“19 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” 25 But Abraham replied, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.”
27 He answered, “Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” 29 Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.” 30 “No, father Abraham,” he said, “but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.””
Everything can change. You don’t know what gifts God plans on giving. The trouble of today might not be as troubling tomorrow. What seems impossible today might seem possible tomorrow and probable the next day. Everything can change.
You can always change. You can gain new skills to help you cope and even thrive. You can learn to see life differently. You can move toward goals and that process of movement is part of what gives us joy. You can always change.
Change is always possible… until it isn’t. That’s the crux of this parable. Change is possible now, but there is a day coming when change will no longer possible. If you don’t change now, you’ll find you can’t change then. That’s the warning and challenge Jesus gives us tonight. Change now before it’s too late. Respond to God now before it’s too late. That’s the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in two points. First: a great chasm. Second: someone rising from the dead. In verses 19-26, we consider a great chasm; in verses 27-31, we consider someone rising from the dead.
We see the “too late” intrude on life in our first point: a great chasm. This is the second parable of this chapter and they both begin the same way, “there was a rich man…” The first rich man is presented in a neutral light. This rich man is presented in a negative light. Luke is very concerned with the rich and the poor. He doesn’t argue, though, that the rich are inherently bad people. Neither does he argue that the poor are inherently good. Rather, we are warned against treating the poor poorly or thinking that riches make us secure.
Those who wouldn’t heed this warning make up the bridge between these two parables; ‘The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”’
Jesus teaches—and so it is—that the stuff of life reveals the heart. Money, change, opportunity, responding to invitation, everything we’ve studied in the parables reveal your heart understood spiritually the way a stethoscope or EKG reveal your heart understood physically. We miss the point if we think this parable about poor Lazarus and the rich man is only about money just as badly as if we think it’s not about money at all.
This first character of the parable, who remains unnamed, is described as being, “dressed in purple and fine linen and [living] in luxury every day.” His purple clothes were a sign of wealth; purple was made using sea snails using a process none of us want to hear about; this made it pricey to produce. His linen clothes likely refers to his undergarments. Lazarus has scraps on, but even this man’s undergarments are pricey. His living in luxury is more literally translated as feasting vigorously. Some people put their back into their living. This man put his back into his feasting.
This rich man is the prototype of a winner. This is who people then and today want to be. Jesus’ hearers would have assumed this man was blessed by God and worthy of that blessing. You can’t argue with success. Not so with the second man. People would have considered him under a sort of curse; verse 20, “At [the rich man’s] gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”
The rich man was a mover and a shaker. Lazarus is presented as the opposite. He’s a man upon whom life is done. He is laid at the gate. He longs to be fed. He will be carried. His verbs are passive. He is treated as an object to be moved about as many disabled people feel. He can’t even fend off the dogs who come to nourish themselves on his sores.
He is probably laid at the rich man’s gate because he can’t walk. Those who placed Lazarus there likely thought this rich man who had more than enough would help him out. Helping the poor, after all, is all over the law of Moses and this rich man is a son of Abraham. He is as a blessed man and he is blessed to be a blessing and so the expectation is that he will bless Lazarus.
He, however, takes no interest in Lazarus at all. He won’t even give Lazarus his trash. That’s what’s going on Lazarus, “longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.” This was the scraps of bread which were used in that day as napkins to wipe your hands; when you were finished with them, you tossed them under the table. Lazarus would have been happy with that trash, but the rich man wouldn’t even share that. That rich man knew Lazarus was regularly placed by his house but he didn’t care. “One of the tricks we learn in early in life,” Dallas Willard writes, “is not to look because if we look, we may feel a certain responsibility.”
The name “Lazarus” was a rather one at that time. His name has nothing to do with Mary and Martha’s brother any more than John the disciple has to do with John the Baptist. Lazarus’ name is a contraction of Eleazar like Bart as a contraction of Bartholomew. The name means, “God helps.” That’s not by accident in this parable. The rich man wouldn’t help. God would.
This is the only parable in which anyone is named. The Pharisee and the tax collector, the lost sons, friend at midnight, the good Samaritan—they are unnamed characters. This is the only parable in which anyone is named and it’s not the mover and shaker. The man who needs to be carried and fed is the only one named, and he is named “God helps.’
Our identity has to do with our relationship with God. That’s Lazarus’ glory—the Lord helps him. That’s what makes him, him. That’s the best any of us could hope for—to be helped by God. Is that your identity? Do you find your past, present, and future in being someone who God helps? That’s the only way to have a name in God’s arrangement. That’s the disciple John learning to identify himself as, “the disciple who Jesus loved.”
Both the rich man and Lazarus die. Lazarus is taken by the angels to Abraham’s side while the rich man is said to have been merely buried. Lazarus lives in a world of identity—he is named and is with Abraham who is named. He who, for years, was treated as a thing to be moved about and avoided is a person among persons. The rich man was, like the dirt around his body, buried.
We are told that, “In hell, where [this rich man] was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.” Don’t take this as the geography of the afterlife. We often build castles in the sky when it comes to such matters. This is imagery for the purpose of making a point—like stories of Peter acting as doorman at the pearly gates or the old Family Circus comics with those in heaven looking down from clouds. We want to be serious about the Bible but to be take anything seriously you have to take it as it was intended. Taking a chainsaw seriously involves using it to cut logs not butter. Taking a parable seriously involves recognizing its intended use.
The point is the continued misdirected heart of this rich man. He sees Abraham and Lazarus and says, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” This is proof that the rich man knew of Lazarus. It’s evidence that he knew enough to know his name but not enough to care. His request might seem small—just a drop of water from Lazarus’ finger—but that’s meant to underline that he wouldn’t even give Lazarus the little he wanted—the scraps of bread on which people cleaned their fingers.
