise, abides among us; and still He heals souls wounded by sins; and still His divine determination endures unchanged: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”. Amen.