This sermon was preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Semaphore, 8.45am, and Good News Lutheran Church, Albert Park, 10.30am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to
you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The poor man died and was carried by the angels to
Abraham’s bosom.
Prayer: May the words of my
mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
This passage from the Gospel
of Luke that we have as our Gospel reading today is just such an incredible
reading, and it is such an amazing story that Jesus tells us. It has so many
amazing things and incredible lessons for us to learn – it puts eternity before
us in a very stark way which, actually, for our sinful hearts, for our sinful
flesh, is very unpleasant. But it also puts before us an incredibly powerful
comfort about what it means to be a Christian and to be saved.
So in our sermon today, I’m
going to pick out of this text a few different topics. Firstly, let’s talk
about poverty and wealth, and what it means as a Christian to be rich or to be
poor.
In our Gospel reading, we
read: There was a rich man who was clothed with purple and fine linen and
who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named
Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich
man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. Later, we
read that this particular rich man went to hell, but this particular poor man,
Lazarus, went to heaven. And Abraham says to the rich man: Child, remember
that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner
bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.
Now, we can sometimes make
the wrong conclusion from the passage, as if Jesus is teaching us that rich
people are bad, poor people are good, rich people are all going to hell, poor
people are all going to heaven. But that’s not quite true. When Lazarus went to
heaven, we are told that he went to be with Abraham. Now, in this earthly life,
was Abraham rich or poor? Let me read you from the beginning of Genesis 13: Abram
went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into
the Negeb. Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. Interesting—it
turns out that not all rich people automatically go to hell. If all rich people
were in hell, why is Abraham in heaven?
So let’s read about the good
things that this rich man had. We read first of all, that he was a rich man—he
had lots of money and possessions. We would assume—as well—that he had a very
nice house. But what he also had was earthly comforts—he had nice clothes, and
he was able to eat nice food every day. We often think about wealth simply in
terms of a person’s money—but Jesus wants to draw our attention especially to
his clothes and food: He was clothed in purple and fine linen and he feasted
sumptuously every day.
Now, let’s read about the bad
things that Lazarus had. We don’t read at all about Lazarus’s clothes. We read
that he was poor—he didn’t have any money, or a home, because he was laid at
the rich man’s gate. We read that, instead of being clothed with fine linen and
purple cloth, he was covered in sores. He was sick, and infected with
some kind of terrible skin disease, that must have caused him no end of itching
and annoyance. The only comfort he received was the dogs who came and licked
his sores. And what did he eat? Well, not much—but we read that he desired
to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table.
Now, what is Jesus trying to teach us here? Well,
first of all, we should realise that in this life, money, a home, good health,
clothes and food are all good things, good gifts from God. Actually, Jesus even
teaches us to pray for these things, when he says: Give us today our daily
bread. When we have these things, we should thank God for it—because they
are good things.
And when we see someone—and especially one of our
fellow believers, our fellow Christians—who is particularly in need, and
doesn’t have the things that they need, and is going hungry, or is sick, or
homeless, or doesn’t have enough clothes to wear, our hearts should go out them
in compassion, and we should do what we can to help them. Think here about the
parable of the Good Samaritan, where he comes and sees the half-dead man on the
street, and helps him. And Jesus says: Go and do likewise.
Now, I often think that sometimes (maybe, particularly
in our country) in the church, we don’t see enough of this Christian charity at
work. Now why is this? Sometimes, I think there are many of us who think we’re
a lot poorer than we really are, and so we don’t thank God for what we have,
and we don’t think to share it, because we think someone else should be sharing
with us. Or, maybe we think because of Centrelink and government welfare, that
there really isn’t anyone who really needs our help. If someone needs
something, people think, they’ve probably brought it on themselves. Sometimes,
we know, it isn’t easy to help people—for example, you can’t just give a drug
addict money, if you know they’re just going to go and buy more drugs. They
need a different kind of help, and sometimes the kind of help they don’t want.
But the fact is with Lazarus: he was in need, and the rich man who was able to
help him, didn’t help him. And so, Jesus teaches us here, very simply, if we
see someone in need, we should help them.
In fact, this is how Jesus views us—he saw us from
heaven in our need, and in all our sin, and in all our helplessness, and he
came down from heaven, to share his riches with us. Now, these are heavenly riches—the
forgiveness of sins, the promise of everlasting life—but he shares them with
us, like a rich man, and let’s us not just eat the scraps off his table, but to
feast with him. And so, Jesus wants to create in us a compassionate heart, a
heart which reaches out to other people, to share what we have with them. When
someone is burdened by guilt and has sinned, we can share the forgiveness of
sins with them, and the message of everlasting life with them. And also, when
we see someone in some kind of physical need of the body—if they are poor,
sick, homeless, hungry—we can also reach out to them and share with them what
we have.
Now, let’s leave this topic about being poor or rich,
and what it means to be charitable, and let’s come to another topic that this
reading talks about, which is the Scripture. When the rich man is in hell, he
asks Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers. Instead,
Abraham says: They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them. And he
said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will
repent.” He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither
will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
So we learn that on the one hand, we have a rich man
and a poor man—from our earthly point of view, from the point of view of
physical eyes, it looks like the rich man is blessed, and the poor man Lazarus
is cursed. The rich man has money, health, house, expensive clothes and
expensive food. The poor man has nothing. But there is something much more
important that the poor man has, that the rich man doesn’t have. The poor man
heard the Scripture—he listened to the words of Moses and the Prophets—and when
he heard this message, and he trusted that there was going a Saviour who would
die for his sins, the Holy Spirit went into his ears and created a living faith
in him. And as he sat at the rich man’s gate, he knew that even though he had
nothing in the eyes of the world, he had a God and a Saviour who loved him.
The rich man, on the other hand, also had the
Scripture—he had Moses and the Prophets—but he didn’t listen to them. Why would
he need to listen to them, when he already has everything that he needs?
Instead, the rich man pushed the voice of God away from his heart, and hardened
his heart to God, so much so that he couldn’t even have compassion on the man
covered with sores at his gate.
And so, it’s just like what God said to the prophet
Samuel when he went to choose the young King David to anoint him as the king.
He said: The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks on the heart.
So, in the end, Lazarus has nothing except the word of
God. The rich man has everything except the word of God. In eternity, what this
means, is that is Lazarus who has everything, and the rich man who has nothing.
Now, why did the Word of God—why did Moses and the
Prophets—give so much to Lazarus? Because, this is the same Word of God that
brought the entire universe out of nothing—and so it is more powerful than any
money, houses, clothes and food in the entire world. This is simply the most
important thing that we could learn in this life—it is so simple, and yet so
many people—like this rich man—miss it, and harden their hearts to it, because
it doesn’t look like much. It doesn’t look like the wealth, the spectacle, the
glamour, that the rich man has. And so just as the rich man treated it all like
nothing, so many people treat it like nothing.
Even in the church, this can also be the case. The
Lutheran Church is here not simply because of Martin Luther, but because we
claim to be a church of the word. Now, many churches can claim to have all
kinds of things, but if they don’t have the word of God, they have nothing, and
they are leading people on the wrong path. And it’s not like we Lutherans are
immune—in fact, the devil is constantly at work trying to take the word of God
away from us. And replace it with what? Well, sometimes the word of God can be
replaced by traditions, by wealth, by spectacle. Sometimes, the word of God can
be replaced by our own reason, our own intellect, our own thinking. Sometimes,
the word of God can be replaced by experiences, visions, miracles, ghosts,
spirits, and feelings.
Even this happens in our reading. Abraham tells the
rich man in hell that if his five brothers have Moses and the Prophets, they
have everything they need. What does the rich man say? He says: No—father
Abraham—but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. The
rich man knows full well that his brothers are all a bit bored with the word of
God. It would really shake them up if the ghost of Lazarus gave them a talking
to. No—it doesn’t work like that. And so, we have an incredible warning in this
reading. When we have the word of God, we have everything. When we don’t have
it, we have nothing. So—don’t be bored with it. Savour every opportunity to
hear it, and to read it, and to think about it. We have Moses and the Prophets,
and we have the apostles, and we actually do have Jesus physically risen from
the dead. What excuse do we have? The day of salvation is now, and Jesus is
calling you. Don’t reject him when he walks by.
Now, I’d like come to another topic in our reading—and
that is the whole question of salvation, about heaven and hell. Now, a lot of
us pastors don’t like to preach too much about hell, and there’s probably a
good reason for it. Sometimes, people talk about the old days, like the only
thing any pastor every talked about was “hellfire and brimstone”! You can go
and read books of sermons from all kinds of times and you can see that that
isn’t true.
However, when topics comes up in our readings, we
should talk about them. And this passage today is one of the most vivid
descriptions that Jesus gives about hell. The rich man lifts up his eyes and
sees Lazarus far away and out of his reach. He says: I am in anguish in this
flame. He wants his tongue to be cooled by a drop of water. He calls it a
place of torment. Abraham says: Now, you are in anguish.
