Holy Grit — Battling Sickness with Compassion - Thursday
Today’s Verse
Luke 19:5-6
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.” (NIV)
Have you ever seen those scary fire-and-brimstone, fear-mongering billboards on the side of the road? I saw one a few years ago that promised that Judgment Day was May 21, 2011. “The Bible Guarantees It!” Well, either I missed the train to the Pearly Gates, or some wise men somewhere were a little off in their calculations. Either way, I stand to wonder what a message like that does for the thousands of people who drive past it every day.
If I look for the bright side, I do believe that the creators of this billboard may have had their hearts in the right place. I want all of my friends and neighbors to be saved. I don’t want them to fall on the wrong side of the scales when Judgment Day does come. But if we look at Jesus’s examples throughout the Bible when He speaks to people who think differently than Him, I think we will find that He does so in a radically different way than that billboard.
When we talk to those who are battling sickness of the soul, we must seek to balance what we say with measures of truth and grace. Jesus accomplished this perfectly. When Jesus meets the chief tax collector Zacchaeus on the road to Jericho, He knows the sins Zacchaeus has committed. A tax collector like him could not have become as enormously wealthy without extortion from his fellow Jews. But, instead of throwing Zacchaeus' many sins before his feet and calling for repentance, Jesus invites himself over for dinner.
Now, we don't know what Jesus said at his dinner with Zacchaeus. But it was life-changing enough that at the end of that meal, Zacchaeus pledged to give away half of his possessions and pay back everyone he had cheated four times the amount he took.
Do you think Zacchaeus would have opened his heart to Jesus if he had been yelled at first? We don’t know. But I do know that Jesus had to have brought up some difficult conversations at that dinner. Jesus is not one to sit around and let sin continue to grow. So what made Zaccheaus change his mind? Why was the actual conversation Jesus had with Zacchaeus omitted from the book of Luke, but the fact that Jesus attended dinner with him left in?
I believe this story tells us more about what our actions should be towards those struggling with sickness of the soul and less about what our actual words should be. We will undoubtedly encounter those who think differently than us in our lives. How do we respond like Jesus when we have those conversations?
REFLECTION
Think of someone you know who is lost. When you talk to that person, do you make them feel safe in your presence? Do they feel like you are actually listening to their point of view? You don’t have to agree with them. Jesus did not agree with what Zacchaeus was doing. But he still treated him like a person worthy of civil conversation. Ask God to give you grace and truth as you walk through life with those struggling with sickness of the soul.