Monday, September 15, 2008

The Rich Man and Lazarus, Part 21 of 28

TEXT: Luke 16:19-31

IDEA: The parable of the rich man and Lazarus tells us that as we are now so we will be then.

PURPOSE: To help listeners sense the link between here and hereafter.

MONOLOGUE by Haddon W. Robinson III

I’ve had a fascination with old cemeteries and old tombstones. Modern grave markers simply give you a name and a birth date and death date. But old tombstones give a bit more history and sometimes a bit of philosophy. You feel that you know something about the person who has died. For example this epitaph was chiseled on one grave marker:

“Remember, Friend, as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, soon you will be
Prepare for death, and follow me.”

Someone, passing by, could not let those words go unchallenged. So he scrawled the words:

“To follow you, I’m not content
Until I know which way you went!”

Any thoughtful person will agree that is the supremely important question. Which way do we go after we die?

In Luke 16 we have a parable which is the only place where our Lord draws aside the veil between this world and the next and allows us to glimpse what is beyond. The parable is found in a context in which Jesus underscores the link between money and our spiritual condition. He taught that men and women must love God and use money instead of using God and loving money. What is surprising is that Jesus directed this teaching not at a group of secular people gathered at an exclusive country club but at some Pharisees, religious leaders of his day. We read in Luke 16:14, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this and they scoffed at him.” They openly ridiculed him for asserting that it is impossible to be devoted to both God and money. In fact, they thought that money was the sign of God’s blessing on your life. It was in response to that scoffing that Jesus told his parable.

He sets the scene in the opening verses. ‘There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores” (Luke 16:19-21).

Four things stand out about this rich man in comparison to the beggar at his gate. The nameless rich man lived sumptuously. He was clothed in the richest fabrics and dined well every day. He lived like royalty. He wasn’t a king, but he lived like one. That could be us, couldn’t it? We live like kings—most Americans and Canadians live better than many kings once lived. Nice houses, warm in the winter, cool in the summer. Gleaming chariots pulled by a hundred horses, also heated and air conditioned. We may not have dancing girls or court jesters to amuse us but we do have television. And food—boy, do we have food! Most of us don’t face the problem of not having anything to eat—many of us have more food than we should. Chicken and beef and fish and pizza and melons and chocolate and ice cream and soft drinks or wine or beer or coffee, tea or milk. Anything we want, any time we want it. Compared to the people in many other parts of the world, we live sumptuously. If we have any sense, we can identify with this rich man.

There’s something else about this wealthy man. He is nameless. The fact that he is nameless may surprise us. The fact that we don’t know his name turns the standards of society upside down. For us, it is the rich of the world who have names—John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J. Paul Getty, Donald Trump, Bill Gates—and the poor who have no names. We know the names of presidents of corporations, politicians, basketball players, but not the men who collect our trash. But Jesus only gives the poor man a name, Lazarus. The rich man is not identified by name. He is only “ a certain rich man.” That must be a clue to how Jesus looks at people.

This nameless rich man lived sumptuously. But there’s something else to notice about him. He didn’t do anything for the poor man lying at his gate. He wasn’t a friend to Lazarus. Lazarus was sick and under-nourished and as a result his body was covered with loathsome, running sores. Old red-tongued mongrel dogs came and with their soft warm tongues licked those sores. That may have been the only comfort he had. Lazarus existed on the scraps of food that came from the rich man’s daily feasts, but he was ignored by the rich man. He daily drove out the gate and turned his eyes away from this hungry beggar in rags who stared up at him. This nameless rich man with his sumptuous lifestyle did nothing to help Lazarus.

In the second scene of the parable Jesus pictures another banquet where things have changed completely. “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil 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 here to us'” (Luke 16:22-26).

When the rich man died—this is the fourth thing about him—he ended up in Hades. While Lazarus was enjoying the afterlife at a great banquet seated next to Abraham, the rich man is begging for a little water to cool his tongue. Think about that. All his life he had Perrier sparkling water and the finest wines to drink, but when he died he cried out for a single drop of water on his tongue. And nothing could be done for him. “You had your chance,” Abraham tells him, “but you missed it!”

Notice an important lesson this parable teaches us. Death doesn’t change us. Not really. Not deep inside where we are us. We will forever be ourselves. The rich man and Lazarus were the same men after death that they were before their deaths. They recognized each other. I don’t mean by that that we will not be different. We will be different but we won’t be fundamentally changed. Last Christmas our family watched some family films that we had shot twenty or thirty years ago. Our children were about ten or twelve, and they looked very different than they do now. And Bonnie and I looked different in those old home movies. If we didn’t recognize that our children were delighted to remind us. Not only have we gotten new clothes and new hairstyles over the last three decades, we have gotten new bodies. In fact, I am told that about every seven years I put on a new body. Frankly, I liked the body I had years ago. If I had my way, I would have kept it. I’m not as fond of the style of body I have now. But even though I have had eight or nine different bodies over my lifetime, I am the same person. I am still conscious of being the same Haddon Robinson as I was when I had the body of a teen-anger or a thirty year old. In that sense we will be different on the other side. God will give us a new body fit for that new sphere. But death doesn’t change the real “me” or the real “you”. As death finds us so we will be forever. You and I will be the same people after death that we are now.

Death doesn’t work a moral change in us. There is a tendency to feel that it will. We believe that the sheer act of dying will change us. A few months ago, a celebrity died. For a few days the newspapers and television covered his death. His friends reflected on his troubled marriages and on his divorces, his hard drinking and his experiments with drugs, and his profligate lifestyle. But one of them talked about his “looking down on us” as the old gang gathered to talk about his memory. Nothing was said about God, about Christ, about forgiveness, about faith. Now, I don’t know about that man’s final days or his ultimate spiritual condition, but I do know this: death didn’t change him. In whatever spiritual condition he was one minute before his death so he was one minute after death.

People believe that somehow you can lie down one moment self-centered, sin-conquered, godless—and by simply dying wake up the next moment sinless, holy, and Christlike. That is absolutely false! If Jesus Christ does not save you in the here and now, do not expect death to accomplish what the savior didn’t accomplish. If the blood of Jesus Christ doesn’t cleanse you from all your sin, don’t be so insane as to expect cleansing at the hands of the undertaker. As death finds you, so will you be the instant after you open your eyes in the world unseen.

That’s a crucial lesson in this parable. Life here and now is inseparably linked to the life to come. If you die and you do not trust yourself to Jesus Christ, if He is not your savior and Lord, then in the world to come you will be separated from God. You will be alone and in torment. That’s what Jesus came to tell us; that is why Jesus died to save us; that is why He told this parable. It is not given to satisfy our curiosity about life beyond death. It is to warn us that we make serious choices now that have eternal consequences. Heaven and hell depend on them.