If there’s one thing that seems to be destroying the
Christian faith everywhere today, is this whole idea that at the end of the
day, “everyone’s going to be alright, Jack.” Many Christians today think that
there really isn’t a hell, and that there’s nothing really wrong with anyone,
and so, we’re all going to be saved anyway. We might think this for good reasons—we
might see other people we know and love who care nothing for Jesus and his
word, and we don’t want to have to think about them in eternal torment. It’s a
thing that should make us incredibly sad and worried for them. So people
sometimes fall into a trap, called “universalism”. “Universalism” means that in
the end, everyone is going to be saved anyway, no matter what.
Now, this is not what the bible teaches, it’s not what
Jesus taught, and it’s not what he says in our reading today. And it’s a teaching
which dries up our love for people, and which makes our zeal for mission dry
up—it even makes our thirst and our love for Jesus himself dry up.
At the time of Martin Luther, this was a very
important issue, because many Christians believed in purgatory. Purgatory was
basically half-way between heaven and hell, and if you paid off your sins in
purgatory, or if your loved ones on earth helped pay them off for you, you
could eventually go to heaven. But this reading today, teaches us that
purgatory doesn’t exist. Abraham says to the rich man: Child, remember that
you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner, bad
things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all
this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who
would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to
us.
Do you see this? Once our life is ended—we either go
to heaven or to hell. There’s no half-way. Either we are saved by the blood of
Jesus, or we’re not. Now, when Jesus teaches us this, it might grate at us a
bit, it makes us very uncomfortable. But you see, Jesus wants us totally for
himself. He doesn’t want us to be half-hearted, or half-baked in our trust and
love for him. And when we die, he wants to welcome us into his kingdom, with
Abraham and Lazarus, and all those who have died believing in him. And so, when
we think about eternity, we shouldn’t be lazy in our thinking, we shouldn’t be
apathetic or blasé about it. We should be black and white about it—and set very
clearly before our eyes only two options: heaven and hell. And Jesus promises
that all who believe in him have eternal life. And we set our eyes and our
hearts and our minds very clearly in the direction of heaven.
Now, the last thing to talk about today is the Gospel.
In the Scripture, we have two teachings—the law and the Gospel. The Law shows
us our sin, and shows us the threat of God’s judgment. There are many things in
our reading today that put God’s law and his judgment very seriously before our
eyes—and some of what Jesus teaches here is quite frightening.
However, at the same time, we also have the Scripture
a completely different teaching, which doesn’t show us our sin, but which shows
to troubled sinners their wonderful Saviour. This teaching is what we call the
Gospel. Now, we know that Jesus entered into this world to take upon himself
all of our sin, and he died for it on the cross, made a perfect sacrifice and
atonement for you, and he rose again from the dead on Easter day. And now, he
gives to you the forgiveness of sins here in the church, through your baptism,
through the absolution spoken by the pastor, through the preaching, and through
the body and blood of Christ given and shed for you for the forgiveness of
sins. And these things are then given to you as a kind of down-payment of the
wonderful promise of everlasting life, eternal salvation, and at the end of
this world, a resurrection from the dead, where your body and soul will be so
completely transformed and transfigured, that you will be glorified to be like
the angels and even Jesus himself.
Now, what’s this got to do with our reading? Who was
saved? It was Lazarus who was saved. It didn’t look like he had anything, but
in the end, the angels themselves carried him to Abraham’s bosom, placed him on
Abraham’s lap, and he was received into eternal life. Why Abraham? Because
Abraham believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteous. Abraham is
the father of faith—Jesus says, that even God can raise up stones to be
children of Abraham. And if we believe in Jesus, and trust in his blood and his
death, we also are children of Abraham, and will be carried from this life by
the angels.
But then the devil wants to tempt us. He wants to say:
But look: that rich guy doesn’t believe in Jesus—look at the house he’s living
in compared to you, look at the food he’s eating compared to you, look at the
happiness he has compared to you. You’re not a real Christian.
Well, it’s at times like this, you can tell the devil
to “tick off”, because you have the word of God, you have Jesus risen from the
dead, therefore you have everything. You might not have the perfect house, you
might not have lots of money, you might be sick all the time, you might have lots
of troubles and worries, you might have lots of sadness, you might be lonely,
you might be cold, you might be hungry. When we’re struggling like this, we
start to think God has abandoned us, and there’s something wrong with our
faith. Rubbish! What do you have? You have a Jesus who died for you, a
heavenly Father who loves you, and a Holy Spirit who encourages you. You have
the word of God—you have Moses and the Prophets, the apostles, you have Jesus.
And if you have these things, then you have everything, and you have more than
all the gold and the treasures in the whole world. So be like Lazarus—sit at
God’s gate, and trust in him. Jesus will never let you down, and finally he
will raise you up from the dead to be like him. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.
