Pastors deal a lot with death, and though it may sound strange, sometimes funny things happen in connection with funerals. I was involved in a funeral here at our church not too long ago where I was co-officiating the service. In the middle of her homily, the other pastor officiating the service said, “You know I am a lot more successful at funerals than I am at weddings. Some of the people I marry don’t stay married, but everyone I have done a funeral for so far has stayed dead.”
That statement leads to a question as old as time itself: is there anything after this life? In some ways, our text for today from Luke 16:19-31 answers that very question. Listen for God’s word to you. Jesus said…
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
This is one of those stories in the Bible that is almost perfect in its structure. It’s very symmetrical, which appeals to a guy like me.
Our son Josh is studying graphic design at Champlain College. He has a professor there right now who is trying to teach him the importance of asymmetry in design. You know what I told him? I said, “Josh, do what your teacher tells you to do. Then after you graduate, go back to symmetry.”
I like symmetry, and apparently Jesus did too because there is a lot of it in this story. In this parable we have four sets of two. Let’s look at them one by one…
First, we have Two People.
The first guy mentioned in this story is a rich man. He is dressed in purple and fine linen. That is a description of how the High Priests would dress in Jesus’ time. Barclay says such robes would cost anywhere from 30 to 40 pounds, an immense sum in days when a working person’s wage was about 4 pence per day.
This rich man also eats whatever he wants, and lots of it, every day. The word for “feasting” means that this rich man was a gourmet who ate exotic and costly food every day. In a time and place where common people were blessed if they ate meat once per week, this rich man was an example of indolent self-indulgence.
Notice that this rich man does not have a name. The oldest Greek text of Luke is called p75 and dates to AD 175-225. That manuscript gives the rich man the name “Neves” which may be a shortened form of the city name “Nineveh”. Others have referred to the rich man as “Dives” which is the Latin word for “rich”. But basically, this guy does not have a name.
The other chief character in this story is Lazarus. Lazarus is the only name given to a character in any of the parables of Jesus. The name is a form of Eleazar which means “he whom God helps”. Intriguingly, Jesus also had a real-life friend named Lazarus. But the Lazarus in Jesus’ story is not his friend. There is no connection between the two.
Jesus tells us that Lazarus “had been placed” at the gate of the rich man. So, Lazarus was unable to get around by himself. He needed someone else to take him where he needed to go. Remember, such people did not even have wheelchairs in Jesus’ day. Apparently, a friend of Lazarus placed him at the rich man’s gate hoping he would get a handout.
What was Lazarus’ physical problem? Jesus tells us he was covered with sores. So, he had some kind of skin disease. This was probably not leprosy, otherwise Lazarus would have had to live in quarantine. Perhaps Jesus intends for us to picture someone like Job who suffered from boils all over his body.
Jesus tells us that Lazarus longed to eat the food falling from the rich man’s table. We have to remember that in that time and place food was eaten with the hands, and in wealthy homes the hands were cleansed by wiping them on hunks of bread that were then thrown away. That’s what Lazarus was hoping to eat.
Personally, I like to picture the rich man as someone living in a Beverly Hills mansion. And if I picture the rich man that way, then I picture a poor man like Lazarus dumpster-diving for food in the alleyway behind the rich man’s house. Except Lazarus couldn’t even do the dumpster-diving himself. He was in such bad shape, he needed someone else to help him with the dumpster-diving. And as Lazarus was waiting for a handout at the rich man’s gate, the dogs would come and lick his sores. Lazarus didn’t even have the energy to shoo the dogs away.
So, those are the two main characters in Jesus’ story: the rich man and Lazarus. But the scene quickly shifts from this life to the next.
That leads us to the second twosome in this story. Not only do we see two people; we see Two Places in the afterlife.
First, Lazarus dies and is carried away by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. This is an interesting phrase that is not used much if at all before this time in any Jewish literature so far as we know. The picture of “Abraham’s bosom” may have been formed from two sources. One was the idea that when righteous Jews died, they were thought to “rest with their ancestors”. In 4 Maccabees 13:14-17 we read,
Let us not fear him who thinks he is killing us, 15 for great is the struggle of the soul and the danger of eternal torment lying before those who transgress the commandment of God. Therefore let us put on the full armor of self-control, which is divine reason. For if we so die, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will welcome us, and all the fathers will praise us.
The other source for this expression (Abraham’s bosom) may have something to do with the eating practices of the day. People would lie next to a table and rest on their left elbow and use their right hand to eat, literally eating with their hand and using no utensils. The person next to them would lie with their legs outstretched behind the person to their right. And thus, each person at the table would have their head practically lying in the bosom of the person to their left. This is how Jesus and his disciples would have been positioned around the table at the Last Supper. John 13:23 describes the disciple whom Jesus loved as reclining with his head in the bosom of Jesus.
Thus, the phrase “the bosom of Abraham” gives us a picture of intimacy and shared fellowship in the afterlife, at least for someone like this poor man named Lazarus.