He still treats Lazarus as an object and assumes Abraham will too—“send Lazarus,” he says. Send Lazarus where? To hell. Why? For my sake. That’s rank selfishness is the depravity of the unrepentant heart. It will damn others for its own sake. There is a warning here. You have it in you to become like this and others have it in them to behave like this. Beware.
Abraham will have none of it. “Son,” he says, “remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” The logic here isn’t that everything evens out in the end and so beware of anything good now because you’ve got trouble coming. The point is that the rich man was poor toward Lazarus and so now he’s poor. “There is no mercy in the afterlife for those who fail to show compassion in this life,” as Bock put it.
The call for you and I isn’t to save ourselves by way of care for the poor but rather to inspect our salvation by means of measuring our care. You can’t staple charity into your budget for eternal life any more than you can staple raspberries unto a bush and make it fruit bearing. Raspberry bushes, however, will produce raspberries, and real children of Abraham will, like father Abraham, care for the poor.
This rich man calls Abraham, “father,” and Abraham calls him, “son,” but the gulf between them makes clear that he is no child of Abraham. This parable is a warning against presumption—presumption of salvation—and few gifts in life make us more prone to presumption as wealth. It makes us feel like winners. That’s a reminder to take giving thanks very seriously this Thanksgiving season. That’s a reminder to take caring for the poor very seriously as we enter the season of Jesus being born into a poor family.
We are revealing ourselves and there is still opportunity to change. There is no opportunity left for change for this rich man and that’s where Abraham intends to leave this man; verse 26, “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” There is a point in which nothing can change and no one can change. This rich man has crossed that point. Jesus told this parable to people who as of then hadn’t. They since have. You and I have yet to cross this point. One day we will have crossed it and there will be no chance left. Be changeable now before it’s too late. Give as God has given to you now before it’s too late. Become more like God now before it’s too late. That would seem like a seemly point to end the parable, but it surprisingly goes on—as surprising as someone rising from the dead; that’s our second point: someone rising from the dead.
Jesus makes clear that this rich man will not and can no longer change by portraying his continued objectification of Lazarus. The rich man says to Abraham as if Lazarus can’t even hear, “Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house…” The rich man will not learn that the only named individual in any parable has an identity. The rich man can’t see that Lazarus can be spoken with. The rich man can’t learn that, now, though. His opportunity for change is over. Being damned will do that.
There is much about hell that isn’t explained to us, but this parable does show that people in hell won’t repent on any meaningful level. Of course they wish they weren’t there. Of course, they have regrets but those regrets don’t rise to the level of repentance. No one changes in hell. They might wish they would have honored God so they wouldn’t wind up there but that doesn’t mean they have any real desire to honor Him now. This rich man might wish he would have cared for Lazarus when he was alive but he shows no desire to care about Lazarus now. Change now while you can. Keep repenting now while you can. There’s more at stake than you think.
The rich man doesn’t understand. He doesn’t see that he was unchangeable in life; hence his request, “send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” The rich man doesn’t see that Lazarus was his daily warning. He’s naïve enough to think that this same Lazarus would warn be warning to his brothers who are like as blind as him.
This rich man who never once cared about Lazarus, was fine with pulling Lazarus from glory to hell for his own sake and now with pulling Lazarus out of paradise for his own brothers’ sake. Unrepentant hearts will use others and everything they can for even if it means destroying these. Beware.
Some can’t seem to help themselves from helping such people though. One day those well intended individuals will be prevented; that’s verse 26’s, “those who want to go from here to you cannot…” Even if Lazarus had wanted to help, he wouldn’t be allowed. He wouldn’t be allowed, in part, because he wouldn’t be enough to change those brothers. His plight wasn’t enough to change the rich man. Some of us seem to think that sacrificing ourselves on the altar of someone else is the miracle that will change them. Any number of marriages, families, ministries, businesses, and causes can tell their own stories running along these same lines.
Lazarus’ plight wasn’t enough to change the rich man in this life and Lazarus’ presence won’t be enough to change the rich man’s brothers now. Don’t imagine that anyone will be enough to change you or that you will be enough to change anyone; that’s verse 29, ‘Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.”’ God has already given what’s needed to change. If what God says isn’t enough for someone, what you say won’t be either. This is in parable form what Jesus teaches in Matthew 7:6, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” A hard but necessary word in a world of hard hearts.
The rich man—as we’ve seen—can’t change and so he obviously still thinks he’s right; verse 30, ‘“No, father Abraham,” he said, “but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”’ The rich man in hell believes God’s word isn’t compelling enough to save. He’s just saying, though, that it wasn’t compelling enough to him to obey and care for Lazarus when he was alive. We tend to think that something more than God’s word is needed, but as Jeremias put it, “He who will not submit to the word of God will not be converted by a miracle.” The rich man would not believe the word of God despite Lazarus’ presence at his gate day after day. His brothers would not believe word of God even if Lazarus returned from the dead to warn them.
People still will believe the word of God even though Jesus has risen from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus has failed to convince millions not because it isn’t true but because they don’t want to change. “A lack of signs is not why people reject Jesus,” Bock writes. “Rather, people willfully reject him. The heart cannot see what it is not looking for.” The rich man wasn’t looking to care and so he didn’t see Lazarus while alive or really even after he died. People who aren’t looking to change won’t see Jesus for who he is now or even after they die.
Don’t be one of them. Change. Repent. Care about what God cares about. Have His heart now. “Now is the day of salvation,” as 2 Corinthians puts it. The opportunity will, one day, be over. Change is still possible. Don’t wind up unchangeable forever. Amen.