What’s a real Christian really like?

An important man. The man in AD 30 reported upon above. Mega-wealthy. Yes, but in his line of business he had ample power and opportunity to extract excess taxes from his own countrymen and pocket them himself. That power arose because he had the authority of the Roman Empire to collect the taxes. That opportunity arose because Rome allowed him to assess the taxes himself – as long as he paid Rome the agreed total amount each year.

Rather like some of the Jersey finance industry entrepreneurs, really. Their clients need to use Jersey to minimise taxes, they are in Jersey and charge accordingly. Because of this man’s divided loyalty – loyal to Rome and to himself but not necessarily to his “clients” and the public - he wasn’t popular.

Like some wealthy people, he didn’t have “stature”; maybe he also lacked “gravitas”. But he was chief of the tax farmers.

 

Nevertheless he had an over-arching objective. How this arose we’re not told. That it was there we are left in no doubt. “He was actively seeking to see who Jesus is.” (The present tense “is” is unusual but it’s there in Luke’s first-century biography of Jesus.)  “Having run ahead into the front, he climbed up into a fig-mulberry tree to see Jesus.” Jesus addressed him, “Zacchaeus, full of earnestness, come down…” Luke described him, “So, full of earnestness, he came down…”

He wanted to find out who Jesus is. Jesus called him by his own name. It was necessary, Jesus said, that, on that very day, he would dwell with him. Dwell. Live with. Abide. Stay. 

If you attend a Christian church you may react negatively to this. Jesus abiding with this chief tax farmer? Jesus abiding with a man who defrauds “honest” tax payers? With a man who doesn’t serve Jersey but serves our opponents on the world stage? “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” It was bad enough that Jesus was to be a guest of this sinner – surely he wouldn’t abide with him. Religious people are righteous.

If you don’t attend a Christian church, you may well wonder what a real Christian is really like. As you go about your life, you may wish to apply the Zacchaeus test to all the Christians whom you meet. Are they like him? Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look and see, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”

There’s something rather child-like about this. This “man who is a sinner” is calling Jesus “Lord”. He knows who Jesus is - who he actually is.

Straight away, he doesn’t give half of his money to his favourite public charities – he gives it to the poor. He knows what has been unrighteous about his business activities so he restores four-fold the amounts he has fraudulently extracted from others.

 

That’s what a real Christian is really like. Like the Jesus who comes to dwell with him, with her. “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.”  

Full of thankfulness for mercy multiplied, for freedom from all that bound him, for Jesus living with him, Zacchaeus, although he had been lost, was saved and was changed and was being changed.