Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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. (Amen.)
As you may similarly experience, when I vacationed last week in Austin where I had lived for ten years and still have family and friends, I ate a lot of meals with family and friends. For example, my first night there, my sister cooked a nice meal for me. The next night she and I cooked a nice meal for my nephew and his girlfriend. And, I had other meals out with my friends, including one day’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Daily feasting arguably is a theme that runs through today’s Gospel Reading, the account of both a rich man, who feasted sumptuously every day, and a poor man named Lazarus (a different Lazarus from Jesus’s friend named Lazarus), who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Their apparent experiences in this life were reversed in the next life, and so, considering today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we direct our thoughts to the theme, “Feasting Now and Feasting Then”.
What Jesus says about the rich man and Lazarus in today’s Gospel Reading is uniquely recorded by the Divinely-inspired St. Luke, and, like much of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke’s unique content, today’s Gospel Reading reflects Jesus’s special concern for those who are otherwise marginalized in society. This particular teaching about the rich man and Lazarus comes as Jesus apparently journeys from Galilee to Jerusalem, and this particular teaching arguably fits with the rest of Jesus’s teaching along that journey, some of which we have heard on recent Sundays. For example, five Sundays ago, Jesus described people’s coming from all directions to recline at table in the Kingdom of God, and Jesus said that those who see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom but are themselves cast out will be weeping and gnashing their teeth (Luke 13:28-29). Four Sundays ago, Jesus told a ruler of the Pharisees who invited Him to dine at his house not only or always to invite his friends or siblings or other relatives or rich neighbors but to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (Luke 14:12-13). Three Sundays ago, Jesus spoke of renouncing all that one had in order to be Jesus’s disciple (Luke 14:25-33). Two Sundays ago, when apparently eating with repentant tax collectors and sinners, Jesus told parables about rejoicing, likely at festal meals, over the lost’s being found (Luke 15:1-10; confer 15:11-32). And, one Sunday ago, in connection with a rich man who had a manager accused of wasting the man’s possessions, Jesus spoke about using unrighteous wealth to be received into both temporal and eternal dwellings (Luke 16:1-13). The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard what Jesus had said, and they likely also heard what Jesus continued to say on the same themes (Luke 16:14).
In today’s Gospel Reading, the rich man was clothed in purple and fine linen, and he feasted sumptuously every day. Meanwhile, the poor man Lazarus was not clothed enough to keep the unclean dogs from licking his sores (Arndt, ad loc Luke 16:21, p.364), and he desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. The rich man may not have hurt or harmed his neighbor Lazarus in Lazarus’s body, but the rich man certainly did not help and support Lazarus in every physical need (Small Catechism, I:10; confer Luther, AE 10:160; 61:323). Similarly we may not hurt or harm our neighbors in their bodies, but likely too often we do not help and support them in every physical need. One does not have to be in the capital city of Texas in order to walk or drive by those who are begging on street corners. We may rightly refuse then and there to give cash to such individuals, but do we ever directly or indirectly help those truly in need? No, we sin in these ways and in countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature, and so we deserve nothing but temporal death and eternal torment, apart from repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
In today’s Gospel Reading, when the judgment of death came for the rich man, his body was buried and his soul went to “Hades”, in this case equivalent to “hell”, where he was tormented and in anguish in its flames. The rich man’s soul went to hell not because he was rich, and not even because he had not helped and supported Lazarus in every physical need. But, the rich man’s soul went to hell for the same reason that anyone else, including us, would go to hell, namely, because we refuse to repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin (confer Luther, cited by Plass, #1287 p.434; confer Luther AE 28:147; but confer/compare Luther, AE 51:8). Like those in today’s Old Testament Reading (Amos 6:1-7), the rich man was too “at ease” and not concerned about spiritual matters. During his lifetime, the rich man apparently had the wrong regard for and no right use of Holy Scripture, but, in the next life, he figured out that repentance matters, as the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to the rich man’s father’s house in order for Lazarus to call the rich man’s five brothers to repent, lest they also come to that place of torment. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to stop sinning, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful natures and all of our actual sin, whatever our sin might be; God forgives us for the sake of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, is the Son of God, Who, the Divinely-inspired St. John says, is in the bosom of the Father, or at the Father’s side (John 1:18). Out of God’s great love, mercy, and grace, that Son came down from heaven for us and for our salvation. Jesus took our sin to the cross, and there He suffered and died for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. In today’s Gospel Reading, Abraham in a sense prophesies of Jesus’s resurrection, though by that time Jesus had already raised other people from the dead (for example, Luke 7:11-17), and He would raise still others, including His friend named Lazarus, before He Himself would rise (John 11:1-44; confer TLSB, ad loc Luke 16:31, p.1751, which refers to John 11:45-53, and see John 12:9-11). Yet, Jesus’s resurrection shows that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on behalf of all people. So, we poor, miserable sinners beg for His mercy now, while there is time, and we receive His forgiveness through His Means of Grace.
Abraham did not send Lazarus to the rich man’s brothers, because they had Moses and the Prophets, that is, the Word of Holy Scripture. Indeed, others were then and are today sent with that Word, all of which Word clearly and authoritatively testifies to Jesus, Who is at its center. In groups like this one today, we hear that Word read and preached in the Divine Service, as the rich man could have heard that Word read and preached in the services of the temple or synagogues in his day. The rich man’s name is not recorded in the Gospel Reading, but Lazarus’s name is recorded there, as it apparently also was recorded in the Book of Life. So also recorded in the Book of Life are our names, given in Holy Baptism as God’s Triune Name is there put upon us. So dipped into or sprinkled with the water of life, there will be no need for us to cool our tongues in anguish in the flames of hell, for we are by Holy Baptism rescued from death and the devil. And, clothed in the robes of Christ’s righteousness at the Font, we come to the Rail and feast on Christ’s Body and Blood in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar, and thereby we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. This feast, as it were, of the best of meats and of the finest of wines (Isaiah 25:6), far surpasses those feasts that the rich man enjoyed in his lifetime, the crumbs of which feasts Lazarus had desired to be fed with. And, so strengthened and preserved in body and soul by this feast now, like Lazarus, we will have a place of honor at the feast in heaven, to which “Abraham’s bosom” or “side” arguably refers.
The outward Means of Grace that we receive with repentance and faith effect inward change in us (Luther, AE 40:146). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 6:6-19), if we have food and clothing, we try to be content. We recognize the Lord in the person of our neighbors (Luther, AE 52:26), so we at least try to help and support our neighbor in every physical need, and we live in God’s forgiveness of sins for when we fail to keep that and all of His other Commandments. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 146; antiphon: v.2), the Lord executes justice for the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. We may not have all the food we want and in the ways that we want it, but God does not let us go hungry (Luther, ad loc Psalm 37:25, AE 14:221). We are not offended when unbelievers seem to have good things and better lives than us here and now, for we know that our best life is to come (confer Luther, ad loc Genesis 10:7, AE 2:196). There is a great reversal! We have the greatest of comfort! Our deaths or the Lord’s coming in glory, whichever comes first, will bring an end to our earthly suffering, and the resurrection and glorification of our bodies will heal us and give us full and complete enjoyment of the bliss and pleasures of heaven, our eternal dwelling place.
Greater than any other meals with family and friends, we who feast with the Lord now will feast with the Lord then. And, if we can see and talk between hell and heaven then, as the rich man and Abraham could see and talk between hell and heaven in today’s Gospel Reading, we will fully understand God’s just judgment between unrepentant unbelievers and repentant believers, and that understanding will in no way diminish our eternal joy and peace.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +