22 June 2014
Text: Luke 16:19-31 (Gen 15:1-6, 1 John 4:16-21)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
There
is a very popular movie in the theaters called “Heaven is For Real.” Our Lord’s parable of Lazarus and the Rich
Man could well be entitled: “Hell is For Real.”
Of course, we like it when little boys tell us how beautiful heaven is,
but who really wants to hear our blessed Lord fill us in on the terrors of hell?
Hell
is an embarrassment to modern Christians.
And let’s face it, we really don’t want to believe anyone is condemned
except for a few mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin, as well as terrorists,
pedophiles, and people we don’t like.
Some people who call themselves Christians refuse to believe in hell at
all. It must not be for real. There must be some kind of mistake. Jesus is a nice guy. He’s not the kind of guy that gets mad and
overturns tables and chases people out of buildings with homemade whips or
anything like that.
Atheists
often think they have a “gotcha” when they ask how a loving God can send anyone
to hell. After all, you heard it with
your own ear from the pen of St. John: “God is love.”
But,
dear friends, it is because God is love that he separates the sheep from the
goats, He drowned the world that refused to repent and He saved eight people on
the ark, those who were counted righteous, who believed in Him and His
promises. Had God not been loving, His
people would have had to endure further degradation and corruption by the world
that had gone mad with selfishness, violence, hatred, and unbelief.
But
consider the Lord’s parable. Think about
this “rich man” who is in hell. Are you
any different? You may not see yourself
as rich, dear friends, but do you have a house?
Running water? Food every day? Air conditioning? A telephone?
How about a flat screen TV?
Cable? A car? Maybe more than one? How about books and movies and games and
hobbies and spare time and vacations?
Now consider how the vast majority of the world’s seven billion souls live
each and every day. So now, do you think
all of us might actually be materially rich?
To
be sure, this man is not in hell because he is rich, but because of his
attitude. He is not in the eternal
flames because he “was clothed in purple and fine linen” and “feasted
sumptuously every day.” But rather the
way he held his neighbor Lazarus in contempt.
This poor man was “covered with sores.”
He longed for the rich man’s table scraps. Did the rich man ever allow Lazarus to pass
his gate? Would the rich man have ever
considered easing Lazarus’s suffering?
Or was he too busy enjoying his wealth and looking the other way?
Dear
friends, do we ever look down on the poor?
Do we ever shun the homeless? Do
we know of people who are suffering in our families, our neighborhoods, our
congregation, our circle of friends, or even within eyeshot – and we pretend
not to see? Do we spend more on
entertainments and trifles than we do actually doing good with the money the Lord
has blessed us with? It is, after all, His
money, isn’t it? We are only
managers. Do we tithe and trust in the
Lord’s provision? Or do we instead hoard
our wealth, burying our talents in the ground, and thinking about how to make
ourselves increasingly more comfortable while the Lazaruses in our own lives continue
to have their sores licked by the dogs?
So,
dear friends, are we Lazarus in the story, or are we the rich man? Whom do we most resemble?
This
parable is not a cute happy Hollywood story like Heaven is for Real. This is truly real, because it is God’s Word
and it does not skirt the issue of sin.
The
rich man is in hell because of sin – unrepentant, unforgiven sin. He carries it in his sinful flesh, and it
comes out in his sinful actions. He
carries this sinful nature with him to the grave and beyond. And in the end, he begs, and to no avail, for
just a drop of water, or even to go back and warn his family that hell is for
real. Abraham tells him it wouldn’t
matter, for “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be
convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
Our
Lord Jesus did just that, dear friends.
He rose from the dead after He descended into Hell. And Jesus does tell us Hell is for Real. Jesus wants your attention, and He wants it
right now. Jesus wants you to listen
carefully to this parable, for it is a warning.
Read it again when you get home.
Meditate on it. Do you hear Moses
and the Prophets? And where do you go to
hear them? How often do you hear
them? Where can you read what Moses and
the Prophets wrote? Or is it more
important to be entertained, to be well-clothed and to feast sumptuously, to
waste hour after hour on things that in the end, in eternity, mean nothing?
Dear
friends, please listen to our Lord. He
is calling all of us to repent. We are
the rich man in this parable, and it should fill us with dread – dread that
drives us to the cross, dread that compels us to seek the Lord while He is to
be found. We should indeed “fear, love,
and trust in God above all things,” and there is a part of us that should fear
condemnation and hell.
“For
fear has to do with punishment,” says St. John, “and whoever fears has not been
perfected in love.” Are you perfect in
love? I’m not. And you’re probably not either. And if you don’t fear God’s wrath, you are in
greater danger than this rich man in the parable. For again, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and
hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he
has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
So
where is our hope, dear friends. It’s
not in a Hollywood movie, but rather in the forgiveness of sins, in the Jesus
who was testified about by Moses and the Prophets. Our hope is in the cross and in the blood and
the water. It is not in our riches and
perceived self-righteousness. Our help
is in the name of the Lord!
For
we are justified only by God’s great mercy. Abraham, while he was still childless and yet
clinging to the hope of an heir, “believed in the Lord, and He counted it to
him as righteousness.” Counted to him as
righteousness.
Dear
friends, you are not only the rich man according to your sins, but you are also
Lazarus according to the Lord’s mercy.
We have the gift of faith, of baptism, of repentance, of the Word, of
Moses and the Prophets, and of the opportunity to share the Lord’s mercy with
others who are in need – be it material need, physical need, or spiritual
need. Our hearts can indeed be changed
in this life, comforted in the world to come.
For when we realize our poverty before the Lord, when we see ourselves
as helpless and sin-sore, being licked by dogs and waiting to die, when we come
to grips with just how unlovable we are, it is then that we see God’s love for
us, His mercy toward us, His compassion for us, and His redemption of us –
though we certainly do not deserve it.
Someone
has indeed risen from the dead, to call us to repent, and to count us as
righteous. Let us hear Moses and the
Prophets, and most importantly of all, dear brothers and sisters, let us hear –
really and truly hear – our risen Lord Jesus Christ, and let us be
convinced. For not only is hell for
real, but so is heaven. Our Lord Himself
testifies to this. And what’s even
greater, the Lord is recreating the universe.
He who made heaven and earth is making all things new – yet without sin,
without suffering, without death – and we will be comforted not only in heaven,
but in an eternal, bodily existence in a new Eden, a Paradise Restored that is
most certainly for real.
“So
we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love
abides in God, and God abides in him. By
this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of
judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world,” now and even unto
eternity. Thanks be to God! Amen.
In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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