Why? Because Zacchæus could be found at home. Jesus always knocks on the doors of those hearts where He knows He finds someone at home. He must abide there.
To the men of our own age the danger of living outside themselves in their work and business, is great. Our age suffers from a tension which was not known in bygone days. If a man is to surge ahead, he must let his business absorb his entire strength. Therefore, it is so difficult for Jesus to find men at home when He knocks at the door of their heart, and therefore so few men are to be found in the church on the Lord's day. Women are not in the same measure tempted to live their lives outside themselves.
But Zacchæus stands like one who admonishes the man of our age: Try to be at home by yourself, in your own soul. That is the road you must wander if you are to find happiness.
2. All Forgiven—Nothing In Vain
"This day is salvation come to this house." To Zacchæus this means: Your sin has been forgiven—all has been stricken out.
Rev. Mr. Funcke relates how he on a certain occasion called upon Dr. Kögel in Berlin—a man who was paralyzed and unable to move. He pitied Dr. Kögel—regretted that this man, formerly so stately and erect, should sit thus crouching, but Dr. Kögel said: "Rejoice with me—God hath forgiven all my sins!"
In a cemetery in Southern Germany there are two tombstones with strange inscriptions; one reads: Forgiven! and the other, In Vain!
Beneath the former rests the dust of a woman who through her extraordinary beauty fascinated a number of admirers. They seduced her, made her run away from her husband and children, and when once she had entered the life of immorality, she went swiftly down the grade. She developed into a criminal and was imprisoned. In the penitentiary she came home by herself, and here Jesus found her. When she left the institution, she went back to her husband and children and proved a blessing to her home; as a humble, Christian woman she did not spare herself for the sake of those whom she loved. But when death drew near, she asked them to inscribe upon her tombstone that one word, Forgiven! This word was a world to her, was everything. Her sin forgiven by God, forgiven by mankind.
Yes, when everything is forgiven we can rejoice at being home by ourselves. But we need still one thing more before our joy is perfect. We want to be told that we have not lived in vain.
Zacchæus knows how to appreciate salvation. In proof of his gratitude he gives half of his goods to the poor. It is more blessed to give than to receive. Formerly he had felt a certain joy whenever he could add a sum of a hundred to his fortune—but how paltry that joy was compared to the joy of giving! That could not possibly have been done in vain.