Voltaire was a French philosopher, born in 1694, died in 1778. And he expressed the typical attitude of the unbeliever when he said the following: “Even if a miracle should be wrought in the open marketplace before a thousand sober witnesses, I would rather mistrust my senses than admit a miracle.” That’s what unbelief does. It lies in the face of that which is clearly evident, that which is clearly established. It simply cannot believe, because that’s its nature.
This morning’s parable is about two men, providence, the resurrection, and the nature of unbelief. The audience for the parable: first of all, Jesus’s own disciples, who were there to hear it. And as we’re told in verse 14, prior to where our reading began, the Pharisees who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. The target of the parable is the Pharisees.
In the first part of Luke, you see, Jesus told the parable of the unrighteous steward. That was followed by an exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees over the Law, and the Pharisees’ attempt to establish their own self-righteousness under their understanding of the Law. From there, Jesus begins the parable we have before us this morning.
“Now there was a certain rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen, gaily living in splendor every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus, who begged for the table scraps, and was covered with sores.”
One parable, two men, two very different lives, two very different sets of circumstances, and two very different outcomes. The first man is simply called a certain rich man — a very rich man. We know he’s very rich by the description that follows. Although throughout this parable, this rich man remains nameless. The man was so rich he was able to dress in fine linens that had been dyed with the most expensive color available of the day, that is, purple. He was so rich that every day was essentially a party or banquet, and every day he was surrounded by the finest of everything, and lots of friends who enjoyed his riches right along with him.
The second man, though, lived a life filled with the exact opposite. He was destitute, poor, covered with sores — thus disgusting, hungry — and befriended only by dogs that licked his wounds. Unlike the first man, though, this man is given a name in the parable. Take note of Bible verses like Revelation 3:5: “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot out his name from the Book of Life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” Or John 10:3: “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
The first man is simply known by his possessions: he’s rich, well-dressed, and popular. The second man is known by his name: Lazarus. And in the parable, the beggar dies, and he is carried off by the angels to heaven, to there be in Abraham’s bosom. That’s the Old Testament way of saying that, like Abraham, he died in true Christian faith, and he lives eternally in heaven with Father Abraham and all the other saints.
Not long thereafter, the rich man also died and was buried. Pretty much all you can say about people who don’t ultimately believe — that there’s something else besides this life — you can’t talk about much, at least not politely, what happens. But the rich man died and he was buried. No name here, no reference. He’s not known by name, and he’s not carried off to heaven. He has no connection to Abraham that would endear him to Abraham. He dies and he’s buried. Thus, no longer a rich man, I’ll refer to him, finds himself in Hades.
But Lazarus now is a permanent guest in the heavenly banquet. In death, the tables have been turned on the two men. The one that suffered is now comforted, and the one who was enjoying all the creature comforts of this world, he now has to endure the greatest of all the sufferings in life and death.
Keep in mind: there’s a target to this parable. It is the Pharisees. They stand by, hearing. They understand that Jesus has just told one parable about them. He has just shamed them in the eyes of the Law, and now he’s adding insult to injury — because after all, they are people who like to dress in fine clothes. Some of those clothes are even purple sometimes. And they trusted in their lineage as genetic descendants of Father Abraham. That’s where they believed their salvation lay. And they thought of themselves as good keepers of all righteousness in the sight of other people. They also thought that the good life was prima facie evidence that God was pleased with them, and with their works and their self-generated righteousness.
As the no-longer-rich man now suffers in Hades, he sees Abraham, and Lazarus far off on the other side of a great chasm, and he calls out: “Father Abraham.” Now that address does not mean that he regarded Abraham as his father in the faith. He addresses Abraham, however, as the ancestor — the one whose line produces salvation, as he understands it. Abraham is the way, because he sees Abraham’s importance through the lens of, ultimately, a biological ancestry. The no-longer-rich man in the parable shares the same bad theology of the Pharisees who are standing nearby, who rooted their identity in their bloodline and their ancestors. Remember what that same group of theologians told Jesus in John 8:39: “We have Abraham as our father.” They simply claimed that by his lineage they were saved — God’s chosen people. Bloodline, not faith, mattered.
