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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. (Amen.)
“A Great Chasm”! As you might expect, a Google search for “A Great Chasm” produces a wide range of results, from literal openings in the ground to figurative divisions in any number of things. For example, we might think of “A Great Chasm” between and within political movements, religious denominations, sexes and families. Google’s Artificial Intelligence Overview even refers to today’s Gospel Reading as the origin of the term “A Great Chasm” in the Bible. In fact, today’s Gospel Reading is the New Testament’s only use of the Greek word chasma, which gives us our English word “chasm”, though the idea of a “chasm” that separates the departed souls of the righteous from the departed souls of the unrighteous goes back at least to an apocryphal writing between the Old and New Testaments, some 300 years before the time of Christ (Enoch 22:9‑15).
We may see ever‑widening, lengthening, and deepening “chasms” in this life, even as Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading also describes essentially a “chasm” that separated the rich man and Lazarus before their deaths, too. For example, the rich man had fine clothing and sumptuous food, but Lazarus’s clothing did not keep the dogs from licking his sores, and he apparently was not filled with food that fell from the rich man’s table. Yet, the rich man and Lazarus’s being on opposite sides of a “wealth divide” in this life was not what caused their souls to be on opposite sides of the “great chasm” in the intermediate state, waiting for the resurrection of their bodies on the Last Day and so waiting for their full experience of, respectively, either the torment of hell or the comfort of heaven. Riches in this life do not alone cause one to be tormented eternally, for Abraham also was rich, nor does poverty in this life alone cause one to be comforted eternally. The key difference, as God warns His people through Amos in today’s Old Testament Reading (Amos 6:1-7), and as Jesus describes the rich man’s realizing too late and so trying to have Lazarus warn his brothers, is whether or not one repents.
Someone laid Lazarus at the rich man’s gate, apparently hoping that the rich man or his family and friends would help Lazarus. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus does not say that anyone did evil to Lazarus, but Jesus certainly seems to suggest that they failed to do good to Lazarus. In short, they failed to fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and so they failed also to love their neighbor as themselves. They were deaf to God’s Word through Moses and the Prophets, and so they were blind to Lazarus’s needs that they, out of their abundance, could supply (confer and compare Roehrs‑Franzmann, ad loc Luke 16:14-31, pp.74-75). Already too late, the rich man later wrongly appealed to his status as a physical descendant of Abraham, and the rich man seemingly insinuated that God’s Word alone both had not been enough to save him and would not be enough to convince his brothers (for example, Plummer, ad loc Luke 16:27, p.396).
What about us? Do we fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and so do we also love our neighbors as ourselves? Do we heed God’s Law when it tells us how we should love our neighbors, especially those in need of clothing or food? Or, does the way that we treat our neighbors suggest that we are unrepentant unbelievers? For what other sins do we deserve to be in anguish in the flames that are never extinguished (Isaiah 66:24; Mark 9:48)? Will we also be those weeping and gnashing our teeth when we see Abraham and others feasting in the Kingdom of God but ourselves cast out (Matthew 8:11-12; Luke 13:28)? Or, do we heed God’s Gospel when it calls and so enables us to repent of our sinful nature and all of our sins? When we repent, then God forgives us; God forgives us, for Jesus’s sake.
Such repentance is both our sorrow over our sin and our trust that God, out of His great love and mercy, graciously forgives us because Jesus died on the cross in our place. Such repentance makes us spiritual descendants of Abraham (Romans 4:16; Galatians 3:7). In today’s Gospel Reading, Abraham describes the “great chasm” as keeping people from crossing between heaven and hell, but Abraham may not have been referring to Jesus, Who, after His death on the cross for us, arguably while also being present both in this life and in heaven, descended into hell, in order to proclaim His victory over sin, death, and the devil for us (1 Peter 3:19), and then Jesus rose from the dead. We are not stretching our imagination to think of Lazarus, in the words of today’s Introit (Psalm 119:73-75, 77; antiphon: v.76), praying that God’s mercy come to Him so that he might live (confer Lantz, CPR 35:4, p.22; Fickenscher, 700). We similarly pray that God’s mercy comes to us, and God’s mercy does come to us; His mercy comes to us in His Word and Sacraments, by which He forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin.
The rich man’s five brothers would have heard Moses and the Prophets, all of the Old Testament, read in the Synagogue (Marshall, ad loc Luke 16:29, p.639), as, in the Divine Service, we hear also all of the New Testament, Jesus in the Gospel accounts and His apostles in their letters and other writings. Overseers, or “bishops” or “pastors”, as described in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 3:1-13), are not lovers of money, but, as commanded elsewhere in First Timothy, they devote themselves to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, and to teaching (1 Timothy 4:13). They also apply the Gospel individually with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Holy Supper that are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us and so give us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Today’s Gospel Reading’s mentioning the poor man’s being named Lazarus and dipping the end of his finger in water may make us think of Holy Baptism, but more in view in today’s Gospel Reading is the Holy Supper, at the institution of which Supper, notably, the disciple whom Jesus loved was reclining at table at Jesus’s “side”, or “bosom” (John 13:23 KJV, ASV, NASB, ESV margin), as the rich man in today’s Gospel Reading saw Lazarus at Abraham’s “side”, or “bosom” (for example, KJV, ASV, NASB; ESV margin).
God’s Word and Sacraments are reliable signs of God’s eternal favor; earthly blessings are not such reliable signs. Going from this life, through death, to the intermediate state—there notably is no “purgatory”—going from this life, through death, to the intermediate state “turned the tables”, as it were, for the two men. The rich man had feasted sumptuously and received other good things (Fickenscher, 699), and Lazarus had maybe gotten crumbs and other bad things, but then Lazarus was feasting with Abraham and comforted, and the rich man seemingly was alone and in anguish (confer Luke 1:52-53; 6:24). Here and now we also receive gifts from God, but we use their abundance to love our neighbors in need. When we fail in that or in any other regard, as we will fail, with daily repentance, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins. Not all so repent, as Abraham prophesied in today’s Gospel Reading, even though Jesus both raised others from the dead and Himself rose from the dead. Today’s Gospel Reading does give a stern warning to those who do not repent, but today’s Gospel Reading also gives great comfort to those who do repent. To paraphrase today’s Introit, we who hope in God’s Word may be afflicted in faithfulness, but His steadfast love, His “mercy”, comforts us. Our afflictions will come to an end, and the Last Day will bring the resurrection and glorification of the body for eternal life in God’s nearer presence, with all those who have gone before us and who will come after us in the faith and so also in the forgiveness of sins.
Whatever other literal or figurative “great chasms” there may or may not be, there is “A Great Chasm” that separates the righteous from the unrighteous, but we have no reason to fear it or anything else, for we know that we who repent will be on the side with the righteous by God’s grace. As in today’s Gradual (Psalm 91:11; 103:1), we rejoice that God commands His angels concerning us, and, as in the final stanza of the Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 708:3), we pray that the Lord would let at last His angels come and to Abraham’s bosom bear us home.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +