Seems incredibly simple doesn't it? It is easier to say yes to life and good when
you have been in the wilderness for forty years because you once said no. The temptations of the flesh aren't so great
on the other side of the Jordan as they are once you settle in the Land. When we stop moving forward, when we settle
in and find comfort, we get complacent.
The people would eventually get comfortable and then it seemed only a
small thing to begin to move away from God, a little compromise here, a little
there and soon you find yourself with an old family Bible on the shelf
somewhere that no one has read in years.
This generation knew something no succeeding generation would know fully
until the time of the Babylonian exile, what it means to be outside the
Land. They couldn't live like this any
longer, things had to change, whatever the cost. Moses made it clear what the cost was and
what it would mean to both obey and disobey, no one could lay it at his feet
that they didn't know.
How strange that Jesus chose this little tax collector to
dine with that day. How strange that we
sing cute little songs about this man.
No one thought him cute at the time.
He was not only a tax collector, he was a chief tax collector, meaning
he oversaw tax collectors. As I write
this I have just watched the former chief tax collector for the United States,
the head of the IRS, giving testimony about targeting certain groups by his
organization for particular treatment.
The chief tax collector, then and now, is an incredibly unsympathetic
character. Zacchaeus, unlike the man I
watched, repented of his actions and was prepared to make restitution to those
whom he and his minions had defrauded.
As a result, Jesus says that salvation had come to his house that day,
his sins were forgiven. Why did Jesus
choose him? Perhaps because by this
action everyone in town, at least the oppressed, received benefit. When the chief tax collector repented,
everyone's life got a bit better.
Paul's work with sarcasm is exceptional. He compares himself and his humility with the
"super-apostles", those who make much of themselves. There are certainly those among us today who
would more or less consider themselves super-apostles as well, those who are
above and beyond the rest of us in wisdom and knowledge. They are the ones who send out prayer cloths
for a small donation and who promise that their prayers avail more than those
of others or that they have special insight unavailable to others. Paul rightly calls them out on such thoughts
and boasting. The only one to be made
much of is Jesus and if He isn't lifted up, no one gets saved. The question always comes down to that, is
Jesus exalted in the preaching and teaching?
If we fail to lift Him up, we fail to make the choice as clear as Moses
did and that is all that matters, that people make an informed choice between
life and good, death and evil.
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