Food for Soul! 10

Luke 16:19-31

19 "There once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption. 20 A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep. 21 All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich man's table. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores. 22" Then he died, this poor man, and was taken up by the angels to the lap of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell and in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his lap. 24 He called out, 'Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire.' 25 "But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that in your lifetime you got the good things and Lazarus the bad things. It's not like that here. Here he's consoled and you're tormented. 26 Besides, in all these matters there is a huge chasm set between us so that no one can go from us to you even if he wanted to, nor can anyone cross over from you to us.' 27" The rich man said, 'Then let me ask you, Father: Send him to the house of my father 28 where I have five brothers, so he can tell them the score and warn them so they won't end up here in this place of torment.' 29 "Abraham answered, 'They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score. Let them listen to them.' 30" 'I know, Father Abraham,' he said, 'but they're not listening. If someone came back to them from the dead, they would change their ways.' 31 "Abraham replied, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the Prophets, they're not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead.'"

Food for soul!

Today,  Jesus is taking us beyond our death and dying; he is taking us to two places, heaven and hell. After death, we go to either of these places. On the other side of death, is heaven and hell. And we shall go to either. Heaven, we know quite a lot. Hell? Well, some people have problems understanding it or even accepting its existence.

If anything, don't deny the existence of Hell. Because God and Jesus declare Hell to be a very real place, (Psalm 9:17; of 162 references to Hell in the New Testament, 70 come from Jesus Himself). We may not like to think about it, but Hell is a reality, otherwise Jesus would not have told us today's parable.

In the parable, we see a rich man, he is alive in this world.  After he experiences death and is buried in verse 22, we see him in Hell. But, he is not dead, he is very much alive.  He is a conscious man and he is very much aware of his surroundings.

The rich man looks at his surroundings through scalding tears. This passage is very clear; this is a real man in a real place, experiencing real torment.  This is a literal man in a literal body in a literal place called Hell!

In v.27 the rich man still hears his fellow sufferers moan, cry, curse and scream. You see, Hell is not a state of mind!  It is a real place, where real souls spend a real eternity in real torment.  Notice a few of the truths the Bible reveals about Hell.

In v.25 we see the living dead rich man still conscious in memory – This poor rich man remembers every witness who ever came to his gate. He remembers Lazarus lying there. He remembers turning a deaf ear to the pain and needs of Lazarus.  He remembers all the opportunities he wasted during life. He remembers all his chances and he realizes that they are gone forever now.

So hell is a place of Memory and Remorse. The living dead rich man still wanted his brothers spared, too. The rich man is convinced that he will remain in hell forever. That's why he asks that Lazarus, and not himself, be sent to witness to his brothers; he knows that he will never be permitted to leave the torments and flames of Hell.

In v.24 we see that the living dead rich man is still conscious in taste – The rich man still can desire water; those trapped in Hell will still have many of the same wants and desires they had in this world, v.24.

You might wonder why Jesus tells this parable. Well, Jesus wants to teach us that life does not end at death; Jesus wants us to know that there's life beyond death and dying, and that this life is passed either in heaven or hell; and that that life depends on this life. Where we shall spend that life depends on how we have spent this life.

But before we go, what was the sin of this man? He had not stolen to get rich; he had not insulted Lazarus, did not even ever speak to him. So what did he do to merit hell? The sin of the rich man was not doing something wrong, but not doing good, it was not action, but inaction; it was sin of omission, the sin of not doing good when with all his riches he could. It was not what he did that got him into hell; it was what he did not do.

Btw, that is why in Mass we confess: "in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do." We sin not only when we do evil but also when we fail to do good to our brothers and sisters. This is what Jesus is saying today, who at the due time will be revealed by God, the blessed and only Ruler of all, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal, whose home is in inaccessible light, whom no man has seen and no man is able to see: to him be honour and everlasting power. Amen.