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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
We all probably have seen them in one place or another: busy intersections, stores or restaurants on major highways, or even at the doors of the church. Poor people (and sometimes scam artists) position themselves where they are most likely to receive help, in order to go from anguish to comfort. Our encounters with them are perfect opportunities, if we act, for them to receive and for us to give, and so ourselves go from anguish to comfort. In today’s Gospel Reading the beggar Lazarus goes from anguish in this life to comfort for eternity, while the rich man, who does not act on his opportunity, goes from seeming comfort in this life to anguish for eternity. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Anguish and Comfort”.
Today’s Gospel Reading continues our more or less continuous reading of St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account. We have heard of Jesus’s healing a man on the Sabbath at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees and there teaching over the Sabbath meal both about taking the lowest place at a wedding feast, leaving the place of honor potentially for someone else, and about inviting the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (Luke 14:1-14). As great crowds accompanied Him, Jesus called for those with ears to hear to hear (Luke 14:25, 35), and tax collectors and sinners gathered near in order to hear Him (Luke 15:1). The Pharisees and scribes grumbled about Jesus’s receiving and eating with sinners, and Jesus taught five parables: three about rejoicing over finding something lost (a sheep, a coin, and a son); the one we heard last week about our faith leading both to the right use of money and to our being welcomed into eternal dwellings (Luke 15:2‑16:15), and finally today’s parable.
The grumbling and ridiculing Pharisees, with their love of money and fine clothing and sumptuous meals, were at least partial targets of Jesus’s teaching the whole time: Jesus called the Pharisees to repent of their less than faithful stewardship of God’s gifts that were entrusted to them for the benefit of God’s people. As we heard last week, the Pharisees may have exalted themselves before people, but they were an abomination in the sight of God. In the verses between last week’s and today’s Gospel Readings, Jesus even indicted the Pharisees further, for example teaching about the permanence of God’s moral law that they violated, such as by permitting divorced people to marry and so commit adultery (Luke 16:16-18). And then, as we heard today, Jesus used the parable about the rich man’s wrong use of money in regard to the beggar Lazarus, in order to reiterate everyone’s need to heed the Holy Scriptures and so repent before the judgment that would determine whether we have eternal anguish or comfort.
Of course, Jesus’s teaching does not only target the Pharisees, but Jesus’s teaching also targets us, and not only in regard to whether or not we use the abundance of the blessings God gives us to help those in need or whether or not we preserve the holiness of even heterosexual marriage. Like the Pharisees, we do not keep all aspects of God’s moral law, outwardly or inwardly. For example, even when we do help those in need, we may immediately grumble about it to ourselves, or we may think of ourselves as better people because we have helped. We may appear to others to live chaste and decent lives, but our secret thoughts and deeds may be quitre the opposite. We are sinners by nature, and that sinful nature and the actual sins it produces still cling even to us who believe. Apart from faith in God, we deserve not the every‑day comforts we have in this life but death now followed by anguish in the unquenchable flames of hell for eternity. So, God calls and enables us all to heed the Holy Scriptures, such as today’s Old Testament Reading (Amos 6:1-7), and seek His mercy now, before the final and irrévocable judgment, of which we sang in the Psalm (146)—judgment that determines whether we have eternal anguish or comfort.
We might easily misunderstand the parable in today’s Gospel Reading, taking it to mean that all poor beggars who have had anguish in this life will have comfort for eternity and that all rich people who have had comfort in this life will have anguish for eternity, simply because of their respective poverty or wealth. But, the parable itself makes clear that what the rich man (and his brothers) lacked was repentance: sorrow over their sin, faith in God to forgive their sin for Jesus’s sake, and the desire to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin, by grace through faith in Jesus. We spiritual beggars receive the riches of God’s mercy and grace. Instead of the anguish we deserve, God comforts us for Jesus’s sake. Jesus is the Father’s only‑begotten Son, Who came from the Father’s side (John 1:18), to die on the cross and to rise from the dead, in order that we might go not only to Abraham’s side or bosom but also to the Father’s side or bosom, welcomed home to heaven as His children, born in the waters of Holy Baptism, and given the place of honor at its wedding feast. Jesus’s coming out of the Father’s love in order to redeem us is our greatest comfort, giving us hope already here and now in time, because of what we will have in heaven for eternity (Luke 2:38; 2 Thessalonians 2:16; Schmitz, TDNT 5:798-799).
Now admittedly, when Jesus raised His beloved friend named Lazarus from the dead, many Jews believed in Jesus, but the Pharisees feared everyone’s believing in Him and planned to put Jesus and eventually also that Lazarus to death (John 11:45-53; 12:9-10). Yet, Jesus makes clear in today’s Gospel Reading that God works repentance not by the return of the dead to warn us but by His Word of Holy Scripture—His Word purely preached through the Office of the Ministry we heard about in the Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 3:1-13), His Word administered with even only drops of water in Holy Baptism, His word applied to individuals who privately confess in individual Holy Absolution, and His Word with bread and wine that gives Jesus’s body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. At this altar and its rail, we are comforted as we feast not only with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but also with all who have gone before and will come after us in the faith.
Had the rich man in the parable repented and believed, he would have been expected to give evidence of his repentance and faith by helping the beggar Lazarus, who was laid at his gate, a great place to receive help from the rich man and all of his friends, who were coming to and going from their sumptuous feasts. As we repent and believe, we give evidence of our repentance and faith by helping those we can. Admittedly, we cannot, help everyone, but we cannot use that reality as an excuse to help no one! As we experience anguish of our own in various ways in this life—whether we are shut out from friends at school, passed over for promotions at work, or experience sicknesses of mind or body—with daily repentance and faith, we look forward to the comfort of eternity, the heavenly Jerusalem in which, as one of our Distribution Hymns puts it, “no sorrow may be found, / No grief, no care, no toil” (Lutheran Service Book 673:2).
As we have considered today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Anguish and Comfort”, we have heard God’s Word’s calling and enabling us to repent here and now and, regardless of what we experience here and now, to be comforted now as we look forward to eternity. Even though not every aspect of the parable we heard today accurately describes the intermediate or permanent state of our souls and bodies, our loving God has given us in words and images we can understand wonderful descriptions of the heaven He has given us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We thank and praise Him for that gracious gift, and, with repentance and faith, we live as His children here and now. And, as we did in the Hymn of the Day (LSB 708:3), we pray His angels to come and bear our souls home to Him, where we will praise Him without end.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +