A Gentle AnswerSample

Jesus invites us to come to him as we are—“Zacchaeus! Come down from that tree. I’m coming to your house today!”—but this must never be mistaken for an invitation to stay as we are. As was the case with Zacchaeus, so it is with us. When Jesus comes to our house, he doesn’t do so merely to take our side.

He does so in order to take over.

His “I do not condemn you” always leads to the imperative, “now leave your life of sin.” He is not our consultant or adviser. He is not our personal assistant. He is our Lord. He has come to save us, and in saving us, to rearrange our furniture, to turn our house into his house, to become the interior and exterior designer of our lives.... for the rest of our lives.

And what could be better than this? What could be better for Zacchaeus, the isolated crook, than to be made a friend of Jesus and the people of Jesus, and a generous man to all? What could be better for Jacob, who lied to secure a birthright, than to be renamed “Israel” and made the father of the twelve tribes of God’s people (Gen. 32:22–32)? What could be better for Peter, who struggled with both bravado and cowardice, than for Jesus to call him to testify that Jesus is truly the Messiah, the rock upon which Jesus would build his church (Matt. 16:18)? What could be better for David, the murderer and adulterer and sexual predator, than to be commissioned as writer of half the Psalms, identified as the man after God’s own heart as well as the esteemed ancestor of the Son of God, who would delight in calling himself the son of David (Matt. 1:6)? What could be better for Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, than to be included in Jesus’s genealogy and inducted into faith’s hall of fame—not as a scandalous or beaten-down sex worker but as a cherished, purified princess (Heb. 11:31)? . . .

As Zacchaeus can attest, even thieves can get in on the ways of Jesus. Will we welcome Jesus into our house today as well?