In Jesus’ story, the rich man ends up in a completely different place. Just like the poor man, the rich man dies, and his body is buried. But (here is the big difference) the rich man’s soul ends up in Hades.
Now what and where is Hades? New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias explains that there is a sharp distinction made by the new Testament between Hades and Gehenna…
Hades receives the ungodly only for the intervening period between death and resurrection, whereas Gehenna is their place of punishment in the last judgment; the judgment of the former is thus provisional but the torment of the latter eternal.
In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Greek word “Hades” is used to translate the Hebrew word “Sheol”. Sheol was a shadowy place to which ancient Jews thought all people went when they died. Occasionally, a ghost, like that of Samuel, could be called up from Sheol. But generally, Sheol was thought of as a place of silence. It seems appropriate to me that the Greek term “Hades” was used to translate the Hebrew term “Sheol” because both the ancient Greeks and the ancient Hebrews thought of the afterlife in the same shadowy, silent, unhappy terms.
All this began to change for the Jewish people during the Second Temple period from 500 BC to AD 70, perhaps due to Jewish contact with the wisdom of Persia and Zoroaster in particular when the Jews were in exile. Jesus was very much a Second Temple Jew in his thinking about the afterlife. He envisioned two separate places. Abraham’s bosom is a place of comfort. Hades is a place of torment.
Does Hades last forever? Well, if one runs with the image that Jesus gives here of flames in Hades then one must ask, “What do flames do?” The answer is: “They burn up objects so all that is left is the residue of what was before: ashes.” So, the idea of eternal torment in fire simply does not fit with the images of Hades and Gehenna as Jesus uses them.
One other thing that seems to me worthy of note in regard to these two places in the afterlife. That is that the people in both Hades and Abraham’s bosom are identifiable. The rich man recognizes Abraham and Lazarus. And presumably Abraham and Lazarus recognize each other and the rich man. But it may also be significant that the rich man does not really have a name. He is on his way to losing his humanity, whereas Abraham and Lazarus are on their way to realizing their full status as children of God.
That leads us to the third twosome we see in this story. Here we have Two Pleas.
Both pleas are lodged by the rich man. His first plea to Abraham is: “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.”
This plea is intriguing because it reveals that the rich man knows who Abraham is and he even calls him “Father”. Thus, Jesus clearly pictures the rich man as a Jew who, up to this time, has rejected the revelation of God delivered to his people and has refused to follow it. Only now that he is in torment does the rich man seemingly have a change of heart.
Abraham’s reply to the rich man is also interesting…
But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’
Abraham’s response establishes two things. One is that there is a reversal of fortune in the afterlife. Jesus teaches this on numerous occasions. “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” This was a common belief in ancient times.
Furthermore, Abraham’s response to the rich man makes it clear that he can do nothing about the rich man’s circumstances. There is a great chasm between them, and no one, not Lazarus or even Abraham himself can cross it. More on this in a few moments…
Finding himself unsuccessful in his first plea, the rich man lodges a second plea with Abraham: “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.”
Abraham’s response reveals the last twosome in Jesus’ story: Two Prophets.
Abraham tells the rich man that his five brothers “have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.”
The phrase “Moses and the prophets” refers to all of Hebrew Scripture or what we would call the Old Testament. Abraham is telling the rich man that his five brothers should listen to the Scriptures, just as he should have listened to the Scriptures when he was alive on the earth.
The rich man replies, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” The rich man thinks that a warning from the afterlife, a warning from heaven to earth, will convince his ungodly brothers to live a different life so that they can end up in a place different from himself.
To this, Abraham responds: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
The second half of this sentence is a clear reference to Jesus himself for he is the one who is going to rise from the dead. Thus, we see two great prophets in this story: Scripture and Jesus. Abraham says that if people don’t listen to the one, it is not likely they will listen to the other.
This story leaves me wondering: is there any hope for those who have been rich in this life? Is there any hope for those who have failed to care for the poor? Jesus’ story would seem to suggest that the answer is “no”.
But thankfully the Gospel does not end with Luke 16. Jesus went to the cross and paid the penalty for sinners just like the rich man in this story, sinners just like you and me. And then Jesus rose from the grave. And 1 Peter talks about something important that Jesus did in between. In 1 Peter 3:18-19 we read,
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison…”
Then in 1 Peter 4:6 we read,
For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.
What Peter teaches in these two passages is summed up in one terse phrase in The Apostles’ Creed: “He descended into hell.”
Personally, I believe that not only did Jesus descend into hell once long ago, but he continues to descend into hell and bridge the gap from there to heaven. Jesus comes down from the heights of heaven to the lowliness of each of our personal hells. He comes to rattle our cages and to unlock the cells of each of our private prisons and set us free. Still, we must choose whether to come out of prison or not.
For me, these words of playwright Thornton Wilder sum it up best: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
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