Sight and Salvation on the Road to Jericho

One of the largest themes in Luke and Acts is salvation, and we find it here again. In the third account of Jesus’ announcing his death, his disciples fail to understand - in other words, those who believe end up failing to see, and lose Jesus’ meaning. But near Jericho, a blind man believes in the Son of David, and consequently he receives his sight. In Jericho, Jesus seeks out the lost Zacchaeus and gives him salvation.

In other words, faith is a kind of spiritual sight; having it allows you to find your way in the world properly; even those who do have it may still lack faith, and when they do, they do not see the world the way it really is. Anyone who asks may receive this spiritual sight; Jesus actively seeks to grant spiritual eyes to see, and calls us to seek the lost that they too might obtain their sight.

Believers Became Blind

This is the third time Jesus has tried to tell the disciples that he is going to die and rise again. Once again, his words are hard to hear, but they are as clear as words can make it. They know he refers to himself as the Son of Man; he does it all the time. There is nothing particularly complicated about what he is saying, yet his disciples do not understand. How can they possibly find it confusing? No, they aren’t stupid; the problem is that Jesus’ words are so foreign to their thinking, that it just does not fit with what they think they know about the Messiah. They know that the Messiah will come and reign over the house of David forever. That is what all Jews expected the Messiah to do; indeed, that is really what they mean when they use the phrase. Prophets, priests, and kings were all annointed - Jesus is all three; but the one office they thought of most was king. Kings rule, they don’t get killed. After all, if you die, that usually means the end of your kingdom, right? So a dying Messiah was a contradiction of terms. They believe that Jesus is the King, because he is the King. So they can’t accept that he will die, and just don’t hear anything else that Jesus says. He tries to tell them that it is prophesied, but Jesus’ death is such a horrible thought they don’t hear it. He tries to tell them that he will rise again, but they don’t hear it because they are still stuck on him dying.

And this failure to believe results in a failure to understand. It was Anselm to said, “I believe in order to understand.” Normally we think of it the other way around - I understand, therefore I can choose to believe. But in many ways it is faith that comes first. Faith is just accepting the reality of what God has declared, so faith is accepting reality. When you accept reality, you understand something about how the world works, so things start to make sense.

A Blind Man Believes

For the first time since the ten lepers were healed back in chapter 17 we have a location - Jericho. Now Jericho was in Judea, so they have only about 38 miles to go before getting to Jerusalem. We’re getting close.

Now there was no social safety net back then, and there were no accommodations for the blind to allow them to work. Therefore anyone unfortunate enough to be blind, was stuck begging to stay alive. Mark tells us that this blind man’s name was Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. Now Bar-Timaeus means “son of Timaeus,” so we now know two things about him; his father’s name was Timaeus, and imagination wasn’t his strong point.

Now Jesus was traveling with a large group. This wasn’t an accident; Jesus had gone back to Galilee just so he could join a large group, and anyway, all Jesus had to do to get a big crowd was stop avoiding them. Jesus was intending to arrive in Jerusalem with a lot of publicity, so he was now actively seeking larger groups.

So this large crowd of course made a lot of noise, so Bartimaeus did not need to be particularly intelligent to figure out that an unusually large crowd was there. Therefore he wanted to know why there were so many people around.

Son of David, Have Mercy on Me

Notice how the crowds label Jesus - it’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” that is, Jesus purely human label. They did not recognize him as Messiah or as God, just as this guy from Nazareth. But Bartimaeus does not address Jesus this way. It’s “Jesus, Son of David.” Now to call him the Son of David does not just mean that Bartimaeus thought he descended from David. It means that he is THE son of David, the Messiah.

Clearly Bartimaeus heard that Jesus could heal, that’s why he was so insistent; but he has considerable faith; when the crowds who followed Jesus did not see Jesus for what he was, this blind man saw Jesus clearly.

Be Persistent in Prayer

Bartimaeus was not deterred when the crowds tried to shut him up - do the crowds know that Jesus can heal? Surely they do, everyone had to know that by now! So if they know Jesus can heal, why would they not want Bartimaeus to call Jesus? Perhaps they are so focused on getting where they want to go, they don’t want to take time for this poor blind man? In any case, Bartimaeus demonstrates persistence in prayer, since he is praying to Jesus, and cannot be deterred.

Now Jesus stops and commanded him to be brought. The reason Jesus does not just go over himself is because of the large crowd. There are a lot of people in the way, so much so that it is more efficient to have the blind man brought to Jesus than for Jesus to just walk over.

Be Specific when you pray

When he arrives, Jesus asks what he wants. Now that was probably pretty obvious, but the point is that Jesus wants him to be specific in his prayer. When we pray, we should avoid vague generalities like “bless all the missionaries around the world.” Your prayer should be specific enough so that you can know when God answers it.

Faith Saves because that’s why you ask

Bartimaeus demonstrated faith - in this case, enough faith to persist in asking Jesus to heal him even when others tried to shut him up; he also demonstrated a recognition of who Jesus truly was, when most of the people there did not. So Jesus tells him that his faith made him well - yes. He needed enough faith to ask, and to not quit because the crowds didn’t like it.

Praising God With Jesus is different than Praising God without him.

Now both he and the crowds praised God as a result; but they were different because they believed different; when the crowds praised God, it was just generally that God is great and has done great things; when Bartimaeus praised God, it was because God had worked through Jesus the Messiah; did Bartimaeus know that Jesus was also God - I don’t know, but I would not be surprised to learn that if he didn’t, he soon did. After all, Bartimaeus started following Jesus; doubtless his knowledge of the Lord was imperfect to start with - but if he continued demonstrating the same faith that he already did, he could not help but also come to know that Jesus was God in the flesh.

