Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost + September 25, 2016
Text: Luke 16:19-31
When you’re a kid you can’t wait until your birthday—when I’m 7, I’ll get to… For adults that still happens, except that we’re not looking forward to being another year older. We look forward to vacations, getting a raise, or buying a house. This sense of anticipation, of longing for something better, is what drives people through life.
Anticipation is also a prominent feature in lives of God’s children. We live in anticipation of something better, more glorious, and perfect. As St. Paul says, “In this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”[1]
It’s wonderful to meditate on the hope of eternal life, where we will be with the Lord and never have to leave Him. But while we’re here in this life, the flip side of our anticipation is longing. It’s a longing that we’re filled with every time there’s a reminder of how far off heaven is. Chronic illness, poverty, temptation, and children being drawn away from the faith. Doubt and affliction assail us and fill us with a hunger that cannot be satisfied here in this life.
The story of Lazarus[2] and the Rich Man is a picture of this longing to be satisfied.
19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.”
We’re told very little about Lazarus, but what we are, we can assume that this is how his life was. He was constantly hungry, perhaps he never had good health, and what little housing he had was barely adequate. He lived in destitution. In stark contrast, we see the rich man, who is the exact opposite—filled to the point of being gorged, dressed luxuriously, and having no pangs of want except when it’s time for the next meal.
Then comes that great equalizer: “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.” And now there’s a great reversal between the two men: the rich man is in agony, while Lazarus is comforted. But this isn’t to say Lazarus is being rewarded for his years of poverty, or that the rich man is being punished for having it easy. While Jesus goes on to stress the importance of hearing the Word while we’re living, this is what the Word of God tells us: This is a broken and corrupt world because of sin—human sin, and we are all contributors. Poverty, disease, injustice, hatred, and even death are the fallout of sin. Some of the things we’re personally responsible for, but others like natural disasters and freak accidents no party can be blamed.
The hope for healing this sick world came when God sent His Son into it. Of Him, John the Baptist says, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”[3] Through the Christ, God will right what is wrong and bring about a new creation out of this one. He began it in Jesus’ birth, completed it on the cross and in His resurrection and ascension, and He will fulfill it completely when Jesus comes again in glory on the Last Day.
As God’s children, we live in between those two monumental events: the Ascension and Last Day. Our way to Abraham’s bosom has been secured by Christ and received by faith. Our share in His eternal, perfect Kingdom will mean an end to all suffering, as the angel tells John in Revelation: “He who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”[4] That is our sure and certain hope.
But today we wait, and next week, and next year…until whenever He gathers us to Himself or comes like a thief in the night. As life wears on, though, it becomes more difficult to feel at home in this world. As we age, lose our health, see friends and family members die, and maybe even end up stuck in a nursing home, we can identify with Lazarus more and more. We long to be satisfied because we’ve had it with the sin and trouble of this place.
But even while we wait on the Lord to deliver us, we have the comfort and strength we’ll need. Just because we’re in anticipation doesn’t mean that God has abandoned His people. The sons of Israel waited 40 years before they were brought across the Jordan, but His presence went with them in the Pillar of cloud and fire.[5] The exiles in Babylon waited 70 years before He brought them back to Zion.[6] The point is that He has been faithful to His people in anticipation in generations past, and He’s no different to each of us in His Church today.
Lazarus was poor in every earthly respect you can think of, destitute of the “good things” of this world. Yet even though he was poor and needy in these ways, Lazarus was rich through his faith. God had showered upon Him the riches of being a son of God, a citizen of His Kingdom. As a man of faith, Lazarus also realized that he was a sojourner on the earth. His stay in this body riddled by disease and pangs of hunger was passing away with each day. But because God had an inheritance overflowing with goodness, Lazarus departed this life for his permanent home with the Lord.
It’s the same way for you and me in Christ. Whether we’re rich or poor in daily bread, God showers us with spiritual, eternal riches. In popular culture we’re bombarded with dreams of eating out all the time, driving a new car, having a vibrant retirement where you travel the world. But don’t feel that God is depriving you if you shop at Grocery Outlet, nurse a beater with 190,000 miles, and are too riddled with arthritis to make it down the stairs (much less to Tahiti). God is not depriving you because you are His child. The gifts He promises, He abundantly fulfills. You have His Word and the gift of the Holy Spirit living in you! You have His full forgiveness and victory over death itself! You have a God Who neither slumbers nor sleeps and Who commands His angels to guard you against dangers physical and spiritual![7]
We live in anticipation as God’s beloved children, never alone and never forsaken. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” the Lord says, “for they shall be satisfied.” At long last, the day will come for us to leave this valley of sorrow and be gathered to Abraham’s bosom. In full assurance that God will grant this, let’s pray the last stanza of one of our hymns:
Lord, let at last Thine angels come,
To Abr’ham’s bosom bear me home,
That I may die unfearing;
And in its narrow chamber keep
My body safe in peaceful sleep
Until Thy reappearing.
And then from death awaken me,
That these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Thy glorious face,
My Savior and my fount of grace.
Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend, my prayer attend,
And I will praise Thee without end.[8] Amen.
[1] Romans 8:24-25
[2] Different person from Lazarus of Bethany. Lazarus is the Greek form of Eleazar, “one whom God helps.” (Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary)
[3] Luke 3:5
[4] Revelation 7:15-17
[5] Exodus 33:14
[6] Jeremiah 25:12
[7] Acts 2:38-39, Job 19:25-27, Psalm 121 and 90.
[8] “Lord Thee I Love With All My Heart” (Lutheran Service Book 708:3)
Lebanon, Oregon