Now in Hades, the no-longer-rich man asks Father Abraham to have mercy on him by having Lazarus dip his finger in some water, breach the chasm, touch his tongue, and cool it off for a moment from the agony imposed upon him in the flames. But Abraham responds: “Child, remember during your life you received good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things. But now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.”
Abraham, by the way, doesn’t say that Lazarus is being rewarded or paid back for the suffering he has endured. He says Lazarus, whose earthly existence was about as hard and uncomfortable as it could possibly be, is now in the heavenly realm being comforted. He had reached his rest, and the end of his suffering was now over.
The no-longer-rich man wanted a measure of mercy from Abraham, even though the same man showed no mercy toward Lazarus when they were both alive. So let’s be clear: the eternal status of each of the men in the parable did not come about as a result of their respective lots in life. The rich man did not end up in Hades because he was rich, and the beggar Lazarus, who was covered with sores and begged for a living, did not get received into heaven and into Abraham’s bosom in order to pay him for the suffering he endured. What we have here is not a kind of, quote, “Christian karma.” It is not a balancing of the eternal scales between the people.
That’s why the parable doesn’t end with the summary of the two men’s circumstances, which the character Abraham in the parable lays out in verses 25 and 26. The parable could have ended right there, but Jesus doesn’t. Jesus is taking the listeners of the parable someplace. He’s driving the parable to the matter of faith, as to the way of salvation.
Finally, in a moment of desperation, the no-longer-rich man recognizes the hopelessness of his own situation and finally thinks about someone else other than himself. He thinks of his brothers — his five brothers. He still misses the point, but he pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus, whom he still regards as a servant, to his father’s house and to his five brothers, to warn them, to mend their ways, lest they have to endure the same eternal torment. He thinks that if they see Lazarus rise from the dead, they will change their ways and thus merit entry into heaven.
But Abraham answers: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” See, Jesus directs the Pharisees to the same place that He directs you and me, and the church, and all the disciples who follow Christ. He always directs us to the words. It’s the same place we’re to turn each and every day: the Word of God, the words of God in the Holy Scripture. Matthew 7:24: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Or Luke 8:21: “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.” Or John 6:45: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.”
He doesn’t send them to their feelings. He doesn’t send anybody to their own works and deeds. He doesn’t send people to trust in their own ideas and theories about God, and what He does, and how He does, and what is in fact pleasing. There’s no loophole at all. He sends people back to the words — to the words of the sacred text. In this case: Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.
The five brothers in the parable, the Pharisees who stand nearby listening, and Jesus’s own disciples, are to listen to and believe what is written in the Scriptures concerning the forgiveness of sins, of life and salvation, which all come by way of faith in the promised Messiah.
And what’s the response of the no-longer-rich man? Listen to what he says: “No, Father Abraham.” He still rejects it. There in Hades, he still rejects the words as the foundation for faith. He wants something, in his mind, greater. He wants his brothers to see with their own eyes. And we remember what Jesus said to Thomas: “Blessed are those who believe but yet have not seen.” Or John chapter 2, where Jesus knows and understands that people are following Him because of the signs He performs, because of the miracles that they witness with their own eyes. And that text concludes: “Jesus did not trust Himself to them.” He didn’t trust them. They weren’t living by faith; they were living by sight.
And that’s what this no-longer-rich man in Hades is still doing. He’s living by sight. After all, he spent his whole life rich and powerful, and that surely must have meant God was happy with him. Just look at how God treats you. Just look at the big facade of church buildings, or the big fires of the world — see how grand they are. God must be on their side. He still does not understand that it is by trust in the Word of God — the written Word, the spoken Word, the Word made flesh and crucified on the cross — that one is named righteous, forgiven, and saved.
