Can't Wait (Friday Devotional)

“[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.””

- Luke 19:1-8

Nobody likes to wait in line. Whether it’s at the DMV, the amusement park, or the ticket office, there is a sort of anxious energy that permeates every line. Everyone wonders how much longer it will be, everyone worries that they’re wasting their time, and everyone just wants to reach the front. But they all understand that waiting is just a part of life, so they try to be patient and they stay in line.

At least, until it’s important. When you have a crucial message to deliver, you don’t mind interrupting someone. When something’s on fire, you don’t seek permission before borrowing a hose. When your wife is in labor, the speed limit is suddenly just a suggestion. Sometimes you just can’t wait.

It is that sort of urgency that springs up multiple times in the well-known passage above. When Zacchaeus was unable to see Jesus on account of the crowd, he “ran ahead”, scrambling up a sycamore tree until he caught the view he needed. When Jesus spotted him in the tree, he told him to “hurry and come down,” because it was imperative that he stay at Zacchaeus’s house that very day. Luke couldn’t be much clearer—both Zacchaeus and Jesus feel a sense of urgency to make this meeting happen.

For those who know Christ, that feeling is quite relatable. Many believers can point to a specific moment, often at the end of a worship service or during a revival meeting or at youth camp, when the Holy Spirit seized their hearts and propelled them to a decision for Christ. In such a moment, nothing felt more urgent or important—it was time to meet Jesus, and everything else could wait.

But like with Zacchaeus, not everyone shares that sense of urgency. There are always those on the outside who see the excitement of the new believer and find in it cause to grumble. Maybe they don’t believe anything has truly changed, maybe they don’t understand what the fuss is, maybe they’re simply envious of an urgency and an excitement they don’t share. Whatever the reason, their response to the joy of the new believer is the cynicism of the skeptic.

And the sad truth is, sometimes their doubts wind up being justified. Many respond to the urgency of salvation only to then ignore the urgency of sanctification—they climb the sycamore, they hurry to host Jesus at their home, but when the time comes to make a Zacchaeus-like change in lifestyle for the good of the kingdom, they ask, “What’s the rush?” When the demand of discipleship sets in, far too often urgency is replaced by complacency.

Zacchaeus represents a model of a sinner saved by grace—saved not only to eternal life after death, but to new life now. Having met Jesus, he could not wait to be changed forever, starting that very moment. He met the grumbles of skeptics not with arguments or self-righteousness, but with the kind of visible change that could not be ignored, feeling the same urgency to be changed as to be saved. May we learn from the example of his earnestness, eager not just to meet Jesus, but to be like him.