Zacchaeus

Now Jesus was passing through. Zacchaeus was a tax collector, and not an ordinary one at that; he was a chief tax collector, so he had risen in the Roman Government, thus, he was paid well. Now tax collectors were universally thought of as traitors since they were Jews who worked for the Romans, and since there were many opportunities for fraud which nearly every tax collector took advantage of. Thus, anyone choosing to become a tax collector was effectively selling their soul for money. They would spend the rest of their lives wealthy but hated by everyone.

Zacchaeus knows this, but we see that he was curious about the healer from Nazareth he had heard so much about, so he just wanted to get a look at him, but the poor guy was short, so he climbs into a sycamore tree. It seems like Zacchaeus did not believe Jesus would want anything to do with him - that would explain why he wanted a look but did not try to push through the crowd to ask him.

Jesus Meets People Where they Are

Notice that Jesus does not interact with everyone the same way. The Rich Ruler approached Jesus, and Jesus asked him to give everything away. But Jesus seeks out Zacchaeus and requests that he stay with him. That is because Jesus meets people where they are, since he knows what they really need. This kind of personal attention is something to which we should aspire, though doing it as good as Jesus is pretty much impossible for those of us without an innate knowledge of people’s hearts.

1 Thessalonians 5:14 NKJV

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.

Grace Overcomes Legitimate Social Stigmas

The response of the crowd is predictable. Notice that they have a problem with Jesus going to be the guest of a “sinner.”

Now on the one hand, our society is very different from their’s. Our broader culture has sought to eliminate all social stigmas in the name of being kind. I would suggest that this has not been positive; when divorce was unthinkable, families stayed together. People still sinned of course, but breaching social norms would result in those people becoming a pariah which motivated many to do the right thing even if for the wrong reason.

And if you think we no longer have social stigmas, just try using the n-word and see where it gets you. Our broader culture has not been successful in removing all social stigmas, they just have replaced one set with another, inferior set of stigmas.

But in Jesus’ day, being a sinner meant being branded an outcast due to reality that they made no attempt to live according to the Law of Moses. The problem with this wasn’t that society had stigmas; indeed, those social stigmas among the Jews were some of the most moral in the world at the time. The problem was that they had no appreciation for grace and forgiveness. To be fair, nobody else understood grace either, but still, Jesus does not ignore the social stigma of Zacchaeus’ being a sinner because he disagrees with the stigma; he ignores it because he knows something they do not know - Zacchaeus is ready to repent and be forgiven. But it seems that while Zacchaeus is ready, he is too shy to actually ask Jesus to come with him, so Jesus takes the initiative.

Zacchaeus demonstrates a Changed attitude about money, Proving his changed heart.

Now I highly doubt that the Rich Young Ruler was in the group, but if he had been, I’m pretty sure he would have been a bit upset. Why did Jesus ask him to sell everything while Zacchaeus only sells half? First of all, Jesus does not ask Zacchaeus to sell anything. All Jesus did was offer to stay at his house that day. In other words, Zacchaeus is himself demonstrating a change in how he thought about money. Before, he voluntarily chose a profession where really the only good thing about it was that you could get rich, but the downsides were pretty severe. Now, he no longer cares about getting richer; sure even after giving half his goods away and refunding a few people four-fold, he will still be rich. But this is a massive shift for someone who previously preferred to be a traitor to his people and hated as evil in exchange for money. In other words, he went from being a lover of money to being a lover of God. Jesus had said that you cannot serve both God and money. Zacchaeus now wants to serve God; he no longer serves money.

Luke 16:13 NKJV

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Please understand that no amount of giving, by itself, will get you into heaven. It’s not the size of the gift, it’s your heart attitude that makes the difference. To be sure, your heart attitude will impact what you do, so if your heart has changed, your treatment of your wallet will, too. But it’s a changed heart that saves, not a big gift.

Thus Zacchaeus demonstrates by his actions that he really has changed. That’s why Jesus declares that “Today salvation has come to this house.” Notice that Jesus did not say that Zacchaeus was saved already. He said that “Today” salvation has come. Meaning that Zacchaeus is now a changed man, and is therefore his sins are forgiven.

Zacchaeus Also shares the Faith of Abraham

Jesus also says that Zacchaeus is a son of Abraham. Now I think this has to mean more than just that Zacchaeus is a biological descendant of Abraham. He is that too, of course. He is Jew after all. But that seems to be a pretty bland observation when Jesus seems to be saying something more important than that. There were two ways that “son” could be used. The first is literal biological lineage, but the second has to do with character. And Jesus could make that distinction, as he did once with other Jews who were not the sons of Abraham in character.

John 8:39 NKJV

They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.

This is what Jesus means when he says that Zacchaeus is a son of Abraham. Abraham was rich, too; he also believed God and was forgiven.

Genesis 15:6 NKJV

And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

So just as Abraham was forgiven because he believed. Zacchaeus has believed and repented also, and so he too has been forgiven.

Jesus Seeks Sinners to Save Them, not Join Them. We Should Seek to Save Them, Too.

Jesus final point is that the reason he sought out Zacchaeus is because that is his mission on earth - to seek out and bring salvation to the lost. He still seeks that, which is why he has given the job of spreading the gospel to us. Jesus’ return to heaven gives us the opportunity to be used by him to bring the gospel to many people who otherwise would never have the opportunity to repent.