He says: “No, Father Abraham. If someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He thinks that if they see with their own eyes, they will amend their ways and start doing good. The reality is that if a person cannot and will not believe the words of God — the words of Moses, the words of the prophets, and Jesus’s own words — then they aren’t going to believe when someone rises from the dead. “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead,” Jesus says. And He’s speaking here of Himself, and what the Pharisees will ultimately see. Jesus speaks of Himself at the very moment that the Pharisees are plotting to put Him to death.
Unbelief cannot and will not believe the Word of God. That’s why you’re always amazed and frustrated why others simply won’t listen and believe, why they cling to false ideas about God. “Oh, no, I’m a good person. God’s going to take care of me.” The unbeliever doesn’t listen to the faithful pastors and preachers of the Lord. They don’t listen to the testimony of the Christian saints. Unbelievers are trapped in unbelief and cannot free themselves. Those who cannot and will not trust in Christ and His words cannot and will not believe the Word of God, even in the face of a resurrection. They’ll come up with some alternative explanation: he wasn’t really dead.
The resurrection, you see — for most people who call themselves Christians today, the resurrection has no significance in their thinking or in their lives. It’s sort of a passing reference. They sort of think it’s real, but it might not be real. They sort of think it might be something, but they’re not quite sure what it really means. All they know is what they believe and what they feel. So they deny the atonement on Good Friday, and thus the resurrection on Easter morning.
Lazarus was one without house, wealth, friends, or anything. He is utterly helpless in the parable. He is dependent on gravity for his food. He sits at the gate and waits for crumbs to fall off the master’s table, and that is his daily bread.
And who is Lazarus in the parable? Well, that’s the great thing about parables: they speak to individual Christians, to you and me alike, and they speak to the una sancta — the one holy catholic, universal Christian church. Lazarus, you see, is you. And Lazarus is this congregation. And Lazarus is the church.
To the world, the church looks a lot like Lazarus. The true church lives in what, in the world? It’s totally dependent on the generosity of offerings and the kindness of people — some Christians, some not. When people of the world look at the church, they see foolish people, in their minds, who believe in myths and who have outdated ideas about morality and ethics. They see people at odds with each other in the church over doctrines and morality and even the color of the carpet. They see aging buildings and property, like the people that occupy them, growing older and falling apart.
But the Word of God teaches that you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4). Lazarus was the church. Lazarus was a member of the church. The rich man was neither of those things.
The true church, you see, is hidden, and the holiness of the saints is unseen — as it was with Lazarus in this world. See, these are articles of faith, and like the atonement of Good Friday and the resurrection of Easter morning, it only is grasped by faith given by God through the words of God. The church on earth will always look like Lazarus: run down, broken, persecuted, mistreated, neglected — and derided even by many of our own former confessors who have wandered away and neglect the true church and the true words of Jesus Christ.
And one last puzzle here: Lazarus gets a name. That person gets a name, and his name has a particular meaning: “the one whom God helps.” Lazarus had been given that name by God Himself. And the Babe of Bethlehem was also given a name: Jesus, which means “the one who will save them from their sins” — that is, the one who helps them. Lazarus is the one who was helped. Jesus is the one who helps. Lazarus was known by God in heaven through the one who would be raised from the dead. You too are known by your heavenly Father through the one who was raised from the dead.
But the church — and you, you belong to it — you have something the world does not have. You have a name, a name given to you and to the church herself: Christian. Baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, through the words of God. The baptismal rite is the words of God. You are a Christian, which means Christ’s one. So judge your place in the world and in the church by your holy name that your crucified and risen Lord placed upon you in the waters of your baptism. Look at your life through the eyes of Lazarus, and see that you are one whom God has helped too.
Just as the divinity of Christ remains hidden under the bruised and battered form of the crucified Jesus, so also your participation in His divine nature remains hidden under your scabs and sores — your ongoing sin and your weakness, the neglect and abandonment that the world gives to you as Christians. Christ took upon Himself and suffered your dereliction and your abandonment on the cross, so that when you die, the angels will come and carry you away, where you will be comforted — not that you earned it, but it was given to you by grace alone, through faith in Christ. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.